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Canva Relaunches Affinity as Free All-in-One Design App

yarchitect said:
They bought a paid software that did not have any AI features and made it free for everybody to use. HOW CAN PEOPLE BE COMPLAINING????? If you want the new AI you need to pay.
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When your income relies on the tools being reliable, "free" is a red flag.

If you pay for the tool, first, you have a license for it and can use it at your discretion.
Second, the company owes you technical support and critical updates.

If you're not paying for it, they don't owe you anything. If the software is free, you're giving up something.

The developer also has all the rights to slowly move features into subscription plans. This has happened many times before.
 
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At least Canva can be downloaded as a verified app from the Apple Store — always the safer choice (just like Affinity used to do) — if you’re into subscription models. These days, most people don’t seem to care about how a program looks or how secure it is… but I still do.

Canva’s GUI wasn’t built with Apple’s developer tools, and honestly, it all feels a bit unpolished. Hopefully nothing terrible happens to Serif’s apps in the future.

Just a quick side note — huge thanks to Serif for their one-time payment model. I really liked that company. They have countered the professionally dusty old world of Adobe with a breath of fresh air and creative intuition. Others have different priorities (and they certainly don’t ask me). But one thing’s for sure: I won’t be using Canva. I’d sooner go back to Adobe — and that’s never going to happen!

And by the way, if a “background removal tool” highlight is part of their marketing campain they clearly haven’t looked around. Apple’s own Preview app already does that — no AI hype required.

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Mixed feelings on this one. I love the Affinity tools and it's great everyone gets to try them, but I'm definitely not a fan of Canva. When comparing my v2 apps with the new one I see quite a few UI changes I dislike (document format selection, export screen). Adobe is so deep into the enterprise game at this point that they won't care.
 
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cicalinarrot said:
Sounds a little too good to be true.
Since we all adored Affinity as it was, I'm pretty afraid.
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Did you bother to download the new version 3 before commenting? I did. All three apps are now in one, but with three tabs.

It's free. The catch. If you want the AI stuff, you have to pay for it. I suspect many people will want the AI-based automation.
 
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msackey said:
Yup. That's another possibility.

I am always very wary of CEOs and companies that promise 'free'. Yeah, right. Who are you kidding? There is ALWAYS a catch. It may not appear now, but it will appear.

Honestly, I much rather they say, here's the paid version of v3 Affinity. If you don't want to pay, there is an option to use it but with, for example, ads, limited function, etc.
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Delivered said:
Aw crap. We have seen this before with Google. Count down to finding the catch and it’s going to be a doozy. They did NOT spend all that money to buy and run this team to make nothing.
I was totally fine paying for this stuff before. I’m concerned I am going to become the product even with versions I paid for.
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The catch has already appeared: Canva AI functionality requires a subscription. This has been spelled out very clearly.
 
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I have no problem using my Canva login to "register" the app. The Serif version required having a Serif account and required you to login to register the product, download purchases, etc. It's really no different with the Canva owned product, except it now also checks for an AI subscription. I don't see myself using the AI features, so it's no big deal to not have those. I do really appreciate having the three apps rolled into one. I just noticed that you can change which "studios" appear in the toolbar, so the AI studio can be hidden. The studios seem to be a renamed version of the personas feature of v2 apps.
 
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eatrains said:
V2 had a new file format as well. What's the difference this time?
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The difference? A unified file format. It was weird that all three apps had their own file type but they were more or less interoperable between the three apps. The consolidation of the apps and file format is really the next logical step that v2 was heading towards.
 
Morgenland said:
At least Canva can be downloaded as a verified app from the Apple Store — always the safer choice (just like Affinity used to do) — if you’re into subscription models. These days, most people don’t seem to care about how a program looks or how secure it is… but I still do.

Canva’s GUI wasn’t built with Apple’s developer tools, and honestly, it all feels a bit unpolished. Hopefully nothing terrible happens to Serif’s apps in the future.

Just a quick side note — huge thanks to Serif for their one-time payment model. I really liked that company. They have countered the professionally dusty old world of Adobe with a breath of fresh air and creative intuition. Others have different priorities (and they certainly don’t ask me). But one thing’s for sure: I won’t be using Canva. I’d sooner go back to Adobe — and that’s never going to happen!

And by the way, if a “background removal tool” highlight is part of their marketing campain they clearly haven’t looked around. Apple’s own Preview app already does that — no AI hype required.

View attachment 2574491View attachment 2574495
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Not quite right. The Mac programs could be downloaded in the App Store, but also directly from Affinity.
 
I love Affinity.

This seems... OK but being free worries me.

Please don't turn Affinity to ****.
 
I used to use Serif's products before they changed to Affinity etc (PagePlus and PhotoPlus in particular). No shade to what was their new offerings, I just preferred PP.

Anyway I wanted to remark that Serif had a business model of giving away old versions of their software in exchange for registration, so this somewhat fits in with that ethos.
 
Pruus said:
Not quite right. The Mac programs could be downloaded in the App Store, but also directly from Affinity.
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Yeah, ChatGPT said that once too — and it almost got roasted into oblivion when folks on Reddit proved that the “free download” version of the app had, uh, let’s say a little snooping interface built into it. Nobody could prove it was ever actually used, though.

The App Store version got checked by Apple and was totally clean. So yeah, now you probably get the difference a bit better.

Same for canva et al.

I’m sure the folks at Canva are already having lively discussions about how and when to turn everyone into subscription-paying addicts — of course, with the irresistible argument, “Hey, it’s ten cents cheaper than Adobe!” Serif, by contrast, was genuinely decent.

Thanks for existing, guys — and thanks to the brilliant developers there. You were obscenely good.
 
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PBG4 Dude said:
I’ve been getting emails since the Canva sale was preparing to go through. Maybe you’ve opted out of emails or something?
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Maybe he just wants to focus on the data breach — that seems more likely to me. Everyone’s got their role here. Mine?

To remind people how Serif cleverly wooed dusty old Adobe users with affordable one-time purchases — no tricks, no shady fine print, just solid software.
That kind of honesty is rare these days.

As for Canva… well, we’ll see. Let’s just say my optimism isn’t exactly overflowing.
 
MadDog31 said:
Ah yes, free. What are we unknowingly giving up when we use this free offering? Images and designs scraped for AI? I've come to realize free isn't free at all...
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I remember using an app called “Linearity” for free for quite some time. When asked how they were making money, no response. Finally, “With this update we’re locking free users to using only 6 files”. Even though I knew it was coming, I didn’t expect find one day that I would only be able to use six of the files I’d created. Free’s not worth it.
 
cylack said:
Probably a strategy to get users hooked on the app and then eventually start charging for it.
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They saw it work for Linearity. Fortunately, in the years I was using it (when it was called Vectornator), other drawing apps improved to the point where, when they went to lock down the free app, moving to Amadine was not a big problem.
 
revision29 said:
The difference? A unified file format. It was weird that all three apps had their own file type but they were more or less interoperable between the three apps. The consolidation of the apps and file format is really the next logical step that v2 was heading towards.
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The three file formats of the Affinity suite were identical. The different name of the extension just told the OS which app to open it with. You could rename .afdesign to.afpub with no problems.
 
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wyrdness said:
They've been charging for this and now are making it free. So I'm not following your reasoning here.
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Interesting. I don’t use Canva. Thanks for the update.

Regardless, nothing a company offers is free. Whether selling your data or eventually moving to a subscription model at some point (if not both), Canva is a company and companies are in the business of making money.
 
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BTW their forum has transitioned to read only and they moved to Discord affin.link/dc
If you download Canva, can you still use Affinity Photo or the others? Without them installing something that blocks Affinity trio?
 
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JMalone said:
If commercial software is “free” it’s because you’re the product or because they know they’ll push you into subscriptions either now or later.

The only true definition of free software is open source or non-commercial with no catch.

The paid version of this Affinity thing is a bad deal anyway. $15 a month for one hodge-podge app when you can get something like 30 much more mature Adobe apps for $30 a month if you grab the discount seasons like Black Friday. Those Adobe apps cover everything from photo to video to VFX to audio to animation.
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Adobe? I think that can go where the sun doesn't shine.
 
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