this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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Holy shit this is huge… I still have trouble believing it, but holy shit…
Like, a company that actually listens?!??
It seems reasonable for now: you can use all the tools except the AI stuff for free, so it's still (I assume) as full-featured as the last Serif version of Affinity was. And if the AI stuff is not done locally, then that costs them money to run so fair enough that they charge something. But we don't know what Canva plans to do with Affinity. Will the tools be gradually hollowed out while more and more features go behind a paywall? Will they start filling the desktop software with ads? What will they do when they judge that they have poached enough of Adobe's users? Will they brick your software if you close your Canva account? I don't entirely trust them.
I stumbled upon them years ago when I discovered they had online colour tools. However, they've gradually leaned into AI and seem to be racking up a portfolio to rival Adobe.
Affinity has been the best alternative to some of the key Adobe tools for a while now, and it was a one-off payment of about $200 for the whole suite, which was good value. Now it's "free" I'm just a bit worried. Sure, it's not exactly a subscription but where are they going?
I don't know either, and that's the problem. Open source projects can justify being free, even if some of the business models are a bit questionable (e.g. open core). What I do know is companies behind proprietary software has proven time and time again that we're the product.
Hook line and sinker...