Affinity
Canva's free professional creative suite for vector, photo, and layout work.
Acquired — still operating
acquired by Canva Mar 2024 (~$380M); continues
About
Affinity is a professional-grade creative suite that relaunched as a single unified desktop app on October 30, 2025, now completely free. It merges the three legacy Affinity apps — Designer (vector), Photo (pixel editing), and Publisher (page layout) — into one workspace you can switch between without leaving the application, and it opens common Adobe formats including PSD and INDD files. Canva acquired Serif's Affinity lineup in March 2024 in a deal widely reported at around $380 million, and the 2025 relaunch was its first major move with the brand.
The free tier unlocks the full core creative toolset on macOS and Windows (iPad was listed as coming soon), which makes it the most capable free Adobe alternative available. The catch is the AI: Generative Fill, Expand & Edit, and Remove Background plug in through Canva AI Studio but require a Canva premium subscription, and you need a verified Canva account to use the app at all. Updates kept coming after launch — Affinity 3.3 landed in September 2026 with a Scripting Studio for JavaScript automation and INDD import. For designers who want real vector and layout tools without a subscription, there is nothing else this complete at this price.
What it can do
- Unified vector, pixel, and layout workspaces in one app
- Professional photo editing, RAW development, and compositing
- Page layout with master pages and ePub support
- Opens PSD, AI, PDF, SVG, TIFF, IDML, and INDD files
- Canva AI Studio tools (Generative Fill, Remove Background) for Canva premium subscribers
- Scripting Studio for JavaScript automation (v3.3+)
Setup
Download free from Canva/Affinity for macOS and Windows; sign in with a verified Canva account (free accounts work).
Prerequisites
A free Canva account. macOS or Windows desktop (iPad version pending at time of research).
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 9/10
Scored 9/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: Verified via vendor site/docs/GitHub and reputable coverage, wave 71; Trending score 90/100 from researcher assessment.
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.