Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Affinity Studio now free

affinity.studio

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 825 posts

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#531

Post by truncate »

dangus wrote: post #497
truncate wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> technology the cult of the exit rules all Technology also moves fast, highly competitive and expensive. I'm definitely sad about this, but I can't blame founders for this. I've never founded any company myself, but I can imagine after decade of working on same product as a relatively small shop, it can be tiring, exhausting and probably new priorities (personal life, health etc ...).

You can have controlling ownership in a company that you don’t manage on a day-to-day basis.

It may or may not work out. Once you are not actively involved, its not per your vision anymore anyway. And at the end of the day, if you don't think e.g. in this case its very hard compete with Adobe and I really don't want to risk my payday, you'll sell it and move on to do whatever next you want to do.

If we want something to last, I think open-source is the solution.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#532

Post by prmoustache »

Gigachad wrote: post #462
archagon wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free software is dead? Free software is still there, same as it ever was. And it will be there forever. The more people flee to it from SAAS shittification, the better it will get.

It’s not dead, but a lot of it is stagnant. How much has Gimp improved in the last 10 years vs photoshop.

Gimp has improved a lot and is still awesome value in term of dollar to service provided, even while making a small monthly or yearly donation.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#533

Post by hamish-b »

I'm surprised people aren't really talking about how this affects Adobe going into the future. Adobe frankly has been hostile to it's users for the past while, this should really shake up the game. Creatives now have access to a pro-level tool for free with the option to pay extra for AI features. This is a clear shot across Adobe's bow and positions Canva to control the creative vertical from professionals to the average person.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#534

Post by prmoustache »

mns wrote: post #137

Devastated about this. Good for them for making money on the sale to Canva, but still, this is a sad day. Studio is now freemium, in the future probably more and more features (outside of AI) will be added in the subscription, and you will end up with an app full of disabled features and pop-ups encouraging you to subscribe and unlock the new and shiny thing. There is absolutely nothing in the world that anyone can s…

> . V2 is probably now useless considering that it will never get any updates.

How does it becomes useless?

Until there is a new format that you absolutely can't avoid on your day to day life there is no reason you cannot use it the same way you have used it until now.

I think a lot of that feeling is just FOMO.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#535

Post by sedatk »

WillAdams wrote: post #287

Thoughts on opensource alternatives? - Inkscape is an obvious one --- there's also https://cenon.info/ , perhaps Gravit Designer? Any word on Graphite.rs 's stand-alone desktop version? - GIMP, Paint.net, Darktable and Krita - Scribus or LaTeX or Typst

Paint.NET isn't open source, is it?

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#536

Post by wiredpancake »

latexr wrote: post #204
gspencley wrote: post #134

I switched to Affinity as part an ongoing effort to "de-Adobe-ize." I had no idea that they were owned by Canva. This could be good news, but as someone who paid for a perpetual license, I'm worried that some of the features I paid a one-time license for will eventually move to a Canva subscription model :( The reason that worries me is that when I look at the feature chart, you've got "Affinity" compared with "Affin…

> I'm worried that some of the features I paid a one-time license for will eventually move to a Canva subscription model They explicitly promised they wouldn’t switch to a subscription model, during the acquisition. https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity-canva-pledge/ Whether that is true is another thing altogether.

[dead]

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#537

Post by prmoustache »

miladyincontrol wrote: post #247
t-writescode wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Raw formats arent going away but new cameras and lenses do keep coming out which at minimum need correction profiles. Also the DNG spec does continue to be iterated on, not that users will be forced into the latest features like jpeg-xl compression, but some of the changes can be very breaking to older apps.

> but new cameras and lenses do keep coming out which at minimum need correction profiles.

For it to be a problem you need to actually buy said new cameras and lenses.

I am still using my Pentax K5 II and Samsung NX from a bit more than a decade ago (as well as some analog cams but I disgress).

There is a lot of FOMO + Gear Aquisition Syndrome to make that a problem. Maybe one should focus more on actually having a life,using the products they akready own, make arts or memories instead of thinking what is new on the market they are missing out and what to buy next.

Makes me think of those people, perfectly happy with Airpod pro v2 who purchase v3 ones, only to end up frustrated by their new purchase.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#538

Post by drob518 »

reppap wrote: post #516
alt227 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a shame IMO. The Serif suite was great, and I used to try to get every designer I could to dump adobe and switch to serif. Now that it has switched to a freemium model trying to get you to subscribe to AI, I wont be using this or telling other people about it any more. Their priorities have changed. No longer are they trying to to beat adobe at their own game, they are just chasing AI money like everyone…

Personally I think it's great I both get the app for free and they remove all the AI from it. Couldn't get any better!

“You can’t have AI unless you pay extra for it.”

“Um… okay. No AI for me.”

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#539

Post by Andrex »

archagon wrote: post #476
Gigachad wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not dead, but a lot of it is stagnant. How much has Gimp improved in the last 10 years vs photoshop.

Gimp, maybe not so much[1], but I understand that Krita has improved quite a bit. And regardless of stagnancy, both of these applications will continue to exist long after Affinity gets our-incredible-journeyed. [1]: (FWIW, I don't know one way or the other. Apologies to any Gimp developers here.)

Gimp actually, finally had their big 3.0 update earlier this year which "modernized" (to ~5 years ago) a lot of the codebase. The UI is mostly the same but it's using much more modern UI components (editing text isn't terrible now, etc.)

https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/03/16/gimp-3-0-released/

Gimp's problem is mostly one of funding and attention, like most OSS projects. But it's never stopped development, which I think is impressive 27 years on.

Imagine where Gimp would be if any company treated it like Valve treats WINE.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#540

Post by sprkwd »

rcarmo wrote: post #202

Well, I downloaded the Mac app, and here's what I don't like: - Goodness gracious, that icon. And 3.5GB????? - Requires a login (so I suppose no disconnected operation) - Seems to jumble together the vector, bitmap and publishing apps (which I very much prefer to have as separate things) Mostly everything I've been able to try in 30 minutes seems to work, but a 3.5GB app is a sad sign of the times. Will most likely k…

Can I work in more than one app at the same time?
Post reply on HN