Serif’s Affinity suite was already an audacious land-grab. It challenged Adobe’s increasingly spendy Creative Cloud subscription by making pro-grade photo editing and design tools more accessible through affordable and old-school pay-once pricing. The suite started on desktop and later headed to iPad. Those weren’t watered down versions either, but effectively the originals, optimised for touch.
All was good for a while. But fans got twitchy last year when Serif was snapped up by Canva, a company rather fond of subscriptions itself. Such concern escalated to full-blown panic this October when Affinity desktop apps vanished from sale, replaced by the cryptic slogan “Creative Freedom Is Coming”.
Everyone assumed the worst. Enshittification felt imminent. Surely Affinity would be folded into Canva or become a subscription zombie? Perhaps both? Either way, the consensus was the Affinity people loved was gone forever. But no, because Affinity’s latest play is the most audacious yet, making the software free forever.
One app to rule them all
In fact, it goes further. Historically, Affinity’s trio – Photo, Designer, Publisher – made it easy to hop between photo editing, vector illustration and page layout work. Now those apps have been merged into one unified beast. Affinity says this lets you “design, edit, and publish without switching apps or breaking flow”.
That flow can be heavily customised, by users mixing and matching tools from Pixel, Vector and Layout studios to build workspaces that work for them. This is all twinned with non-destructive adjustments that let you experiment without wrecking your work, and features like thousands of layers and a ridiculous 10,000,000x zoom.
So what’s the catch? Well, the iPad version won’t be ready until next year, which explains why the iPad Affinity suite quietly went free rather than being pulled from the App Store. And there’s the integration of Canva AI tools, such as Generative Fill, Expand & Edit and Remove Background. GenAI is… divisive (let’s say) in the creative world. But those tools are entirely optional and Canva promises your work in Affinity “is not accessed to train AI features” anyway.
Photoshock
As someone who’s funnelled a small fortune into Adobe’s coffers since Photoshop 1.0, I think Adobe should be worried. Affinity was already quietly disruptive in the creative industry. But a free Affinity could upend everything in the wider landscape.
Pro-grade creative tools are now free, but not just for pros. They’re for everyone. That means a new generation of wannabe photo editors, designers and illustrators can grow up using Affinity by default. And those people who occasionally need to open or tweak a PSD, AI, SVG or IDML can do so instantly, without taking out a subscription they otherwise don’t need.
There are still concerns. Products that don’t make obvious money are usually the first to be culled. Canva counters that this isn’t a charity move, though, but a continuation of its existing business model: free tools for all and premium extras for those who want them (in this case, through those AI tools). However, this is now also applied to pro apps.
It does technically break Canva’s pledge to “offer perpetual licenses”, but given that the new price is literally zero, I think we can forgive the company for that. What I’m interested in now is not just how Affinity evolves, but also how Adobe responds. Affinity is no plucky upstart anymore. It’s part of a massive platform with designs (oho!) on democratising creativity for everyone, not just those with deep pockets.
The all-new Affinity is available today for Mac and Windows. Affinity for iPad will be released in 2026.
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