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Comment by falkensmaize | Hacker News Reader

Serif makes a very capable alternative also called Publisher. I really like their software - you can buy it without a subscription and it's very polished.

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher

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Wow. Never heard of them.

Corel refugee here refusing to buy another upgrade license.

I have been using open and free code to do all I can.

Don't mind paying for great apps, and these guys offering almost all the operating systems I value in their universal license and at only $170?

Sweet deal, I may buy in.

That said, I find this software collection worth a donation:

Http://portableapps.com

Portable Apps is great. You can load the install / menu tool. Pick all you want to load go!

It is possible to load a serious setup quicker than you are used to.

Very highly recommended.

Unfortunately, they were acquired by Canva last year, so I feel like it's only a matter of time before things go downhill.

Their software, as of right now, is still pretty great!

It’s been a year, it’s still great. I already wasn’t sure they would survive before the acquisition, so the move doesn’t make that much of a difference in terms of stability.

Is Canva bad? I know a lot of non technical and non design people that use it and are really happy with it.

Never heard of this company but the website makes these products look very mature. How does it compare to Adobe?

It would be great to see someone like this make an alternative to Office as well. I’d be glad to pay. I know some open source options exist but they always feel behind the times to me compared to Office.

I have used Affinity photo and it is a really powerful alternative to photoshop. Have not used any other products but have been very impressed with Affinity photo.

Affinity’s stuff is freaking fantastic. I’m not a professional graphic designer but I spend enough time in such apps to want to have nice ones. Adobe’s apps are insanely expensive for occasional use. Affinity is very affordable, with the main complaint I’ve heard being that they aren’t identical clones of Creative Suite.

I use their products daily both professionally and personally, mostly Designer and Publisher. Coming from someone who also used to use Adobe products, the affinity suite meets my needs almost perfectly. There are some times when I sorely miss a feature, like bitmap tracing and proper vector brushes in Designer and variable spread sizes in Publisher. That said, if you're going to pay for software, they're 100% worth the price.

For tracing I use inkscape, it’s pretty good at that.

> the website makes these products look very mature.

I remember using their software over 20 years ago, so it should be

I massively prefer it to Adobe. Granted I’m not a professional designer, but as an amateur affinity is much more affordable, but also much easier to work with.

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