Since November 2025, there has been plenty of discussion about Canva’s updates to Affinity, namely bundling the three previous applications into one; and also the decision to make the software free to use.

For the past month, I’ve been interested to see the print design community’s reaction to this decision, and results so far have been mixed. Opinions have ranged from the decision being the downfall of Affinity, to the decision being the downfall of Adobe.

In this article, I’d like to present my thoughts about the announcement.

Just give me the CliffsNotes

If you’re time-poor and just want the summary of this article, I’ll list them as points below. If you want my full take, start from the subheading “some housekeeping before I begin”.

• Affinity’s target isn’t directly current CC users – it wants people who are new to the design field, people in a line of work who need to design something but feel the barriers to CC (price and learning curve) are too much for them.
• Affinity doesn’t do everything CC does, but to their target audience, it doesn’t need to.
• Affinity has features that CC used to have (e.g. PANTONE colors) or features that are quality of life improvements that CC doesn’t have (e.g. better shape tools, better table tools, etc)
• For now, CC users will likely stay with what they know, but full service providers will at least have Affinity on-hand in case artwork arrives in that format.
• Adobe are probably rattled by this action, but Affinity is just a new competitor, not the only one.

Some housekeeping before I begin

In this article, I refer to Affinity as free software. This is only true if not using the Canva AI features – that portion does require a paid Canva subscription. That said, throughout this article I’ll otherwise refer to Affinity software as being free.

I’ll declare my background and bias up-front. I’ve been using Adobe applications for the last 25 years, am a part of the Adobe Expert Group and have been a Teacher’s Assistant at Adobe MAX several times. Clearly, I wave an Adobe flag here in case it isn’t obvious, but have also been critical of some of their actions in the past. See my previous parody piece and follow up piece as examples.

Affinity’s announcement isn’t aimed at established designers

If you think Affinity is trying to target existing Creative Cloud users on price alone, then I disagree, but not completely. No doubt there will be CC users who are frustrated with price alone that will attempt to switch, or the odd accountant that gets the year’s CC subscription bill and starts asking some tough questions.

For the majority of CC users bound by the three Ls (Legacy, Lethargy and Loyalty) they will remain with CC, at least for the meantime.

It is my opinion that Affinity is more interested in the next generation of users who want to design and don’t have any design software, but can’t justify paying for CC. Examples of such users are:

• High school or University students;
• People within a business who want to do design for themselves but don’t do design as their entire job, but just a small portion of it;
• Ex Microsoft Publisher users, since Microsoft have now deprecated the software;

Affinity want numbers first

After the announcement, do you know what fans and critics both did? Downloaded the software and at least looked at it! By doing this, it’s given Affinity a simple metric that they can later say “one month since the announcement, we had XXX million downloads!”, but as critics will point out, downloads doesn’t translate to active users.

But unlike a free trial of software that anyone can get with Affinity’s competitors, Affinity’s download and installation are likely to remain on a computer after a month as there’s no credit card to ask for, and no alert stopping users after a trial period from using the software.

Some things are easier to do

Perhaps the biggest draw to both Canva and Affinity is that the software is easy to use with many quality-of-life improvements. For example, try to draw a cog in illustrator – I can do this with the cog tool in Affinity – I don’t have to know the steps it would take an experienced designer to draw one.

Similarly, have you ever tried sorting a table alphabetically in Indesign without a script, or taking the data into Excel and sorting it there and messing around to get it back into InDesign without reformatting? Affinity’s table tool has sort built into it, so it’s literally a dropdown click.

Want a PANTONE Color without paying an additional subscription for the PANTONE CC plug-in or using a dodgy workaround? The latest PANTONE color libraries are in Affinity.

Ever fancied having uneven columns in a textframe? Affinity can do that.

Know that annoying bug in InDesign that’s been in InDesign since it was launched in 1999 that concerns anchored objects that have text wrap applied, but won’t wrap to the start of a line that it’s anchored to? Doesn’t happen in Affinity.

Affinity isn’t a complete substitute for Creative Cloud

When looking at both Affinity and Creative Cloud, it is important to note that any overall comparison is like comparing apples with oranges. Yes, Affinity has a raster application, a vector application, and a layout application, but it doesn’t have:

• Video editing
• Audio editing
• PDF prepress manipulation akin to Adobe Acrobat or Esko ArtPro+
• File management/DAM
• En masse photo manipulation akin to Lightroom
• 2D to 3D prototyping akin to Dimension or Esko Studio

Ultimately, Creative Cloud has many more components that are available as part of its subscription. That said, is it likely that a design team is going to use every application within the Creative Cloud? If you’re making static designs for print or limited multimedia designs for use with social media, then the comparison between the two become much closer.

It doesn’t do everything, but does it need to?

One criticism I’ve heard so far is that Affinity doesn’t do everything that the existing CC raster/vector/layout applications do, such as:

• Scripting (such as user-written javascripts like my own for InDesign);
• XML import;
• Accessibility;
• “interactive” PDF export similar to InDesign that can contain PDF forms

There’s no denying this. But at the same time, it comes back to my earlier point that the announcement and software isn’t aimed at established designers. Yes, they will use this tool, but Affinity need to get a user-base first. This is also the first iteration of new software while under the Canva umbrella so it is also too early to tell what other improvements or innovation are yet to come.

At the same time, the users targeted by Affinity may not need such features, and would be satisfied having a free application that will handle a good chunk of creative work.

Will Affinity’s decision sway CC users?

If you’re in an established design agency or print house that has years’ worth of artwork on file, staff who are comfortable in the software that they use, and at least know that Adobe isn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future, then you’re not likely to consider other software and will stay with CC for a while. I’ve written about this before and referred to it as the three L’s:

• Lethargy (reluctance to change);
• Loyalty (trust to a brand)
• Legacy (or Luggage – volumes of work that would be difficult or impossible to port into a new system)

It is worth adding a couple more L’s to this, such as:

• Licencing (within an infrastructure to get access to AI tools, fonts or stock images that are no extra cost to the subscription)
• Lifespan (will the software be around next week or next year)

Affinity isn’t the only disruptor

While Affinity’s announcement has had a lot of discussion and coverage, it isn’t the only thing to attempt to loosen Adobe’s grip in the design space.

Corel Draw

Some readers may get to this point and think I’m joking, but I would encourage those readers to take this company very seriously. Corel Draw has been available for Windows and Mac for years now, and has some serious power to it, such as:

• PANTONE color libraries included;
• The ability to prepare advanced print impositions without RIP software
• Basic quality-of-life improvements such as native Block Shadow, Basic Shape tool, Connector tool,
• Its own competitor to both Adobe Express and Canva, namely Corel Go

Free Applications

Until Affinity’s announcement, the only other “trilogy” of raster, vector and layout applications that were free were all made by separate companies. These applications are:

• Inkscape (Vector)
• Scribus (Layout) and
• Gimp (Raster)

I’ve never used any of these products for a commercial project. I’ve dabbled with their use and for very simple use-cases, they will work fine… but in a commercial environment of an established print shop with years of existing art on file, it wouldn’t even be considered.

Piracy

Yes, software piracy is a competitor to CC. I don’t condone it, nor do I advocate or endorse it, but it has to be mentioned that software piracy still exists. I’ve no doubt that there are many people who use pirated versions of CC and I’d be delusional to think otherwise. That said, I don’t know how they access specific cloud features such as generative AI or Adobe Fonts.

By giving Affinity away for free, pirating the software is totally unnecessary. Accessing the Canva AI features without subscription… that’s another matter.

What comes next?

While I don’t think Adobe is shaking in its boots about the decision, I also don’t think they’re dismissing it either. No doubt there have probably been some high level executive meetings to discuss this development and what action Adobe will take, such as:

• If subscriptions need to increase in price, how is Adobe going to justify this when a competitor effectively gives away their software?
• Affinity have taken three separate applications for vector, raster and layout and combined them into one overall application that appears to have seamless transition – is this an inspiration for Adobe and other competitors to follow suit?
• Despite the fanfare, will Affinity maintain and improve its software now and into the future? Will it be to a level where competitors must update or improve their software to “keep up with the Joneses”, or will Affinity only maintain updates to keep up with operating systems, and basically just be “keeping the lights on”?

What will Colecandoo, do?

For full transparency, I’ve downloaded it, tried out a few things for research purposes, but have not used it at this stage to create any commercial artwork.

Similarly, I’ve also downloaded and used Corel Draw, Inkscape, Gimp and Scribus for research purposes as well.

At my stage in life, I’ll be staying put in InDesign and the Creative Cloud, given that there are decades of legacy work in that format; I’m an expert in using it, and I’m also entwined with the Adobe Experts Group both online and in person.

Despite this, I’m still allowed to be critical of Adobe and its software teams, but I do so as an advocate for other users to make sure the software improves or needs improvement. Remember – squeaky wheels get grease.

Ultimately, I can’t control what the future holds, and I do have to use what my clients use. In the last five years I’ve noticed more client submitted artwork from Canva, and the odd piece here and there from prior Affinity software. It doesn’t mean I’d use it to begin making layouts and designs, but I at least must be familiar with it so that if I receive native artwork, I can navigate through the file and debug or manipulate a file to make a press-ready PDF.

But what are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!