You might want to have a look and see what all the panels and toolbars are. The classic move and zoom tools are the same. The two most recognizable icons are the hand and the magnifying glass. This one has a lot of shapes and squiggly lines. Once you’re in the document, you’ll notice how different the toolbar looks. It’s very similar to Illustrator, but with less visuals. When you start a new document, you’re asked to select your document settings. Some of those key commands and muscle memories are of little use now. Affinity Designer is a great, well designed program, it’s just not Adobe Illustrator. Then as soon as you try to do something, you realize you don’t. The first time you open Affinity Designer, you’re like “I got this”. So how does one vector based illustration program compare to another in terms of functionality? If you’re seriously thinking about switching from Adobe Illustrator to Affinity Designer, is it going to be easy for you? Here are my thoughts as I try to make the switch. If you’re on a budget or want to protest the subscription price model, Affinity might be the way to go. Each program: Designer, Photo, and Publisher, are $70 CAD each. Sure, the frequent updates are great to have, and that does include all the Adobe programs, but it’s still a lot of money. For instance, using the Adobe CC suite for two years would cover what it used to cost for a lifetime.

$60 CAD a month is just hard to justify when there are similar programs that cost much less. Like a lot of people, I find the Adobe pricing model to be a bit expensive.

Price affinity designer