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Affinity Designer vs Adobe Photoshop Comparison (2026)

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Canva

4.7

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)

4.4

Good recommendations?

Affinity Designer

Adobe Photoshop

Overview

Affinity Designer is a graphic design software, which helps creative professionals manage documents, create vector designs with gradients, blend modes, adjustments and effects, edit images, build artboards, and more using various built-in tools.

Adobe Photoshop is an image editing and graphic designing software that helps businesses streamline photo editing and compositing processes and create digital paintings and animations. The artificial-intelligence (AI)-enabled platform lets designers invite external stakeholders to edit documents and share projects via live streaming functionality.

Platforms supported

Web-based
iPhone app
Android app
Windows Phone app

Typical customers

Freelancers
Small businesses
Mid size businesses
Large enterprises

Customer support

Phone
Online
Knowledge base
Video tutorials

view more detailsview details

Platforms supported

Web-based
iPhone app
Android app
Windows Phone app

Typical customers

Freelancers
Small businesses
Mid size businesses
Large enterprises

Customer support

Phone
Online
Knowledge base
Video tutorials

view more detailsview details

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

Starting from

1949

One-time payment

Free trial available
Credit cardless trial
Free account
Subscription based

Starting from

19.99

Free trial available
Credit cardless trial
Free account
Subscription based

User reviews

4.7

455

345

Value for money

Ease of use

Features

Customer support

90%

would recommend this app

4.8

2.4K

1.9K

420

Value for money

Ease of use

Features

Customer support

83%

would recommend this app

Pros

“Its performance is fast, the interface is intuitive once learned, and the one-time purchase offers outstanding value compared to subscription-based alternatives.”

Jamie P.

Designer

“The newer universal license is pure gold value as you can have all 3 affinity apps for all available platforms for the cost of few months of adobe subscription (although yeah adobe suite give you a wider arrange of apps, me as a graphic designer simple need the 3 basics illustrator/photoshop/indesign, why to pay every year for apps that I don't use?).”

Nikolas K.

Graphic Designer

“Affinity Designer is a great alternative for vector and branding work, especially for designers who prefer a one-time license.”

Rafia R.

Graphic Designer - Visual Branding

Pros

“The 'Generative Fill' feature enables me to extend backgrounds and remove intricate objects within seconds, which previously required me to spend hours on manual cloning work.”

Enguerran M.

Fullstack Developer

“The power of new tools driven by generative artificial intelligence (generative fill, object removal) enables complex retouching work in record time”

Romain G.

Freelance Photographer

“Furthermore, having used tools like the Magic Eraser long before mobile devices popularized automated background removal, the platform's ability to seamlessly isolate, mask, and manipulate specific elements of an image remains unmatched in my daily workflow.”

Charlie H.

Owner

Cons

“That you are not able to vectorize images - this has been lacking for so long, is the only ready I miss having adobe.”

Alexandra L.

Customer success manager

“Used to use Illustrator, but that was a right pain in the neck with the subscription fees.”

Jason M.

Graphic Designer

“I think that losing quality when sizing images needs to be improved as it is a significant issue”

Kristen W.

Owner

Cons

“The biggest drawback of Adobe Photoshop is its rigid lack of mobile optimization and its high hardware performance threshold. While Adobe is clearly attempting to target the smartphone market, the application heavily relies on desktop-class processing power and fails to scale down effectively for lower-spec mobile devices.”

Charlie H.

Owner

“Memory management is basically absent leading to constant out of memory errors even on 64 GIG machines while processing rather small files.”

Sven H.

Private

“Sometimes the updates disrupt work processes, this can be frustrating, especially if it's on a tight deadline.”

Yasser A.

Graphic Designer