For the longest time, Adobe's software dominated the creative space. And it still kind of does - few options come close in terms of power and industry adoption. But many users, including myself, have become frustrated with the high subscription fees (and the sneaky cancellation terms). I’ve tried dozens of free graphics alternatives at this point; a select few come close and even surpass Adobe’s offerings in some areas. But, if we’re being real, paid apps usually win on polish, stability, and long-term development support. That’s why Affinity Photo used to be a top Photoshop competitor.

But Affinity just shifted the landscape of graphic design and image editing with its free new app. My guess is that this has been brewing since they were acquired by Canva - one of the most popular freemium graphics tools out there that clearly knows what they’re doing. Naturally, I had to try out the app right away…

What is the new Affinity app?

And what happened to its old apps?

Affinity’s new app basically merges the entire suite into one place. There used to be Affinity Photo, an image editor; Affinity Designer, a vector illustration editor; and Affinity Publisher, a layout and desktop publishing app. Now, they’re spread across different workspaces in one app, simply called Affinity. The new app includes all the core features from the original trio.

Now for the part that’s either great, or kind of disappointing, depending on how you look at it. Affinity used to be one of the few creative software companies left that let you purchase the software at a one-time cost. This was a double-edged sword - you owned your software, but it made Affinity inaccessible to many.

The new app is free for the most part, and they’ve moved to a subscription model. The upside is that you get access to legitimately pro-level tools in the free tier. The downside is that Affinity has officially joined the subscription club, so you’re looking at zero ownership and ongoing payments for access to the paywalled features - Canva’s integrated AI features, to be specific.

Full access isn’t sold by Affinity; it’s bundled inside the Canva Pro subscriptions. Those who bought the old apps will be able to keep using them for some time, but they won't be receiving updates anymore.

The Pixel editor

Replaces: Photoshop

Pixel is the name for what used to be Affinity Photo, and it’s probably the best free Photoshop alternative out there right now. To start with, Pixel kept all the Personas from Affinity Photo. These include the Develop persona for editing RAW images, Liquify for mesh-based distorting and warping, and Tone Map for HDR and 32-bit editing.

The selection tools are what I’m mainly concerned with since no other app comes close to Photoshop’s selection capabilities. You’ve got your Object Selection, which does an excellent job at detecting and selecting subjects in your shot; I’d say it’s on par with PS, even with detailed edges. The Selection Brush is for making selections by hand - I always turn Snap to Edges off though, otherwise the brush will auto-detect and snap your selection, which defeats the purpose of manual selection in my opinion. And then there’s Flood Select, which is the equivalent of Photoshop’s Magic Wand tool.

The rest of the goodies are there too. Non-destructive layer-based editing, advanced paintbrushes, Dodge & Burn, Clone Stamp, Blur & Sharpen, Fill Bucket, blend modes, and pretty much everything else you’d need Photoshop for. It handles masking similarly, has foreground/background select, and there’s a full color editing suite with a Histogram. I’m still in disbelief that all of these Photoshop-like features are free now.

The Vector editor

Replaces: Adobe Illustrator

What is now called the Vector workspace used to be Affinity Designer. I might have tried the free trial at some point but never used Designer for any real work. So this was my first real impression of Affinity’s vector capabilities. It has all the Illustrator equivalents for creating vector graphics. There are the Node and Path tools for creating shapes with points and connections. And you’ve also got your Pencil and Knife tools, Stroke Width, Text, Fill, and Corner tools - all with a slew of adjustable properties, and a massive range of brushes.

I used to have an Illustrator subscription on and off - vector design is just a fun pastime and not something I take that seriously. So having an accessible toolkit like this is perfect for casual designers. It’s kind of mindblowing that the entirety of Vector is free, given that it’s more robust and polished than any other alternative I’ve tried, including Inkscape.

The Layout editor

Replaces: Adobe InDesign

The Layout workspace is what Affinity Publisher used to be. I don’t really use desktop publishing software beyond Scribus on the odd occasion. I had access to InDesign for a brief period during my Creative Cloud All Apps subscription, but it was useless to me for the most part. So this will definitely be the workspace I reach for the least.

Desktop publishers are dedicated editors for getting your designs into shape for print and digital media. So the biggest focus is on managing pages and the layout of your designs on those pages - and Affinity doesn’t skimp on these functions. Layout has comprehensive text tools, linked text frames, shapes and borders, and pen tools. It also has master pages, full CMYK support, and OpenType support. And honestly, it’s much more intuitive and modern than Scribus, so it's an easy switch for me.

A new era for free creative tools

Affinity just pulled off what everyone’s been begging Adobe to do for years: to make pro-grade creative tools accessible without locking everything behind paywalls. This new app brought every single feature from the old trio stack, and gave us a unified workspace. I’m pretty excited to include it in my graphics toolkit and explore it further. Although it’s only officially available on Windows and macOS, my colleagues have written about community projects that let you run it on Linux.