Inkscape VS Affinity Designer | The Ultimate Comparison

Inkscape and Affinity Designer are both vector-based alternatives to Adobe Illustrator -- the industry standard in vector design software. In the past we've gone over how each of these applications stack up against Illustrator, but in this post we'll be comparing Inkscape vs Affinity Designer to see which of the two makes for the most formidable foe to Adobe's juggernaut.




Intro song: "In Da Mood" by Combustibles, used with written permission

[TriVoxel]

You taught me everything I know about graphic design and now I'm doing it professionally, 6 years later! Love you bro!

[ThatElfNerd]

I went and got the entire Affinity Suite last year, before going on Academic leave due to the pandemic. I did this because of the fact that while on leave, I wouldn't have access to the college computers, which have the Adobe CC. I can say right now that it's been a lifesaver. It was very easy to transition from Adobe to Affinity, as both have similar workflow. And on top of that, they can actually import Photoshop and Illustrator files, which is great for people who need that feature for their work. If people in the comments are on the fence about it, I highly recommend it, if you have the money.

[StarlordStavanger]

You're back! I've missed your videos! I use mostly open source software while using an Arch-based distro called EndeavourOS, so I always greatly appreciate your tutorials! <3

[raybeer]

I have both inkscape and affinity designer/and photo, but after doing your excellent course on inkscape and then designer, I always resort to inkscape for most things. I do swap back and forth for the usefull items of both programs but your inkscape course made it my go to programme.

[Frozen_Death_Knight]

4:46 It is possible to add those operators to the top toolbar by going to View -> Customize Toolbar... and drag the icons to it. There are a few tools that are hidden away like that if you take a look at the other programs as well (Did you know that you can do destructive and non-destructive boolean operations inside of Photo?). The Move Tool also has these alignment tools built into its own toolbar, so there's that too.

5:40 The Artboard Tool has a specific setting that makes an Artboard based on your selection. If you change Size from Document to Selection you can then make an Artboard Layer that fits whatever you have highlighted in the Layers panel. Though, I agree that having a keyboard shortcut to do this specifically would be nice.

I am of the same opinion that Inkscape and Designer complement each other quite nicely. For one, it is perfectly possible to copy+paste anything between the two programs, so you can do things like draw in raster in Designer and then convert them into vectors with Inkscape to port back into Designer. I think Designer is a much better main hub for your work than Inkscape is. For one, it is signficantly faster. Working with complex vectors is very smooth, especially when compared to Inkscape. I honestly disagree with the Inkscape Pen Tool being stronger than the Designer version. The Pen Tool in Designer has a few more extra modifier shortcuts for handling nodes that do not exist in Inkscape that I prefer. They are however not too different for either of them to be completely superior. The Node Tools are another story. In 1.9 Affinity added a break curves functionality to the Node Tool by pressing ctrl+L click, which is very convenient to have. It also has a much better transformation box for changing multiple nodes (i.e. rotate, change pivot point, skew transform, etc.). Overall working with manual editing of nodes is one of Designer's strong points.

One thing that makes Designer especially unique among other vector based programs is that its usability scales with the amount of Affinity programs you own. If you own Photo you have a significantly stronger Pixel Persona along with a myriad of other editing tools for dealing with raster. You also get access to Linked Layers, which can create symmetrical vector work, but on steroids. Publisher is ironically though the superior version of Designer, minus the lack of an Export Persona. The Publisher Persona has some unique tools and features lacking in Designer like the Table Tool and Data Merge Layout Tool, plus you have direct access to the Photo Persona. If you own all three there is very little reason to sit in Designer instead of Publisher until it is time to export.

Other than that, I agree that Designer is a bit light on features that needs to be addressed in future updates. I am personally waiting for a built in vector-to-raster converter, warp transformations, a Blob Brush Tool, an Eraser Tool, and a Knife Tool. Just to name a few. I was a big fan of the Contour Tool when it first came out in 1.9, so I hope we get to see more of that.

[doctormo]

A few of these items are getting picked off in the new version, but this is a really solid comparison. The layer filtering is interesting because that would be technically possible to do in Inkscape, but right now would require you to do a lot of leg work and understand filter primitives way too much.

[mr.atison]

Obrigado Nick.

A 3 anos atraz descobri seu canal quando estava querendo aprender inkscape, mas fazem dois anos que uso o Affinity designer and Affinity photo.

Achei muito boa a sua comparação, parabens.

[ShootingStarSVG]

Thank you Nick. I've been playing with Affinity got about a year and I just can't let go of Inkscape. A lot of my students are begging for more Affinity Tutorials but my opinion is Inkscape is far superior.

Always appreciate the videos and can't wait to read the monster article!

[davidquiroz]

I totally agree! I left Adobe about 5 years ago, started using InkScape and Affinity, and it's been great! And now with affinity 2, even better. Could not be happier!!

[DanoLefourbe]

I almost exclusively do vector. I think I'm sticking with Inkscape for now. Thanks for the review!

[DadBodDrumming]

I have Designer and Inkscape. Both are good. But I do tend to use designer more since I can also do pixel edits without having to save and import into a new program and then save again and import back into inkscape.
Also Designer is great as saving layers as individual PDF files or individual pages in a larger PDF file. Not something Inkscape can do. Which makes Designer great for designing.
But Inkscape does handle text on curves better than Designer and both work better than Illustrator. How Adobe cornered the market I will never know but i hope that changes.
FUN TIP:
Export a file as a PDF from inkscape and you can change the extension from .PDF to .AI and Illustrator will recognize it as a native file and open it. This is good if you are sending files to a friend/coworker who absolutely needs an .AI file.

[jacobharvey]

One thing I like about Designer, is it also works on iOS. So you can work on a file on a Mac, and then open it up and work on it on an iPad… including using the Apple Pencil. It wasn’t completely fluid when I was doing it a while back for a side project. Going back and forth. But it WAS possible, and it was very helpful in my instance.

[Lissbirds]

I never knew about the trick to resize a document in Inkscape! Thank you!

[zianna]

This is so helpful! I just wanted to say thank you so much for all the tutorials. You helped me get into design and I've learned so much from you over the years!

[zakariachahboun]

09:04 inkscape has this feature in the 1.2 version

+ Inkscape also has a plugin manager, multiple artboard

[adaml.]

While Inkscape has low hardware requirements, it also has extremely poor performance. There's no GPU acceleration. Simple tasks like filters will slow the app to a crawl. In this regard, you'll get far better performance on low end hardware with Affinity Designer.

[davidpringuer]

Great review. Thanks. One suggestion - it would be awesome if you stated which version of the sw you were using. Thanks!

[MarinaArtDesign]

I bought Affinity Designer and the other one when they were on sale 2 years ago but still till this day I did not install it and use my licence, I am still an Inkscape fan.

[rml]

My main reason for using Designer is the ease of transition from Adobe Illustrator. I was trained in Illustrator, and I can tell you when I tried InkScape, the UI definitely looked foreign to me. Lol I mean, and yes I realize this is stupid on my part, but it took me… about 10 minutes to realize the swatches were at the bottom (versus in a dedicated panel/studio on the right) since I use magnification when working on any computer program.

[arnver]

Unfortunately, Inkscape isn't optimized for Mac, and is very slow and glitchy on my m1 iMac. Affinity Designer on the other hand runs very smooth and fast on Mac. Thanks for videos!