Affinity Designer vs illustrator Comparison and Honest Review

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If you’re working on a design project, you’re probably utilizing an Adobe product. Since its first release over 30 years ago, the creative software behemoth has grown to become a vital commodity in the design profession.

Adobe appears to be unparalleled in the digital graphic production business, with more than 20 desktop and mobile programs accessible via the Creative Cloud.

Several competitors, including CorelDRAW, Inkscape, and Sketch, have attempted to compete, but Illustrator remains the clear winner.

Who is the most recent challenger? Affinity Designer was released in late 2014 and aims to give Adobe a run for its money in terms of membership prices.

Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Designer Overview

What is Affinity Designer?

Affinity Designer is a vector graphics Design tool developed by the UK-based Serif Labs as an alternative to Adobe Illustrator.

Founded in the early 1990s, Serif is a producer of low-cost desktop publishing software for PC/Windows aimed at novices.

Despite its low price of $54.99( On time – No Subscription), Affinity Designer was designed for experienced graphic designers who are used to working in a Mac environment and are therefore a better fit.

Although Affinity Designer appears to be a Photoshop/Illustrator mashup, might it be a viable solution for designers who often use both programs?

Do long-time Adobe users think Affinity Designer has enough features to tempt them away? Is it more suitable for people who are just getting started, or is it more advanced?

Affinity Designer can perform as an Illustrator/Photoshop combination, with the ability to edit and create pixel layers—but might it be an appealing option to designers who work often in both programs?

Is Affinity Designer feature-rich enough to convince long-time Adobe users? Is it more suitable for beginners?

What exactly is Adobe Illustrator?

Adobe Illustrator has been one of the top vector-based tools on the market since its introduction in 1987.

It is used by millions of digital art creators and artists since it has assisted them in taking their work to the next level.

Because it is industry-standard, it has all of the required tools and functionality to meet all of your demands as an artist.

It is available for Windows and Mac, as well as an iPad version.

What have they used for comparison: Affinity Design Vs. Adobe Illustrator

What is Adobe Illustrator used for?

Illustrator is ideal for vector graphics. Illustrator is your man if you require a clean design that can be scaled indefinitely.
Adobe Illustrator is utilized by freelancers, agencies, small and large businesses, Hollywood illustrators (such as movie poster designers), and other professionals.

It is quite frequent in logo design. This is why branding designers make significant use of it. It’s much better for this purpose because it’s ideal for print media and virtually all marketing surfaces.

The RGB and CMYK color models expand the frontiers to new heights, ensuring that your ideas appear good wherever.
Illustrator may be used to produce almost anything, such as flyers, brochures, layouts, stationery design, poster design, and so on.

What is Affinity used for?

Affinity Designer, on the other hand, supports both RGB and CMYK color modes, as does Illustrator.

This implies it may be used for both screen and print media.
It’s quite popular with newcomers, whether they’re hobbyists or casual users.

YouTubers and bloggers are wonderful illustrations of this type of user.

They mainly rely on it to develop graphic aspects for their enterprises and online presence, such as headers and thumbnails.

Furthermore, digital marketers might use it for advertisements and commercials.

Not to mention that video editors may utilize it to build assets such as lower thirds. The examples may go on and on, and we can claim that they all fit within the context.

Learning Curve Comparison: Illustrator vs Affinity Designer

Affinity Design concentrates on the fundamentals of design. This is why you will find it much easier to understand and use the toolset.
Lessons ranging from beginner to advanced are given.

Adobe Illustrator has a lengthy history and has been increasingly user-friendly over the years. It may be used by amateurs or experts, but it is also appropriate for novices.

However, as compared to Affinity, the learning curve may be fairly steep in most circumstances.

Of course, this isn’t an issue because the internet is brimming with educational resources of all types.

It’s definitely one of the most significant benefits of using popular software: more users equals more tutorials and knowledge shared.

Workflow Comparison: Adobe Illustrator vs. Affinity Designer

We can all agree that both software has among of the largest communities on the market, but how did they become that way? You might enquire.

The first thing that comes to mind is their process and how it might affect any artist’s production pipeline:

Affinity employs a unique method known as the Persona tool. It is organized into three major categories:

The Designer Persona is intended for vector-based design.

Pixel Persona is a raster-based design persona.

Export Persona is used to export the design with multiple output types and parameters.

Affinity can zoom up to 1,000,000 percent for optimum precision, which is far more than Illustrator can give.

Adobe Illustrator’s workflow on the other hand is relatively fluid and simple to use.

The design process will be incredibly efficient due to the well-organized workstation and structure.

You may choose from several preset workspaces. Automation, Essentials, Essentials Classic, Layout, and Painting are all available.

With Adobe Illustrator, Zooming is possible up to 900 percent. To further improve your productivity, Illustrator allows you to build and tweak hotkeys and shortcuts in any way you see appropriate.

Pricing Comparison: Illustrator vs. Affinity Designer

In terms of pricing, Illustrator vs. Affinity Designer
Now that you know most of it, you should know how much it will cost you to obtain these tools:
Illustrator is only accessible with a Creative Cloud membership. It provides a 7-day free trial for testing purposes.

If you simply want to use Illustrator, it will cost you roughly $21 per month invoiced yearly.

However, if you use it for less than a year, it will cost you roughly $31 each month.

Affinity Designer, unlike Illustrator, is a one-time purchase. As of 2022, it will cost around $55. Of course, you may sample it for free before deciding to purchase the lifetime plan.

Tools & Features Comparison: Illustrator vs. Affinity Designer

Tools & Features for Artwork

Adobe Illustrator:

Each of these Software provides an excellent collection of tools to assist you in expressing your creative abilities.

We’ve picked a few that stand out:

The raster technique is not supported by Illustrator. It does, however, provide the Image Trace tool, which allows you to work with raster graphics.

This functionality converts raster pictures into vectors when you load them into Illustrator.

It also includes the Wrap tool and Meshes, which allow you to manipulate things by warping, reshaping, and coloring them.

Filters, effects, a mix tool, and many more tools are also available with Illustrator

Plus, Illustrator provides far more vector-based capabilities than Affinity. Allowing you to create scalable, resizable, high-resolution graphics without sacrificing quality.

It features several freehand tools for drawing, including the pen tool, which successfully draws vector forms.

Illustrator has several typography choices, allowing you to not only create text but also fully customize it.

It allows for the usage of numerous artboards, multiple pages, and templates.

Thousands of templates are available within the program, ranging from UI kits to vector graphics and icon sets.

Affinity Design allows you to conduct several tweaks and see them in real time while editing.

The lack of a blend, knife, or mesh tool in Affinity is a disadvantage. It also falls short in terms of filters and effects.

It offers beautiful gradients and effects, as well as curve adjustments and changes with live preview.

The ability to merge raster and vector graphics on the same project is an excessive hybrid capability that Affinity has that Illustrator does not. You can swap between the three previously described features.

Furthermore, it allows you to build an infinite number of artboards in a single project.

Affinity Design has you covered when it comes to undoing careless acts and mistakes: the preserved history allows you to keep up to 8000 modifications.

What I enjoyed best about it is that it also provides Live preview…

Interface Comparison: Illustrator vs. Affinity Designer

Illustrator offers a robust variety of complex capabilities, which may make the user interface appear cramped and clumsy.

We don’t believe it’s the most intuitive, either, but the fact that it’s so configurable makes up for it.

Affinity, on the other hand, offers a highly user-friendly interface that won’t overwhelm you with too many options, allowing you to focus on the creative process.

The UI’s contemporary design makes it more inviting. If you’re coming from another program, such as Illustrator, you’ll notice the change almost immediately.

The Verdict

The Final Verdict on Affinity Designer vs. Adobe Illustrator —
Affinity Designer is an outstanding, low-cost alternative to Adobe Illustrator in terms of function and appearance.

It’s basic enough for beginners to use as a learning tool, yet strong enough for freelance graphic artists on a budget.

Full-service designers who need to generate multi-page documents will still have to use InDesign—or the old Quark Xpress, as Serif has yet to offer a similar replacement.

Adobe CC has an Affinity beat when it comes to extensive features, tools, and shortcuts.

However, if Serif maintains its current pace, the Affinity suite might soon become a big contender in the graphic software industry.