I promise this isn't clickbait. The professional graphic design program Affinity will be available for free, with no subscription required.
And according to its new parent company, Canva, it's going to stay that way. Forever.
Affinity can be used to create professional-quality vector designs, edit photos and work on other graphic design projects. This relaunch also brings all of Affinity's apps together on one platform, along with a new icon, file names (which will be .af), and the ability to customize your layout within the app. Subscriptions to Affinity's apps previously started at $70 per month.
You don't need to be a paying, premium Canva member to use Affinity. All you need is a free Canva account. If you're a Canva Pro subscriber, you'll have access to some AI features in Affinity, which are relatively new to the app.
Affinity by Canva will now be available for free. Affinity/Screenshot by Katelyn Chedraoui/CNET
In a time of ever-increasing prices, an announcement like this is unusual, if not unprecedented.
A CNET survey from earlier this year found that US adults waste an average of $200 a month on unused subscriptions. Streaming services alone seem to hike their prices every month, with Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN being the latest to do so. Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription also crept up this year.
Canva bought Affinity and its former parent company, Serif, in 2024 for $380 billion. We'll have to wait and see if Affinity remains free. Forever is a long time, after all.
It's been a busy week for professional design companies. In addition to making Affinity free, Canva has released several updates, including the ability to manually edit AI-generated images. Adobe introduced its new AI assistants in Express and Photoshop, along with new AI audio tools, and teased several cutting-edge AI photography research projects.
As more people become content creators, tech companies are racing to make editing easier by integrating generative AI. Still, many professional creators aren't sold on the benefits that AI promises.
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