Adobe Illustrator vs Affinity Designer Comparison

Lightweight & intuitive software, still the number 1 offering for vector artwork.

The lack of a fully fledged iPad app, Adobe should take note of Affinity Designer.

I like the intuitiveness of adobe products the most. I learned everything very quickly, the internet - YouTube in particular is very helpful. I use the shape builder or warp options very often. automatic tracing is a brilliant tool!

it would be best if you could create hybrid illustrations like in affinity designer. Now it can be done, but it's not that cool as in affinity

I love most everything about it. It's ease of use, the free feeling workflow. It's ability to use photos in numerous. Creating vectors are great! Their new features for creating are good too. But I still use it in old school ways.

Some of the Photoshop features that are in Illustrator cause the program to work slow. It's not a deal breaker, but I wish that was better.

It is part of the adobe cloud. So, files generated in Adobe PDF, photoshop etc. are compatible with this software.

It is extremely pricey. Its competitor software Affinity Designer is 100 times less costly with almost the same features.

I love the fact that Illustrator has tons of features like image trace, and 3D capabilities as well as standard vector drawing and editing tools. I also appreciate how it keeps improving with regular updates.

Even though I love the huge number of features in Illustrator, it sometimes feels too cluttered and chaotic when working.

Illustrator has been my go-to for many years for vector artwork. It is an industry standard software and can handle just about anything thrown at it.

The subscription based licensing has caused me to stop using Illustrator and switch to Affinity Designer. While Designer has taken a bit of a learning curve, after 2 1/2 months it has now paid itself off.

Illustrator is very powerful and can turn graphics into re-usable vectors and 3D formats. This is crucial for creating 3D logos from 2D images. The workflows are very straight forward once you learn the basics. If you come from an adobe background you should be able to take off running.

As with any adobe software, I dislike the price. Affinity designer offers a similar product at a fraction of the price that works with iPads.

Una delle principali caratteristiche di Illustrator è la possibilità di creare disegni vettoriali, che possono essere ridimensionati senza perdere la qualità dell'immagine. Quindi è proprio la qualità di resa che piace di più perché con questo software puoi creare biglietti da visita, poster, manifesti, brochure e anche insegne pubblicitarie.

Il software è parecchio complesso e non si può imparare in due giorni. ha diverse funzioni professionali che vanno studiate e comprese per ottenere il massimo. Illustrator è progettato principalmente per la creazione di grafica vettoriale, il che significa che non è la scelta migliore per la manipolazione di immagini raster o fotografie. Inoltre il prezzo è alto. In generale tutta la suite Adobe ha un costo mensile alto, il che non è il massimo per chi vuole studiare e provare.

Being a well-established standard for vector graphic creation and editing, Illustrator is able to open, edit and save the most diffused vector file types (directly or via the "export as" menu).

Ever since Adobe moved to the Cloud subscription formula, their software has become a bit too expensive for small businesses. Alternatives like Affinity Designer have become valid alternatives and they have a much lower price.

It has many many features and great integration with the other Adobe products.

Adobe cc is very expensive and for a much lower, one-time price, you can get Affinity Designer which I found was much easier to use and had nearly as many features as Illustrator

Illustrator is the "all in one" software, nothing else in the market provides so many options. Because it is the most widely used, there are tons of samples and starters online which makes each job easier.

The monthly fee, unlike most other design software where you only pay once, like Affinity Designer. Also the program is not for inexperienced designers, it takes a lot of time to get used to all of the tools.

Everything about it worked like a charm. The entire Adobe package is great and is constantly being updated.

There is no affordable option to use this software. While competitors like Affinity Designer offer a much lower price, Adobe keeps their price up so high it is barely affordable. They also offer a monthly subscription which is not much better.

Everything about it worked like a charm. The entire Adobe package is great and is constantly being updated.

There is no affordable option to use this software. While competitors like Affinity Designer offer a much lower price, Adobe keeps their price up so high it is barely affordable. They also offer a monthly subscription which is not much better.

Illustrator is the defacto software for digital design, and it's feature set is unrivaled. The only app which comes close is affinity designer, but until they bring out an image tracing tool, then illustrator will continue to be the best.

Cost, the monthly subscription is expensive and there is no way to economically own the software outright.

Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard graphic design software for over 25 years. It is essential for graphic designers. AI is very versatile software for vector-based artwork from illustrations to logos, and it has almost unlimited export options from a business card to a billboard size. The interface is clean and intuitive, and the software can be used for both print and web. It also integrates well with other Adobe apps.

It is extremely expensive for a subscription, and makes it not affordable for anyone who only infrequently uses the software with no option to buy it outright. There is also a steep learning curve when just getting started.

We have been using the original licensed version of the software in our organization for a pretty long time. The creative dept. uses the software for designing icons for web and app, logos, print materials and business cards. Can be virtually used for almost any type of designing. Expertise in Photoshop and InDesign will be very much helpful in using this software. A wide set of tools, filters and...

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1. Even though tutorials are useful, only a professionally trained designer can take full advantage of the software. The learning curve is steep. 1-2 year is required for attaining proficiency. 2. Quite expensive. This may be due to the monopoly Adobe has over this space. 3. Updates are very rare. For fixing minor to major bugs and errors, we have to wait a long time. 4. For editing objects with multiple nodes and for complex designing, the system resources are consumed very quickly and cause the system to hang or crash at many times.

The value that Adobe Illustrator provides is the time you save using a full-featured software for complex projects.

The price of Adobe Illustrator by itself does not make a lot of sense. However, if you already own an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, the price is justified. It is unnecessarily slower than other software because of all the features it provides. I understand that a lot of them are meant for other kind of professionals but for my use, they only make my experience worse.

Illustrator is an industry-standard, it is very powerful, but unlike Freehand the Macromedia Application it swallowed it is not the easiest Vector drawing application to use, it is very easy to get stuck in a loop where you click and get an error that doesn't explain what you have done wrong at all! But if you need to draw a Map or a logo it is very powerful software indeed!

Since the CC Rental model has been introduced the software has been dumbed down greatly and is in danger of having too many features for the pro user to take seriously, since switching to Affinity designer I am much happier, Affinity Designer is still difficult to use like Illustrator (possibly a common theme with Vector illustration software?) But it is software you buy and then is yours! I loathe rented software it simply doesn't fit well with the needs of a self employed person, where you need your cash flow, flowing in rather than a constant trickle streaming out!

The nice thing about Adobe Illustrator is you can do anything you want, as far as manipulating graphics and creating any digital artwork or illustration imaginable. It's so versatile in what you can do, that it also can seem very complex to the novice. But if you stick with it and use it consistently or take some tutorials, once you learn the ins and outs of Adobe Illustrator, you begin to realize...

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The biggest con I can think of is the learning curve. When first starting to use Adobe Illustrator is it can seem very complex. So when you're new, is a pretty big learning curve. With that said, I still am learning after 5+ years. For this reason, I recommend taking some tutorials or classes to understand what illustrator is capable of and for learning what every tool does. Taking tutorials also...

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It offers an incredible amount of functionality. If you are used to it and familiar with how it works in depth, you have a weapon under your fingers. Though kinda hard to reach this point

Steep learning curve and not easy to use in general. If I use Affinity Designer for example, it seems like so much easier to use without sacrificing functionality - this might not be true from the perspective of a professional, maybe there is functionality others don't have I'm not sure.

Adobe is the standard in the industry for a reason. All of the features you want are there.

Real time effects and effects layers ala Affinity would be awesome.

Illustrator is great because it works hand in hand with all the other Adobe projects and it would be easy to learn if you have experience with the other programs. There are tools on the program that make certain things easier to do like creating shapes and drawing with a line to create a vector that is simple to do and makes creating, fun and easy.

Not much that I don't like about this software. The only thing I'd like to see in the future is an app I can use that works very well and similar on the iPad. Right now I switch to using Affinity Designer when I need to create vectors on the tablet.

Easy-to-use and easy-to-learn. Its menus and toolbar are intuitive and offer a wide range of action or tools to create your artwork. Starting from simple shapes till really complex projects. You may contact the Adobe support at any time if needed. There are also a lot of helpful resources online, so you only have to ask to figure out any issue. It allows creating vector projects that are completely scalable and so perfect for any use. It works on almost any OS. It is the most complete vector graphic design software at the moment, even if Affinity Designer is becoming very competitive and is turning out to be a good alternative to Illustrator.

You might encounter some bug while working on Illustrator. It may happen that the software will crash while using it so pay attention to activate the recovery option and to compulsively save your work to avoid the loss of the work done. It's a little bit expensive, considering that Affinity Designer is increasing its features at an unbeatable price.

Like all Adobe products Illustrator offers a wide range of impressive tools. You can do complex graphics, beautiful graphics with features made to know what the designer wishes to do or with features which at least will assist you well. Illustrator will make your life easier after you have learned how to use it. And of course you can add actions, brushes and more. Everything can be personalized as you wish.

For a beginner or somebody who previously worked with Affinity Designer Illustrator by Adobe is more far more complicated not only through the mass of features, but also how you handle something. I still struggle when I want to create a curved line and my drawings don't look so good. Here you need to learn a lot and better tutorials in Illustrator would help.

Despite the arrival of new challengers such as Affinity Designer in recent years, Adobe Illustrator is still the industry standard when it comes to vector graphics. We use it for primarily for logo design and iconography creation, but the possibilities are limitless for artists and professional illustrators, with a myriad of robust tools to create artworks in any style imaginable. Creators can take it even further when paired with Photoshop and its digital painting capabilities.

The number of features and tools might be overwhelming for new users.

- The software is very fast. It works great with all computers I tested it on. - The price is really a big big plus for it.

- No comptability with Adobe illustrator, I can not share my works with people using Adobe. It is a big con because Adobe is the leader

This software is much easier to learn than Adobe Illustrator. The Product is also much cheaper. It has less functions than Adobe Illustrator but it doesn't really matter because the most important, most used and trusted functions are there. Because it is easy to use you can get your work done much faster and more efficiently than Adobe Illustrator for example.

It doesn't have as many functions as adobe Illustrator. But great product nonetheless.

Great program and same usability as the Adobe Illustrator for way less.

No cons, great for my business and personal uses.

Cost and Function! These two factors blow Adobe Illustrator out of the water. For only 40-50 bucks you can have a fully functioning program with almost all of the same functions as adobe illustrator. A designers dream

Some of the advanced functions of Adobe Illustrator aren't in place yet. Smart function of drawing an outline around a picture is not there yet.

Very reasonable price compared to Adobe Illustrator. That's the only reason I bought it.

For my use to create a few icon for my own application, I didn't find anything I don't like. Maybe it would have been nice to have the possibility to export the icons for all sizes for Android and iOS without having to configure it all manually.

Feature rich, One time payment (vs subscription), easy to use (coming from Adobe Illustrator)

Missing integration with Adobe fonts, text distortion tools, vector tracing

Affinity Designer è un ottimo programma per la produzione di grafica vettoriale. Ha tutti gli strumenti per svolgere questo lavoro ed è al passo con il suo diretto concorrente, Adobe Illustrator. Dalla sua ha anche il fattore prezzo: mentre Adobe Illustrator ha un costo mensile sotto forma di abbonamento, con Affinity Designer è possibile acquistare ad un prezzo accessibile la licenza valida a vita. In più il team di sviluppo aggiorna costantemente il programma implementando nuove funzionalità.

Il programma non ha molti difetti, soprattutto se si considera il prezzo rispetto al prodotto di Adobe, ma per quanto sia completo, Affinity Designer non ha strumenti molto specifici come Adobe Illustrator. Punta all'essenziale, cosa che per la maggior parte delle persone può andare bene, ma non per chi vuole spremere il programma al massimo no.

It is MUCH more affordable than its counterpart, Adobe Illustrator with almost the same functionality.

The platform looks different from Illustrator, making it difficult to navigate at times. There are some issues related to how recent the program is as well. For example, there is limited customer support online, particularly for custom ideas; important tools, such as the knife tool, that have not yet been incorporated. In the future, I expect the program will be much more complete than it is currently.

It has almost the same features as Adobe illustrator with much less the price of the latter. The opening time of the software is much less than Illustrator.

It is still in the developing stage. It can open many of the image file formats as Illustrator such as PICT format.

The great fact is that I can just paid once and forget it. I don't have to be concerned about paid upgrades for in the future. And this is the most important factor that I had considered before investing on AD. Modern and simple user interface to work with. It has got almost all the basic functions that Adobe Illustrator offers. Simple workflows and tools (and colourful icons as well) are readily found within the menu and tool sets. Also, in terms of certain workflows in designing graphics, it is actually more intuitive and I can achieve the same result with fewer steps. AD had gained popularity and mass appeal users from notorious Adobe Illustrator and other graphic tools. It can do almost all kinds of design within the software.

What I found lacking is that it does not support plugins like Adobe Illustrator does. Also, it is not updated as frequent as Adobe Illustrator does. Certain complex design workflows may be not easily achievable within AD with a few steps. There is still room for improvement though for the software to be as powerful and even better than Illustrator.

It has a very competetive pricing for what it can do. It does not have a subscription model, which is very incommon nowadays. While it is still lacking behind on some features compared to others like Adobe Illustrator, it is catching up fast.

Some features that one is used to from Adobe Illustrator are missing. Hoping for the addition in a future update.

It completely replaces Adobe Illustrator without monthly fees. It has all the features needed to deliver quality vector graphics.

Illustrator has been around for a long time and has many people producing tutorials and other resources. Designer has grown and thus improved on this a lot but still has some way to go to be as comprehensive as Illustrator.

When compared to the ubiquitous Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer is a more affordable vector software and the learning curve is minimal. If you're familiar with the Adobe Suite you will recognise tools and elements that are quite similar to Illustrator and even Photoshop, so getting started should be really straightforward. It also allows you to import Illustrator files, which works surprisingly well.

- Occasional crashes when working with larger files. - Lacks some advanced features that are found in Illustrator

I've been using Affinity Photo, Designer and now Publisher for years. I have consistently found their products to be far superior to the alternatives from Adobe in terms of performance, UI and the tools available. Given that they were originally designed specifically for the Mac, their performance and usability has always outstripped Adobe.

There aren't any real cons to Designer. The only criticism I have of the overall creative suite from Affinity is that there is, as of now, no solution similar to Lightroom. The main focus of my business is photography, so being able to organize and make basic adjustments would be wonderful.

This seats at the centre of the Graphic Design pipeline. The export functionality makes this a must-reach-for tool of illustration and UX.

The "Select ... " functionality needs to be improved. If I lock or hide objects, when I "Select same fill colour", it should not be able to select the locked or hidden objects.

Affinity has all of the features you expect from a robust vector design software (like Adobe Illustrator) and then some.

Some features are lacking - in particular some of the vector merging and filling options that are common with Adobe products.

Affinity Designer is a deeply-featured vector drawing software system on par with Adobe Illustrator at a fraction of the price.

Some of the features and functions of the tool feel a bit unnatural if you are converting over from Illustrator, so it will take some getting used to, but it is worth it!