Affinity's Entire Creative Suite is Now Free

In early October, Affinity made news by pulling all of their software from sale, as YouTuber Brad Colbow (whose channel I can only highly recommend) covered in a video. The homepage showed nothing but a splash screen saying "Creative Freedom Is Coming" and a prompt to sign up to be notified for what is to be announced on the 30th of October.

‍

Yesterday the big news was announced: the Affinity suite goes free for all - with one exception.

‍

My Affinity Experience

I've been using the Affinity suite for many years now, be it Affinity Photo for editing my artwork or photographs, Affinity Designer for creating graphics for this website, or Affinity Publisher for creating my PDF version portfolio or other documents.

‍

Basically, it completely replaced all of its popular Adobe counterparts, with me having stopped using Adobe products entirely by now. Apart from my contempt for subscription services, this boycott was also motivated by all the controversy that had happened at the time, and also the unreliability and bloatedness of Adobe products (in my opinion).

‍

The Affinity suite, including Affinity Photo (alternative to Photoshop), Affinity Designer (alternative to Illustrator) and Affinity Publisher (alternative to InDesign) has been nothing but a pleasure to work with so far, and although more advanced features were missing at times, ones present in Adobe products, I had no issues creating what I wanted to create using them whatsoever.

‍

Free with an Asterisk

All three of the Affinity products are now going to be available in one bundled app called "Affinity Studio by Canva", with the biggest news being its price: it's going to be available for free!

‍

On its website, Affinity emphasizes there being no catch, including no limitations in tool usage, customization or export features. Updates and newly introduced features are also going to remain free.

‍

There is one asterisk to note, as there is a subscription necessary for using Canva's AI Studio features, including generative AI and background removal tools. However, this only seems to be required for these AI features alone, not any of the existing base features.

‍

You also need a Canva Account to be able to download this new version.

‍

Good News?

Affinity is clearly poking the Adobe bear with this move, as is also shown with a note displayed right before the final download button:

‍

Stop renting software. Move in here.

‍

While on the surface this can be taken as great news, it does raise suspicion and caution in users still. The distrust in corporations caused by recent controversies, especially around AI, data privacy, and copyright concerns, makes this seemingly great news a matter for diligence. Even with policies in place, these things start to feel more like a "trust me, bro".

‍

The future of the software and its new model also remains written in the stars, such as the future of the V2 version. As a comment on Colbow's new video about this update said:

‍

What I would really like them to do is push an update out to v2 removing the authentication server requirement. That way we can hold on to our old install files and installations for years.

‍

Especially with recent controversies on AI and copyright, I'm definitely staying wary and sticking to my V2 versions for now. I'm curious to see other users' reviews , though, and newly introduced features.

‍

Thus, if you're a user of the newly released V3 version, feel free to comment with your experience, or your thoughts in general on this news!