Is the Affinity suite a serious alternative to the Adobe suite?

Since Adobe dominates the desktop publishing (DTP) market, it's hard to do without its software. However, subscribing to Creative Cloud represents a significant, even prohibitive, cost for businesses and individuals who only use its applications occasionally or partially. Among the competing solutions, the Affinity suite, from Serif. So, to what extent is the Affinity suite a serious alternative to the Adobe suite? On what criteria? The point with Franck Denis, graphic designer and DTP expert.

What does the universal license include in the Affinity 2 suite? For less than 180 euros per user, you have a perpetual license for three software programs to download to your PC, Mac or iPad.

Serif, an actor who knew how to reinvent himself

Relatively speaking, the history of this Nottingham-based company is somewhat reminiscent of that of Apple at the end of the 90s, when Steve Jobs relaunched the brand with the iMac and the iPod.

Created in 1987, Serif Europe was beginning to run out of steam with its “Plus” range of software designed only for PCs. Their difficulty in maintaining in the face of technological developments has led the company to completely review the design of some of its products. Hence the birth of the Affinity suite.

Thanks to this winning bet that has won several awards (2015 Apple Design Award and 2014 macOS applications finalist), the British publisher now has more than 3 million users worldwide and benefits from a reputation that continues to grow. grow. So far, Affinity looks set to continue gaining market share.

Affinity, a common environment that makes work easier

What could be better than being able to process layout, images and illustration at the same time, without having to switch from one software to another? This is the case of Affinity Publisher which has workspaces (personas) giving direct access to the functionalities of Designer and Photo. Which is impossible with Adobe and therefore makes the experience more user-friendly and intuitive.

Affinity Designer, on the other hand, was designed to handle both complex vector compositions and raster images. Like Affinity Photo, its workspace allows you to export your boards or elements individually, making it a UI tool (user interface) perfect design to complement the prototyping apps found online.

Affinity Photo does not have pages or artboards, because it is primarily designed to process images. On the other hand, the three applications being of similar design, it is entirely possible, taking into account the constraints mentioned, to open any file from the suite on the other two software programs. This is why Affinity represents a real small revolution!

In addition, all adjustment layers in the three software programs have grayscale, RGB, CMYK and LAB colorimetric modes. There is therefore no need to modify the profile of a document to make adjustments, such as changing the color of one selection to another precisely (Pantone or Hexadecimal reference).

An acceptable level of compatibility with Adobe software

It's hard to imagine having to upload your files to Affinity due to lack of compatibility between the software of the two suites. Fortunately, all three applications are capable of opening a large number of file formats, although with a few exceptions.

InDesign's native format is not recognized by Publisher, only its IDML export format. In addition, you will not be able to recover facing pages beyond two pages per spread, nor liquid layouts or interactive objects. As for exporting a Publisher file to an InDesign format, it is impossible because the two applications are designed differently.

	Affinity Publisher	Adobe InDesign
Cloud solution	❎	✅
Management of pages and templates	No facing pages beyond 2 (no 3 panels)	Allows liquid layout and variation pages
Image processing	Almost like on Affinity Photo	Obligation to go through Photoshop again
Vector processing	Almost like on Affinity Designer thanks to the persona	Limited to what InDesign can process
Handling PDF interactivity	Limited to hypertext links	Quite powerful, although some features are not supported in PDF format

Finally, some features and filters of Illustrator and Photoshop are not present on Affinity. This will not prevent you from keeping the rendering, but the elements concerned will either be merged (dynamic objects and Photoshop filters) or decomposed in the form of vector paths.

In terms of functionality, there are still a few gaps, but nothing really annoying

As seen with Publisher's level of compatibility, taken separately, the three software programs do not fully match their respective competitors.

Of the three, Designer is arguably the one that suffers the most from these shortcomings. The tools Symmetry, Frown and Gradient shapes, to name just a few, are missing. Image vectorization is not present either. However, you can use free online applications like Vector Magic, RouladeVector, Aspose or Vectorizer.

	Affinity Designer	Adobe Illustrator
Cloud solution	❎	✅
Image processing	Almost like on Affinity Photo, thanks to the persona	Very limited. Obligation to go through Photoshop again
Vector tools	Many tools are missing, but the essentials are there	Gaps on configurable primitive forms
Brushes and raster images	The vector/matrix mix allows you to create sophisticated illustrations using brushes in particular	Less efficient and more complex to handle
Layer management	Each plan has its own layers	All the work plans have the same layers, which is not easy to navigate

If Affinity Photo is relatively complete, its Liquify Persona is far from equaling the tools of space Fluidity of Photoshop. As for the personas Develop and Tone mapping, they offer fewer features and presets than Camera Raw.

	Affinity Photo	Adobe Photoshop
Cloud solution	❎	✅
Dynamic objects	Managing layers and imports does not require their presence	✅
Work plans	Not useful because Affinity Designer is there	✅
Montage (gif, video)	No window	✅
Filters	Some are missing	✅
RAW file development tools	Develop Persona has fewer features	Camera Raw offers more possibilities
Management of high resolutions 16 and 32 bits	No lag time, the software runs at full capacity	Some slowness and, sometimes, serious or even serious crashes

Affinity represents an alternative… under certain conditions

If you are not already a Creative Cloud subscriber and your main criterion is budget, then don't hesitate! The Affinity suite will give you complete satisfaction.

For Adobe users who also edit video or do UX-UI design, you will need to find alternative software in these areas before canceling your subscription.

In both cases, training on how to use the three software programs will save you time and enlighten you on the right decision to make.

What you need to remember: for anyone whose job is not in this field and who wants to get started, or who has not yet gotten used to the Adobe suite, Affinity is a credible alternative whose quality-ratio price is more than satisfactory. Affinity meets most of the needs of someone producing content for print or digital media. For those who have been working with InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop for a long time, they will be able to make substantial savings, provided they give up certain features which it is entirely possible to compensate for. All that remains is to learn new techniques.