Apple
Canva is changing the landscape: the new version of the Affinity suite is now completely free.
The Affinity suite has been for some time one of the best alternatives to Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. The initial Affinity suite launched with Affinity Designer in 2014, followed by Affinity Photo in 2015 and Affinity Publisher in 2019, offering a complete suite for graphic design, photo editing, and publishing. They were developed for macOS first, then expanded to Windows and iPadOS.
In March 2024, Serif -the company that made Affinity- was purchased by Canva, makers of the Canva online design tools, which use a drag-and-drop interface designed for users without professional design training.
Some Affinity users were concerned that the purchase of Serif by Canva would mean that the Affinity suite would stop being sold as a one-time purchase, which was one of its main selling points over Adobe’s controversial subscription model.
However, at the end of October 2025, Canva announced that the Affinity suite will now be free, except the optional A.I. tools that come with a subscription to a Canva premium account. Apart from making the suite free, all three apps (Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher, Affinity Designer) will now be unified into a single application called “Affinity”. The new Affinity app is already available for free for macOS and Windows, with an iPad version coming soon.
This move to a freemium model for Affinity is a direct challenge to Adobe, whose subscription model is very unpopular among professionals. It remains to be seen if this move will be sustainable for Canva, and if it will force Adobe to reconsider its own sales strategy.
For more information, read the Canva press release.
