Canva has reimagined its Affinity suite, combining professional-grade photo editing, vector design, and page layout tools into one unified platform. The new Affinity Studio app introduces a redesigned interface and an updated brand identity, marking the next phase of the software’s development since its acquisition by Canva in 2024. The application is now free to all users.
Affinity’s new version integrates all design tools into a single workspace that supports both vector and raster editing, as well as document layout. Users can customize their workspace, rearrange tools, and create personalized studios tailored to individual workflows. These configurations can be shared with others, allowing creative teams to exchange work environments and methods.
Performance remains a focus, with real-time previews, GPU acceleration, and smooth handling of large files. The software continues to support non-destructive editing for photos and maintains compatibility with multiple file formats, including PSD, AI, PDF, and SVG.
As part of its integration with Canva, the updated Affinity now includes Canva AI tools such as Generative Fill, Expand & Edit, and Remove Background through the new Canva AI Studio. These tools are available only to users with a Canva Premium subscription. They are embedded directly into the Affinity workspace and are designed to automate repetitive processes while maintaining user control over creative workflows. Canva stated that projects created in Affinity can be exported directly into Canva for collaboration or publishing.
Affinity Studio is available for macOS and Windows, with an iPad version planned for release. Users can activate the app through a Canva account or create one for free to download the software.
For more information, visit the Affinity website.
Clever strategy. This is definitely going to hurt a bit, Adobe…
That’s good news to me. I’m tired of dealing with Adobe’s high charges for software that has seen little improvement for more than 10 years.
Great news. I hope this evolve to bring artists lots of never seen features.
Really bad news for Affinity users. I left Adobe and Photoshop due to their switch to subscription licensing and took the trouble of learning Affinity apps to be able to buy and own the software, and be free from the slavery of “subscription” licenses. Many Affinity users did the same.
Canva bought Affinity and are now making important functionality only available through… subscription. Not only that, they have actually removed features from v2 and made them available for subscription in v3. Slavery again, back to square one.
Many Affinity users are angry about the changes. Quoting a thread from Reddit:
“I can’t believe anyone would really be stupid enough to buy a company whose flagship creative products gained their success in large part by not forcing their users into a subscription model like the competition – and then try to impose a subscription model for those products.”
Looks like open source is the way to go.
I don’t understand why people think this is a positive thing?! The whole point of Affinity was that you could BUY a perpetual license. Now it’s “free”… wow. amazing. Now you can’t vote with your wallet anymore, now they can do whatever the f*** they want with their “free” version and you’ll have to accept it. Free forever? Come on.
Also, why would they continue developing their free feature set now? The money is in the subscriptions, exactly what we didn’t want and exactly why Affinity was interesting in the first place – NO subscriptions. Now we have a dead “free” platform with bullshit subscriptions on top. Slow clap. Good job.
How is Affinity now free?
R.I.P.
Its about levereging the strength of the core product (Canva) against Adobe’s (Photoshop). Canva has built a huge and profitable market of hobby/pod/educational subs.
I would guess its half about merging the smaller professional market that they captured by buying Affinity with their more serious Canva users, and half about fencing-in Canva customers and keeping them as far away from the grip of Adobe as possible. Making Affinity free ensures the transition to professional tools is as friction-free as possible for their core more casual customers.
I wouldn’t worry too much. There are other examples of this model working well – DaVinci Resolve is free and successful, I guess for similar reasons?