In the design sector, the software called Adobe Illustrator is one of the best proposals you will find. It is over 30 years old and over time has become the standard for vector graphic design. But it also has other renowned competitors such as Affinity Designer.
That is why with the passage of time and the versions, many users compare them when deciding on one option or another. That is why later we will see if they can really compete and which one we are most interested in choosing. You should know that Illustrator is part of Adobe Creative Cloud, a set of applications for professionals and amateurs. In fact, it shares a site with programs like Photoshop , Lightroom or After Effects . Therefore, as you may know, Adobe has dominated this market to a great extent for years.
On the other side we find Affinity , which appeared for the first time in macOS in 2014 and derived from Serif, a software company that was with us since the 80s. As we say, in these lines we will review some important factors that will help us which one is the best for us.
Important price differences
To begin we will talk about its price, one of the most obvious differences between Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator is the price. Designer costs 54.99 euros at the moment for a lifetime license and with free updates. But with Illustrator, like most Adobe products, you have to pay a monthly subscription fee to use it. Prices vary depending on the applications you want from the suite. To give us an idea, the cheapest single license for Illustrator is 24.19 euros per month.
Of course, Illustrator includes applications for both macOS and Windows for the same cost, something that does not happen with Designer, but with everything and with it it comes out winning in this regard.
Which interface is better, Designer or Illustrator
Both programs have a somewhat confusing user interface at first. This is because they include many functions, tools, and menus. It also has several customization options in this same sense. The biggest difference here is that Designer has a somewhat lower number of functions, so its interface might look more intuitive, but they are actually quite similar.
A small advantage of Designer is color , since Illustrator’s tools and menus are monochrome, but that is already a matter of taste, so both proposals tie.
Built-in features in Designer and Illustrator
This is where the Adobe experience is most noticeable, since the functionality of its program is greater no matter how you look at it. And it is not that Designer has few functions, but it is that Illustrator is more than complete for design . In fact, some of its features make a big difference when creating vector graphics.
Even though Serif is constantly adding new features, it can’t be compared to what Illustrator presents.
Compatibility differences
To start with this section, we will tell you that both Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator are available for macOS and Windows . There are also mobile applications for both, but they are very different products here. Another important facet of compatibility is file type support, where we can say that both solutions can import and export a wide variety of file formats.
But here we must also admit that Designer can open Illustrator file format , but Designer file types don’t work in Illustrator. In fact they don’t work in any other program. At the same time we have the possibility of importing brushes from Illustrator to Designer. Therefore we could say that the Adobe program takes a slight advantage in this section as well.
