For years, the Affinity suite – Photo, Designer, and Publisher, has been a safe space for creatives tired of Adobe’s subscription model and constant price hikes. It offered professional-grade tools without monthly bills. Pay once, use forever. That was the promise that built a loyal community around it.
So when Canva acquired Affinity earlier this year, many feared the worst. People expected subscriptions, stripped-down features, and the slow disappearance of the Affinity name. Instead, Canva has done something few saw coming. It made Affinity free. Completely free. Forever.
According to Canva’s announcement, users will now get the full professional Affinity experience with all future updates at no cost. There is no trial, no watered-down version, just one single Affinity app that combines everything from the old suite. Instead of installing three separate programs, you now switch between Pixel, Vector, and Layout modes inside a single app. These replace Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher. The app is available for Mac and Windows, and an iPad version is on the way.
This is not a half-step. Canva says all the major features will remain free. Only the AI-based extras, such as automatic background removal, portrait lighting, generative fill, and super resolution upscaling, will need a paid Canva membership. Everything else, including professional design and publishing tools, stays open to everyone.
It sounds like a dream come true, especially for designers who walked away from Adobe years ago. But a move this generous comes with a question: what does Canva gain from it? Free forever is not a phrase that usually survives long in the tech world.
Canva’s motivation is clear if you look deeper. By opening Affinity to everyone, Canva gains a massive influx of skilled users. Affinity has always had credibility that Canva never quite earned among professionals. Canva built its empire on accessibility. It made design simple for marketers, small businesses, and social media creators. But now it needs the respect of professionals who still see it as a casual tool.
This move helps fix that. Canva gets professional credibility, while Affinity gains exposure and long-term support. It is a calculated trade that benefits both sides. Millions of users who already rely on Affinity now fall under Canva’s ecosystem, where the company can later offer optional AI tools, team collaboration features, and cloud services.
Still, this is not a time to drop your guard. Canva insists the core app will always be free, but it has already placed the first layer of premium features behind its subscription. Today it is AI tools. Tomorrow it could be cloud storage or real-time collaboration. Once you are invested in an ecosystem, it is easy for the balance to shift.
Even with that concern, this remains one of the biggest creative software shakeups in years. Adobe’s Creative Cloud continues to dominate with a pay-every-month model that many find frustrating. Canva’s decision to release a full-featured creative suite for free directly challenges that. It positions Canva as a serious competitor and sends a message that professional tools do not have to be locked behind a subscription wall.
The key to Affinity’s charm has always been its balance of performance and simplicity. It runs fast, feels light, and does not get in your way. If Canva maintains that standard and avoids overloading it with online-only features, Affinity could thrive under new ownership.
Canva’s history of accessibility is worth mentioning too. It built an empire by making design possible for people with no background in it. Bringing Affinity into that world gives professionals access to Canva’s sharing and collaboration tools while keeping the creative freedom they love. It is a smart merger of simplicity and power.
Right now, it feels like a win for everyone. You get a full creative suite that costs nothing, keeps all its important features, and works offline. Canva gets more users and brand credibility. And for once, Adobe faces real competition from a product that is not just cheaper, but better value.
Whether this generosity lasts is the only question left. The creative community has seen “free forever” offers before that quietly turned into paid models later. If Canva truly keeps its promise, it will earn the trust of millions of professionals who have been waiting for a fair deal in this industry.
