Affinity Tempts Adobe Users with 6-Month Free Trial of Creative Suite

Serif, the design software developer behind Affinity, has introduced a six-month free trial for its creative suite, offering Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher on Mac, Windows PC, and iPad. This move, along with a 50% discount on perpetual licenses, aims to attract Adobe users and reassure them of Affinity's commitment to its one-time purchase pricing model despite its recent acquisition by Canva. The Verge reports: Affinity uses a one-time purchase pricing model that has earned it a loyal fanbase among creatives who are sick of paying for recurring subscriptions. Prices start at $69.99 for Affinity's individual desktop apps or $164.99 for the entire suite, with a separate deal currently offering customers 50 percent off all perpetual licenses.

This discount, alongside the six-month free trial, is potentially geared at soothing concerns that Affinity would change its pricing model after being acquired by Canva earlier this year. "We're saying 'try everything and pay nothing' because we understand making a change can be a big step, particularly for busy professionals," said Affinity CEO Ashley Hewson. "Anyone who takes the trial is under absolutely no obligation to buy."

perpetual licenses ?

[rossdee]

How long is a perpetual license?

Re:perpetual licenses ?

[Kryptonut]

You receive updates for the major version you purchase.

e.g. if you have a V1 license you get all the point releases for V1 - but pay for V2 if you want to move to it. If you pay for V2, you get all point releases for V2.

Only major version changes are pay again, which is reasonable - devs gotta get paid.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It depends.

- How long is the major version current for? Some software releases a major version every month.
- How much is the licence?
- Do they fix all the bugs to give you a stable version, or do you have to pay to upgrade for that?
- If there are critical security issues in old versions, do they get patched?

I've had issues with the last one, although to be fair the developer in question did release a fix after some prodding.

Re:

[theshowmecanuck]

Bought a V1 licence in 2018 and got updates (often significant ones) until V2 came out in November 2022. V1 originally came out in 2014.

Re:

[theshowmecanuck]

As an example: I have had V1 since at least around 2018. It received updates, including significant ones, all the way until V2 came out the end of 2022.

Re:

[redwiregmail]

How long is a perpetual license?

Until the next full version - they have only had 2 version since 2015 with the second ones launching a year or so ago.

They also still support the first version so far it just won't get new features just mostly compatibility and bug fix updates.

Re:

[sg_oneill]

a full version, and those versions seem to last a while between releases (with lots of point versions between including feature updates). Plus, its cheap as hell, and surprisingly complete. Theres few downsides imho, it does 90% of what the adobe versions do, and those 90% are generally the 90% of features people actually use. (Of course occasionally you'll stumble across a not-implemented-yet feature, but the community usually has good work arounds for those. The only real hurdle I had was figuring out the

Re:perpetual licenses ?

[ctilsie242]

Overall, I've found it pretty good. For me, it is definitely good enough to replace Photoshop and Illustrator, although I'm sure there will be some things those products do that the Affinity suite doesn't. Definitely worth the one time price, and there is a pretty long interval between version increments so the money spent now isn't going to have to be re-bought next year, for the most part.

It is a breath of fresh air -- this is how software used to be... no monthly subscriptions, etc. Even if I didn't use their products, I'd support them.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

How long is a perpetual license?

Until Canva, the company who owns Affinity, decides that they want more money. And that's the problem with this "deal". Affinity is owned by someone else, which means anything Affinity says is meaningless and could change at any time.

Re:

[gosso920]

Until they change the terms of service. Enjoy renting your software. You will own nothing, and be happy.

Re:

[Deal In One]

Over 6 years since I got V1, and they had updates until last year? or was it 2022?

I see they have an extra discount for those on V1 (I don't even have the suite - just the 3 main apps, all on Windows) to upgrade to the V2 suite. And my V1 is only for Windows, I don't see why I should not upgrade to get for everything now.

Thanks Affinity.

Re:

[Waccoon]

I spent some time looking at all the licensing terms, and I can't ever tell if they use online DRM or not. The apparently do require an online account to use the software and they reserve the right to terminate your account for any reason.

So, I'm guessing the correct answer is, "No more perpetual than anyone else's license".

Until Canva rebrands it and this version gets orph

[sziring]

Until Canva rebrands it and this version gets orphaned.

Re:

[caseih]

It's pretty clear Canva wants to turn Affinity Creative Suite into a rental model. But for now there's been enough backlash from their customers that they've shelved that idea for now. But they inevitably will go there eventually. And despite swearing up and down they will always allow buying a perpetual license, most users have their doubts.

But for now, enjoy it while you can. At half off, the cost of the full suite is pretty darn reasonable. If you have any inclination to use their software at all now or

Re:

[sg_oneill]

It'd be marketing suicide for them. Affinity's entire pitch is that its close enough to adobes core products to be functional for a professional workflow without having to get a subscription. This has given affinity huge brand recognition as the 'dont do subscription' guys. If they moved to subscription, it would destroy all that goodwill overnight, and throw away their primary selling point.

Cos if they went subscription, why the fuck would you use them over adobe?

Re:

[Voyager529]

It's pretty clear Canva wants to turn Affinity Creative Suite into a rental model. But for now there's been enough backlash from their customers that they've shelved that idea for now. But they inevitably will go there eventually. And despite swearing up and down they will always allow buying a perpetual license, most users have their doubts.

I'm on the fence here, for a few reasons.

The first is the one you cite; Canva loves them that sweet, sweet subscription revenue from their browser-based tools...and to that end, I'm uncertain that Canva will commit to keeping Affinity perpetually licensed.

However, the other reason is that I think that they have a better way to have their cake and eat it, too. Magix Music Maker [magix.com] sells for far less than FL Studio or Ableton, but they make their money back on "Soundpools", i.e. loops and MIDI sequences that can

If you think that's a good deal...

[leonbev]

You should see the sale that they're offering on the open source alternatives! Free for LIFE, baby!

Re:If you think that's a good deal...

[thegarbz]

There are no open source alternatives in many of these cases. Those people who think the likes of GIMP are an alternative have not used these tools... or maybe not used GIMP.

Re:If you think that's a good deal...

[AmiMoJo]

Are there good open source alternatives though?

GIMP is not a substitute for Photoshop, it's awful in comparison. Sorry, but it is.

Inkscape is decent for some stuff, but it's not really a DTP app, and has some fairly severe limitations. It's improving steadily, but I'm not sure you could use it for e.g. professional magazine layout.

I haven't tried Kdenlive so can't comment on that.

Re:

[dfm3]

Depends on what you're trying to accomplish. For making minor adjustments to photographs (exposure, tone, balance, etc) , try Darktable. If you're doing more design or vector graphics, Krita is very feature rich.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Darktable does seem pretty good, a few UI issues but the editing tools seem to work very well. I just suck at using it. I haven't been able to compare it to Lighttable though, so can't say if a pro would find it any good.

I will take a look at Krita.

Re:

[theshowmecanuck]

I looked at Dark Table, but like all projects when the dev team thinks being as flexible as possible is a good thing, their closeness to the project betrays them. They understand the software in depth, obviously, but those looking at it new are actually tripped up by it. It is just not coherent and consistent enough for me in terms of use. I use Capture One V20 right now, and it works well with some serious flaws like undo buffers, etc. But it works so well that it overcomes the flaws to most extents. I get

Re:

[not flu]

If you want KISS check out Filmulator.

Re:

[not flu]

Current version darktable is kinda weird. There's a fork of it called Ansel but I haven't tried it yet. There's also Rawtherapee which is powerful, and Filmulator if you want a dead simple program with a core concept that does a good job of almost automatically producing good looking photos, but lacks basic features such as sharpening or graduated filters etc.

Re:

[chrish]

IMHO Krita is more of a Photoshop equivalent than Gimp, but I don't really use it enough to say how painful the transition would be. I used Affinity Photo before I gave up on Windows, and I wish it worked under Linux because I like to support companies that make a good product.

Inkscape vs Illustrator seems like a huuuuuge stretch to me, but I've barely used either one, so somebody else will have to do a real comparison.

Scribus (https://www.scribus.net/) seems like a good DTP app, but I haven't seen InDesign

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

Are there good open source alternatives though?

GIMP is not a substitute for Photoshop, it's awful in comparison. Sorry, but it is.

Inkscape is decent for some stuff, but it's not really a DTP app, and has some fairly severe limitations. It's improving steadily, but I'm not sure you could use it for e.g. professional magazine layout.

I haven't tried Kdenlive so can't comment on that.

I haven't found any comparative ones. When I tried Gimp, it reminded me more of Paint Shop Pro for the Amiga than anything else.

The issue with Adobe's Creative Suite is that it is so good.

It annoys me that it is so expensive - even with my academic credentials - but it is very competent software overall, so I grin and bear the cost. And after all, there is a lot more to it than just Photoshop. Premiere, Acrobat, some 3-D stuff. Illustrator, Dimension, Dreamweaver, inDesign, InCopy, Lightroom, Media enc

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

GIMP doesn't even behave consistently across platforms. It's not awful in comparison, it's just awful period.

I will never stop posting this

[CEC-P]

Photoshop Elements is around $80 and is an eternal, non-subscription product that runs without an internet connection. Don't need to do CMYK? That's just about all it's missing. They also make Premiere Elements. It's missing a lot but I know people that run Youtube channels off it.

That's great! Next - Autodesk, please.

[Pravetz-82]

I have a friend, who is an "old school" architect and uses 2D Autocad, but the licenses are impossible.
He had bought a desktop version years ago which no longer works on modern windows (also it seems that it tries to connect to license servers which are no longer there).
The closest modern version is Autocad LT at 500€ / year (which is absurd).

good enough?

[nicubunu]

There are a lot of people who love to comment how Gimp is not really a Photoshop alternative, I am curious: do they think Affinity Photo is a Photoshop alternative? Why?

Re:

[dfm3]

Why is it not a photoshop alternative?

It has something like 80% of the features of Photoshop, including most of the major features, it's just missing some niche things vector layers and 3D stuff.

It's a trap!

[gweihir]

Just in case this still needed to be pointed out.

The main cost you have with a tool is not buying it, the main cost is investing the time to learn how to use it well. And as soon as you have invested that cost, it becomes very hard to switch tools.

Re:

[jenningsthecat]

The main cost you have with a tool is not buying it, the main cost is investing the time to learn how to use it well. And as soon as you have invested that cost, it becomes very hard to switch tools.

I'd be interested to know how much more capable Adobe products are now than they were 3 years ago, or even 5. If the current capabilities of Affinity software will fulfill a user's needs for several years without having to pay for a subscription, then the money saved might justify a new learning curve at the end of that time.

I think companies like Adobe go the SaaS route at least in part because people are usually happy to forego upgrades, as long as their currently-installed version meets their needs. The

Re:

[gweihir]

You are right about the renting. Incidentally, wayyy back it was called "renting" for software as well, at least here. You are also right that renting software is a bad deal for most users because it makes you dependent on the respective supplier. Current example for what that can mean in the worst-case is VMware.

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

The main cost you have with a tool is not buying it, the main cost is investing the time to learn how to use it well. And as soon as you have invested that cost, it becomes very hard to switch tools.

I'd be interested to know how much more capable Adobe products are now than they were 3 years ago, or even 5. If the current capabilities of Affinity software will fulfill a user's needs for several years without having to pay for a subscription, then the money saved might justify a new learning curve at the end of that time.

The issue goes beyond Photoshop. You are definitely right about the learning curve. I've used Adobe products for around 30 years now. But while the creative suite does cost, it gets updates regularly, and the various programs integrate well with each other. And there are many different programs. Is it worth it? It is for me even if I find it annoying. Sometimes you need to pay for what you get, and while I'll try the Affinity trial, I'm not too hopeful that it will even have all of the programs I get with

Re:

[nightflameauto]

Just in case this still needed to be pointed out.

The main cost you have with a tool is not buying it, the main cost is investing the time to learn how to use it well. And as soon as you have invested that cost, it becomes very hard to switch tools.

My very first thought when reading this was, "First hit's free, baby. Get ready for the ongoing once you've adjusted your system to expect it." This *WILL* be turned into rental-ware as soon as they think they've got a large enough market on the "free" trial. That's not even a question. Is it?

Re:

[gweihir]

That's not even a question. Is it?

Definitely not a question. All large enterprises these days are driven by greed and nothing else.

Affinity's terrible GUI and arrogant dev

[elcor]

That generous offer ain't gonna work because the dev refuses to use standardized layer/channel like in photoshop.