Affinity Designer has begun to achieve some actual traction over the past yr and is quick turning into a an increasing number of viable possibility for designers and creatives alike. Sketch has turn out to be the go-to software for person interface and net designers over the previous variety of years. It stuffed a void that Adobe Fireworks left and has enabled designers to work in a devoted utility, as a substitute of a photograph modifying software program resembling Adobe Photoshop. Sketch has constantly launched new options that make it arduous to anticipate being with out, resembling symbols, artboards, and export performance.
With Sketch having eaten into Adobe Photoshop’s share of the design software program market, plenty of rivals have additionally risen to fruition. They embody Figma, Affinity Designer, and even new softwares from Adobe itself resembling Expertise Design CC. What was as soon as a market dominated by one participant has since turn out to be extremely aggressive. That is having an amazing profit for designers who at the moment are geared up with distinctive instruments, and rivals who're keen to innovate, refine their software program, and constantly introduce new options.
It has additionally result in competitors on the worth level. Adobe Photoshop as soon as price excessive into the tons of. Because it stands, it’s now accessible for lower than $10 a month. Sketch is $99. Affinity Designer is $39. Figma is at present free.
Whereas integrating these softwares into my every day workflow, the most important competitor to Sketch is, for my part, Affinity Designer. The explanations will likely be outlined beneath as we check out the professionals and cons of every.
Vector + Pixel
One among my favorite options from Affinity is the power to modify from draw persona to pixel persona, permitting you to work in each vector and raster codecs inside the identical file, and simply the clicking of a tab. It takes the design software program a step additional than Sketch, virtually seeming to mix options of Sketch and Adobe Photoshop into one, albeit with some lack of options. That is significantly helpful when working with photographs and illustration work. It successfully eliminates the necessity for a complimentary app to Sketch. It’s skill to open and edit Adobe Illustrator recordsdata additional expands its capabilities, and permits for the potential cancellation of an Adobe Illustrator plan.
Winner: Affinity
Worth
Affinity Designer is priced extraordinarily attractively, even in contrast with Sketch. Its $39 price-point is properly beneath that of Sketch at $99. Focused towards mass adoption of the software program, it has a superb likelihood of turning into business commonplace within the subsequent few years. Adobe CC pales compared to Affinity’s pricing mannequin. A one month full Adobe CC plan can price greater than a lifetime licence for Affinity. With Adobe’s inconsistent updates to their suite, it makes the pricing mannequin even much less aggressive.
Winner: Affinity
Funding
Bohemian Coding, the creators of Sketch, are an distinctive small firm. There may be points, nevertheless, when starting to compete with the likes of Serif (who produce Affinity). The assets and funding of an organization like Serif are on one other degree, and make it very tough to compete with on features resembling scalability, human assets, pricing, and advertising simply to call just a few. Sketch is turning into higher and higher at fixing bugs, nevertheless some features of the software program path properly behind Affinity Designer, resembling undo efficiency and historical past.
Winner: Affinity
Cross-platform
Following on from this, Sketch has additionally dominated out the opportunity of growing a Home windows app. That is more likely to be all the way down to lack of assets to take care of software program to a excessive degree, cross-platform, and the potential for it gaining little traction on a brand new OS with it catering to a Mac-dominated business. This may very well be extraordinarily short-sighted, significantly with the growing discontent in regard to Apple’s Mac division. As Home windows machines continue to improve, some designers could look to softwares which have cross-platform performance when working in groups. The iMac is now not the dominant all-in-one product it as soon as was, and its disregard for Mac Professional customers now sees them cater extra to the extra common person than ever. A setup such because the high-spec Razer Blade or HP Spectre laptop computer alongside Affinity Designer has the potential to draw present Mac customers, and in doing so would go away Sketch behind.
Winner: Affinity
Total Winner: Affinity
Affinity Designer will proceed to iterate and construct upon the software program to the purpose the place it's more likely to provide the performance of Sketch alongside a number of different helpful options, throughout each main desktop working methods, and at a value level verging on the ridiculous. All this taken into consideration leads me to conclude that Affinity Designer is Sketch’s largest present competitor because the go-to software for UI and net designers, and time will inform whether or not it may exchange it within the coming years.
