Affinity Studio now free • Hacker News Board

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#741

Post by greggh » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 1:28 PM UTC

Slow_Hand wrote: post #483

greggh wrote: post #235

I don't understand this thread at all. I think this is the first time I have seen a thread that talks about something requiring a new account be created at some company, and a nonsensical major change to a product (merging the products into one, optional subscriptions) where the majority of people seem to be saying "thats ok and good luck" to the company. Worse, people who are upset this has happened to software they…

> These three pieces of software are not the same tool and them all being shoehorned into one UI is just idiotic. Have you used it yet? It's a very elegant implementation. I, for one, am very excited about the workflow advantages of being able to easily switch between all three modalities with a click.

I have, and I still think it's idiotic. I don't do any layout work, ever. And I see no future where I will. I don't need all of that in the software I use to do any photo editing.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#742

Post by qustrolabe » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

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

GIMP doesn't have "Patch tool", it doesn't have "Inpaint Brush" that is like content aware fill but brush, it doesn't have content aware fill either. I remember there were some plugins that provide features kinda similar to those tools but it was a huge pain to install and use them through nested filter menus. It's a great program for free open source, but it's decades behind on feature parity with other editors, and launch times long enough for me to prefer opening Photopea tab in browser instead

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#743

Post by ToucanLoucan » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 1:54 PM UTC

sethaurus wrote: post #680

nightski wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing they are giving the core away for free to collect training data.

I think it's simpler than that. Canva's primary competitor is Adobe, and Adobe's remaining advantage is with creative professionals. That's Adobe's core market and their core revenue stream. It's a classic "commoditize your complements" play. Canva remains profitable without charging for Affinity, but Adobe can't stay profitable if they stop charging for Photoshop/Illustrator. The business justification works without…

I mean, 9/10ths of the dark-pattern distrustworthy bullshit businesses pull is not required to attain or maintain "profitability," it's just squeezing every dime of revenue from their customers.

I would frankly rather pay for software then be left wondering if I can trust free commercial software.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#744

Post by ToucanLoucan » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 1:54 PM UTC

usefulcat wrote: post #625

blackqueeriroh wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can opt out of the telemetry sharing

So they say, for now, for some definition of "telemetry" and "sharing", caveat caveat caveat..

Asterisks and super-text numbers, the foundation of any trusting business relationship thumbs up

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#745

Post by politelemon » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 1:58 PM UTC

ezfe wrote: post #350

nirava wrote: post #238

This is a deletion. - they're completely stopping all updates to v2; even image trace won't be coming to it. You might have paid for perpetual access to it 2 months ago, but it has completely stopped. As the world moves on (new chips, new OS features, just general software movement) this will increasingly feel like a second-class experience. - the new "free" software is a sales funnel into the paid subscription, and…

Isn't this EXACTLY what subscriptions fix, though? That you can stop paying if the product stops getting updates. Everyone wanted a one time license, you aren't allowed to complain when that one-time licensed product stops getting updates. Note: I own a license to V2 of the Serif suite.

Quite the opposite, unfortunately. They are designed so that you cannot stop paying without substantial loss rendering it practically impossible.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#746

Post by npilk » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

kyer-sh wrote: post #579

npilk wrote: post #502

What a fascinating thread. I bought Affinity Photo and Designer V1 as one-time purchases a few years ago. I didn't upgrade to V2 when those came out. I have continued to occasionally use the V1 apps - I was just in Photo the other day. To me this is exactly why you would want to buy software licenses as one-time purchases - the company can't rug pull you for what you already bought. If I want, I can keep using the Af…

You answered your own question. Buying a perpetual license ensures the company can’t rug pull you. Not having the option for a perpetual license gives no guarantees of the sort. One of Serif’s top selling points was the perpetual license, and people were rightfully nervous about the Canva acquisition. They even made it a huge point in their announcement to reassure people who were nervous about the perpetual license…

It's absolutely reasonable to criticize the decision and feel like you're losing an option in the future. I guess I would expect this to scan more as disappointment, rather than anger or the sense of being 'ripped off' which some people were expressing.

But these days I use (the free version of) Figma for a lot of what I would have used Affinity for, so I am surely not as sensitive to this change as people who use their tools every day.

I also wonder if the paradigm shift to SaaS has caused us to have more forward-looking perspectives about software in general (rather than focusing on what exists today).

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#747

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #743

sethaurus wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's simpler than that. Canva's primary competitor is Adobe, and Adobe's remaining advantage is with creative professionals. That's Adobe's core market and their core revenue stream. It's a classic "commoditize your complements" play. Canva remains profitable without charging for Affinity, but Adobe can't stay profitable if they stop charging for Photoshop/Illustrator. The business justification works without…

I mean, 9/10ths of the dark-pattern distrustworthy bullshit businesses pull is not required to attain or maintain "profitability," it's just squeezing every dime of revenue from their customers. I would frankly rather pay for software then be left wondering if I can trust free commercial software.

[deleted]

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#748

Post by srmatto » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 2:27 PM UTC

As of right now it seems like if you have the old V2 apps installed they can still be (re)activated with your old Serif/Affinity license that is tied to an email. I was able to just do that with Designer v2. I also seem to be able to re-down them through the Apple App Store and they work fine. You do get a prompt "Would you like to keep your app linked to your Affinity Store account? This allows you to automatically stream any free or purchased content you have directly to your app." But its unclear to me what that means at the moment given that Canva has changed the licensing model.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#749

Post by zajio1am » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 2:27 PM UTC

isodev wrote: post #645

curioussquirrel wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photoshop now has a bunch of features that get used in professional environments. And in the end user space, facial recognition or magic eraser are features in apps like Google Photos that people actively use and like. People probably don't care that it's AI under the hood, in fact they probably don't even realize. There is a lot of unchecked hype, but that doesn't mean there is no substance.

When people say AI, they refer to LLMs. Your examples are models in general which have been around for a lot longer before the OpenAI and techbros had the AGI wet dream.

In the context of graphics, AI is usually associated with Stable diffusion / Midjourney, which are not LLMs.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#750

Post by al_borland » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 2:27 PM UTC

npilk wrote: post #502

What a fascinating thread. I bought Affinity Photo and Designer V1 as one-time purchases a few years ago. I didn't upgrade to V2 when those came out. I have continued to occasionally use the V1 apps - I was just in Photo the other day. To me this is exactly why you would want to buy software licenses as one-time purchases - the company can't rug pull you for what you already bought. If I want, I can keep using the Af…

The future roadmap we thought we had seems to have gone away. I won’t be using the “free” version, as there are unknown strings attached I’m sure. If not now, down the road.

Yes, I can keep using v2, but how much do I want to invest in an app that I know has an expiration date for me? I need to start planning my exit, so I’m not left in a bad spot down the road.

I’m curious what Apple plans to do with Pixelmator. They bought it a while back. I was a Pixelmator user, but switched to Affinity. Now I’m not sure what to do.

I’m lucky though, as I’m just a hobbyist, so it’s not as serious as it is for some who have professional workflows who need to look at finding something that will still allow them to do their job.