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Affinity Studio now free

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Re: Affinity Studio now free

#751

Post by lr0 »

emsign wrote: post #700
pentagrama wrote: post #143

I used Affinity for several years, so to add some background here: Serif is the company that originally built this software. -------- 2014–2024 Serif developed the Affinity suite, a collection of three independent desktop apps sold with a one-time payment model: - Affinity Designer: vector graphic design (Adobe Illustrator equivalent) - Affinity Photo: digital image editing (Adobe Photoshop equivalent) - Affinity Pub…

Oh, so it's disguised as being free but in reality it's one major step towards becoming a subscription model. Got it.

I don't get what makes you say so?

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#752

Post by fainpul »

Andrex wrote: post #539
archagon wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

Can I now finally open a png or jpg file, make some edits and hit or do I still have to go through the "Export" dialog?

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#754

Post by antonyh »

I loved the Affinity apps, but not on a subscription. I don't do subscriptions or 'freemium' for apps, only for content. On desktop I'll move to Krita / Inkscape / Scribus. On iPad, not sure yet. The key here is watching out for proprietary formats that won't open without the app or subscription; this is something we are going through with Microsoft Publisher offboarding right now to ensure we can archive and read the designs in the future. The same applies to Affinity - if you value past creations, export them to a common future-proof format.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#755

Post by archerx »

inanutshellus wrote: post #724
archerx wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning GIMP is not worth it for anyone, people should use the much better and actually usable open source alternative called “Krita”.

Maybe other apps are better, but my guess is that they just work harder at copying PhotoShop's UX whilst GIMP actively worked to innovate. Remember too that PhotoShop itself is unintuitive and hard to learn. That unintuitiveness is a mark of honor for Photoshop ("ooo, it's so powerful you have to take _classes_ to learn it!") and a mark of shame for GIMP ("ooo, those twits didn't clone PhotoShop, the fools! It's so h…

Well GIMP innovated in the wrong way, you can put the steering wheel in the backseat of a car in the name of innovation but that doesn’t make it better. I honestly would rather use JavaScript and canvas over GIMP because it’s just more intuitive.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#756

Post by carlosjobim »

maccard wrote: post #731
carlosjobim wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A one time license is sold on the promise of future updates perpetually to this version. No it is not and has never been. Of course not, and you must understand that.

That’s exactly what is. Of course legally they’re entitled to not do that, but google are also legally entitled to close your account for any reason they see fit. If they mass deactivated accounts on one of those clauses they’d likely legally be right but they’d be pulling a real asshole move, which is what affinity/canva have done here.

Surely if you want to oblige companies to release new versions because you purchased a version in the past, then you also have to oblige every customer to also purchase the new version. Which would be preposterous.

When you purchase something you should get exactly what you purchased, nothing more and nothing less. That's how business has been conducted for three hundred thousand years by now.

Affinity cannot deactivate the software you have purchased, that would be outside of the law.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#757

Post by bigbuppo »

spiderice wrote: post #241
bigbuppo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's smart only if their business goal is to lose every single customer they had specifically because it wasn't subscription software and didn't have the AI junk that their customers specifically did not want.

Yeah I'm not sure throwing away their single advantage (that's not hyperbole) over Adobe is a smart play

The DTP app actually does something that neither InDesign nor Quark handles properly, but it's something so specific I would dox myself if I mentioned it.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#758

Post by mh- »

mermerico wrote: post #600
dangus wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize that money rules everything but I find it so confusing that so many companies will spend a decade building a great product and then just exit with full knowledge that it will be the inevitable end of the relevance of their work. You might think that some founders somewhere out there would be motivated by some level of ego to say “no, I won’t sell out, I built this amazing thing and the highest bidder owner…

In this case their work is getting a whole lot more impact as people are getting it for free and there is a huge marketing team behind it. If I was an engineer at this company I would be thrilled.

This would be my reaction as well. The commenters on this post are exceptionally cynical and jaded even by HN standards.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#759

Post by Mobius01 »

I am disappointed by this development, as the precedent for this business model is out there for anyone to see. But I have little to add about that

What I do hope to see is more talent and investment contributed to OSS tools. It would really benefit everyone if GIMP, Inkscape, Krita and others received the Blender treatment.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#760

Post by ndr42 »

js-j wrote: post #753

They've lost a loyal customer. I no longer have a reason to continue using the product, and would rather switch to Adobe.

What was your reason to use the product (to what end) and what has changed now that you now have no reason to continue to use it? What has Adobe to do with it?

I get that some have fears that Affinity is getting unusable for them in the future so maybe it's good to look for alternatives. But if you are willing to switch to Adobe you can do this when it has gotten unusable.

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