Affinity Designer vs Adobe Illustrator

by Gralio Apr 24, 2025

Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator are both powerful vector graphics editors, but cater to different needs. Affinity Designer excels with its affordable one-time purchase price, smooth performance, and integrated vector/raster capabilities, making it a strong choice for businesses prioritizing value and a unified workflow. Adobe Illustrator, the industry standard, offers unparalleled integration within the Adobe Creative Cloud ecosystem, extensive features, and vast learning resources, justifying its subscription cost for teams needing deep interoperability and the absolute latest tools.

At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.

This comparison was created by analysing 5551 reviews and 60 websites, saving 1 day, 7 hours, 20 minutes of reading.

Logo of Affinity Designer
Logo of Adobe Illustrator

About

Affinity Designer is professional graphic design software for creating illustrations, logos, and marketing materials. It's known for its speed, wide range of features, and ability to handle complex designs smoothly. Affinity Designer offers both vector and raster design capabilities in one package and is compatible with both Mac and Windows. Unlike subscription-based design software, it requires only a one-time purchase.
Adobe Illustrator is the industry-standard software for creating vector graphics. It's used by designers to create illustrations, logos, and other artwork for print, web, and video. Unlike raster images, vector graphics can be scaled to any size without losing quality. This makes Illustrator ideal for creating designs that will be used at various sizes, such as logos and illustrations. Illustrator offers a wide range of tools and features, including tools for drawing, typography, and color.

Summary

Main difference
The main difference lies in the pricing model and ecosystem. Affinity Designer offers a one-time purchase and combines vector/raster workflows, appealing to budget-conscious users. Adobe Illustrator is the subscription-based industry standard, deeply integrated within the extensive Adobe Creative Cloud suite.

Relative strengths of Affinity Designer (compared to Adobe Illustrator)

  • Better Value for Money: Affinity Designer's one-time purchase is significantly more cost-effective long-term compared to Adobe Illustrator's recurring subscription model, offering strong value.

  • Combined Vector and Raster Workflow: It allows seamless switching between vector and raster editing modes within the same application, eliminating the need for separate software like Photoshop for certain tasks.

  • Performance: Affinity Designer is often noted for its speed and responsiveness, efficiently handling complex documents with thousands of objects without significant lag, as highlighted in its core features.

Relative weaknesses of Affinity Designer (compared to Adobe Illustrator)

  • Limited Ecosystem Integration: Unlike Illustrator's deep integration with Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, InDesign, etc.), Affinity Designer lacks this seamless connection, potentially slowing workflows involving multiple Adobe apps.

  • Fewer Advanced/Niche Features: Illustrator has a longer development history and includes some specialized features (like advanced text tools e.g., Retype font identification, AI-powered features like Project Neo 2D to 3D) that Affinity Designer lacks or has less developed versions of (e.g., vector tracing).

  • Smaller Community and Resource Pool: As the industry standard, Illustrator benefits from a vast amount of tutorials, plugins, and readily available skilled professionals compared to the smaller, though growing, Affinity community.

Who is using Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator?

No data
Michael Janda
Creative director and YouTuber - 42K subs
Tobias Liebsch
Partner The Growth Syndicate

Who should use Affinity Designer VS. Adobe Illustrator

Affinity Designer is a strong graphic design tool we often recommend, especially for those avoiding subscriptions. Users frequently praise its one-time cost and smooth handling of complex vector and raster designs. It's particularly favored by freelance designers and small to medium agencies looking for a powerful, budget-friendly alternative to other mainstream options. While some advanced features might be missing compared to competitors, its core performance and value are highly regarded based on user feedback we've seen.

We find Adobe Illustrator is essential for professional designers creating scalable vector artwork like logos or icons. It's the industry benchmark, integrating smoothly within the Adobe Creative Cloud. While its power is undeniable, be aware of the steep learning curve and subscription costs mentioned by users. It's versatile for print, web, and video needs.

  • We find Affinity Designer is an excellent choice for freelancers, small design teams, and medium-sized businesses needing powerful design tools.

  • In our experience, while used across many sectors, Affinity Designer really shines in creative fields like media, marketing, and design agencies.

  • In our experience, Adobe Illustrator works well for design teams of any size, from solo freelancers and small studios to large enterprises.

  • We find Adobe Illustrator is a key tool across various sectors, particularly strong in Marketing, Advertising, and creative agencies.

Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator features

Supported
Partially supported
Not supported
Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

  • SVG import/export
    Supported

    Affinity Designer supports both importing and exporting SVG files.

    Supported

    Illustrator supports importing and exporting SVG files.

  • Fast and responsive vector graphics editor
    Supported

    Affinity Designer handles complex files, offers precise selections, live outline view, and zoom over 1,000,000%.

    Supported

    Illustrator handles complex files, layers, and precise selections. Performance with many objects and zoom levels depends on resources.

  • Seamless vector/raster switching
    Supported

    Affinity Designer supports seamless switching between vector and raster graphics, combining both, and offers non-destructive adjustments.

    Not supported

    Illustrator doesn't support seamless vector/raster switching with a single click.

  • Artboards
    Supported

    Affinity Designer supports artboards for managing design variations or multi-page documents.

    Supported

    Illustrator supports artboards for multiple designs or pages within a file.

  • Artistic effects
    Not supported

    Affinity Designer does not support artistic filters for stylizing designs into paintings.

    Supported

    Illustrator supports applying artistic filters to stylize designs.

  • SVG export
    Supported

    Affinity Designer allows exporting artwork as SVG files.

    Supported

    Illustrator supports exporting artwork to SVG format.

Qualities

  • Value and Pricing Transparency
    +0.33
    Rather positive sentiment
    -0.76
    Strongly negative sentiment
  • Customer Service
    No data
    +0.33
    Rather positive sentiment
  • Ease of Use
    +0.67
    Rather positive sentiment
    +0.48
    Rather positive sentiment
  • Reliability and Performance
    +1
    Strongly positive sentiment
    +0.08
    Neutral sentiment
  • Ease of Implementation
    No data
    -0.5
    Rather negative sentiment
  • Scalability
    No data
    +0.88
    Strongly positive sentiment

Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator Pricing

Affinity offers a one-time purchase option for their design software, available in various bundles and for different operating systems (macOS, Windows, iPadOS).
Plans

User sentiment

Rather positive
+0.33

See full Pricing page

No data

User sentiment

Strongly negative
-0.76

See full Pricing page

Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator review insights

5551 reviews analysed from and

Users love

  • One-time purchase, no subscription.
  • Fast and smooth performance, especially with complex designs.
  • User-friendly and intuitive interface.
  • Excellent compatibility with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files.
  • Handles both vector and raster graphics effectively.
  • Precise and scalable vector graphics
  • Versatile tools for drawing, typography, and color
  • Seamless integration with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps
  • Industry-standard software with wide range of features
  • Customizable workspace and tools

Users dislike

  • Text distortion tools are lacking.
  • Vector tracing could be improved.
  • Some Adobe Illustrator features are missing.
  • Occasional performance issues, especially on Windows.
  • Batch processing and file format conversion could be expanded.
  • Difficult to learn for new users
  • Resource intensive, can cause lag and crashes
  • High subscription cost
  • Limited raster editing capabilities
  • Occasional bugs and glitches

Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator Ratings

  • G2
    4.6/5
    (227)
  • Capterra
    4.7/5
    (391)
  • Glassdoor
    3.5/5
    (16)
  • G2
    4.6/5
    (2484)
  • Capterra
    4.8/5
    (2449)
  • Glassdoor
    4.3/5
    (10097)

Company health

Employee growth

5% increase in the last year
3% decrease in the last year

Web traffic

19% decrease in the last quarter
4% increase in the last quarter

Financing

No data
April 1984 - $3M

How important is a one-time purchase versus subscription?

The pricing model difference is significant. Affinity Designer's one-time purchase is a major advantage highlighted by users, appealing strongly to those seeking predictable costs and long-term value, particularly freelancers and smaller businesses. Conversely, Adobe Illustrator's subscription model is frequently cited as a negative due to its higher ongoing cost, although it provides access to the industry-standard tool and broader Adobe ecosystem. Therefore, the importance hinges on budget priorities and whether the user prefers a single upfront investment versus continuous payments for potentially more features and integrations over time.

Which product better integrates with existing Adobe workflows?

Adobe Illustrator integrates better with existing Adobe workflows. As part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, Illustrator is designed for seamless integration with other Adobe applications like Photoshop and InDesign, which users highlight as a key benefit. While Affinity Designer offers good compatibility with Adobe file formats like PSD and AI, Adobe Illustrator provides a more deeply embedded experience within the broader Adobe ecosystem.

What are the advantages of Affinity Designer?

Affinity Designer offers significant advantages, primarily its one-time purchase model which contrasts sharply with subscription-based competitors, making it a highly affordable option. Users consistently praise its fast, smooth, and responsive performance, capable of handling complex documents and thousands of objects without lag. It is also noted for being more user-friendly and intuitive than some alternatives. Furthermore, Affinity Designer uniquely combines vector and raster editing capabilities seamlessly within one application and maintains good compatibility with common industry file formats.

What are the disadvantages of Affinity Designer?

Affinity Designer is reported to have some limitations, including lacking certain text distortion tools and features commonly found in Adobe Illustrator. Users suggest that its vector tracing capabilities could be improved. Some users have experienced occasional performance issues, particularly on Windows. Furthermore, its batch processing and file format conversion options could be more extensive.

Alternatives to Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator

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Page co-authored by
MK
Michal Kaczor
CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

TT
Tymon Terlikiewicz
CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

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