Every few months I go down the rabbit hole of testing graphics tools I already know, for something I could probably just do in whatever I normally reach for. Usually the reason is that I want to see if something has gotten better, or if I've been sleeping on it. This time it was sort of both - I needed to actually make something, and figured I'd just drag the process out into a test against Photoshop while I was at it.

The "top free Photoshop alternatives" conversation has basically been the same for a while now. Affinity, Photopea, Inkscape - everyone, including myself, recommends all three. But nobody really shows what it’s like to sit down with each one and build a real graphic from scratch. So I decided to do the same project in all three and see where it goes, where they surprise me, or disappoint me.

Starting from the same place

The tools and the design brief

The three tools I used were Affinity, Photopea, and Inkscape. Affinity is my current top Photoshop/Illustrator replacement, Photopea is the browser-based pick, and Inkscape is the open-source option. The project is a YouTube banner for a video editing tutorial channel - I'm not sharing the actual channel for anonymity reasons, so I’m using placeholder graphics for this demonstration, but the process was the same either way.

YouTube banners have a recommended size of 2560 x 1440px, with a safe zone of 1546 x 423px where the most important elements need to sit so they don't get cropped on different devices. For the design itself, I kept it pretty straightforward - a plain background with some shapes and text. I did the whole design in vector first to keep it crisp, then converted to PNG on export. Nothing wildly complicated, but enough layers and effects going on that I'd actually be able to get a read on how each tool handles a real working file.

Photopea isn’t vector-native, but it pulled through

It can get a little weird with vector layers, just like Photoshop

Neither Photopea nor Photoshop are vector editors, but they can still handle and export vector graphics. I started by importing my background, which is an SVG file, and Photopea opened it on a very long and thin transparent canvas because it reads the “width="100%” attribute as 100% of nothing, so it has no reference point to scale from. Beyond that, it was smooth sailing. Almost all of the layers I created were shape and text layers, which Photopea creates in vector by default.

The shape and pen tools are solid, and since I was working with a new layer for each element, the layer panel stayed organized enough to navigate without much friction. The text tool felt a little clunkier than I remembered - nothing that stopped the work, just not as smooth as the rest of the interface. For the neon glow effects I used the brush tool and layer styles, which Photopea handles the same way Photoshop does. And then Photopea lets you export the full vector file as a flat PNG. It was pretty much the workflow I expected; pretty good, nothing mind-blowing nor off-putting. And I think it looks quite decent.

Affinity handled it like the pro it is

The Vector workspace was made for this

Affinity was the most natural fit for this kind of file. The Vector workspace, previously Affinity Designer, is built for SVG work, so importing the background file was a non-event - no canvas scaling issues. Photopea’s path tool is decent, but Affinity’s actually keeps the paths editable in separate layers. Despite Affinity having a better text tool, I actually couldn’t find a font I liked within the app’s selections - Photopea’s Aldrich font was my top choice.

For the neon glow, I used a combination of the path brush tool in bright colors, dropped the blend mode, and added an outer glow FX - more hands-on than a layer style but more controllable too. The other thing worth mentioning is the Export PNG button in the top toolbar, which lets you pull out individual layers or the whole document fast - handy if you want to reuse elements across other social formats without digging back into the file. Overall, Affinity definitely gave me a better editing experience just because of its native vector design.

Inkscape performed as expected

It’s still one of the top open-source design tools

Admittedly, it’s been a minute since I’ve opened Inkscape for anything, given I usually default to Affinity, Figma, or Penpot for vector work these days. Upon opening it, I immediately got that open-source feel again - it lacks some polish, but not enough to be a dealbreaker, plus it has its own advantages. Some of my favorite little features are the corner rounding on rectangular shapes and the placement of the color palette.

The layer panel still has no thumbnails, though, which I’m not a fan of because you have to scroll into infinity to find what you need. The bigger issue for this specific project was the neon glow. There are no built-in layer effects like with the other two, and the closest you will find to a brush is the calligraphy tool. The technique I used in Affinity and Photopea, painting a bright stroke underneath the elements and giving it a glow effect, just isn't available here in any clean way. So I had to fake the glow with blur filters, but it didn’t look as snatched. For a banner without glow effects, it would've been fine. And the graphic turned out as well as I know Inkscape to be capable of; not bad at all.

Three tools later

These are all editing techniques I know Photoshop is more than capable of. What I did was pretty simple, anyway - just some shape composition, typography, and a backlit glow/lightbleed effect. For this project, I’d say Affinity handled it best because its vector workflow is pretty seamless, and it has a great selection of tools and effects. I’d rate Photopea as second best, primarily because it has better fonts and also has brush tools that stay crisp in vector work. Inkscape wasn’t bad, it’s just not quite on par with the more modern tools I’ve been relying on lately.