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

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

this is very useful, thank you for putting in the time to write the article and this video

I've had both for about a year and mainly do graphics in Inkscape. I use designer is as a companion to Affinity Publisher for making books for IngramSpark and KDP. I'm glad that purchased the "Complete Bundle" it has been a lifesaver time and time again!

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.

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

WOW, it's been a while since I've watched your videos. Nice to know you still got the hang of it! Great review on the comparison between Inkscape and Affinity Designer. Even though, this is the first time I heard of Affinity Designer, I am still sticking to Inkscape. ...Love the new editing style!

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

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

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.

Thanks to Nick, I can get work done in both Affinity Designer & Inkscape

09:04 inkscape has this feature in the 1.2 version + Inkscape also has a plugin manager, multiple artboard

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!!

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.

I very much prefer to work in Designer due to the better interfaces and ease of use. But I do find some missing functions jarring. But still I prefer Designer UI and I will import what I cannot do on Designer from Inkscape. If you have both , its probably best of both worlds without paying through your nose.

Hi do you have any good recommendations for Adobe animator alternatives?

Great comparison video. Though i'm surprised that export persona and artboards wasn't talked about more. These features are huge advantage in designers favor for working with multiple documents, especially if you need to export different sizes and formats.

Hey Nick great video....how do i get my side tool bar box to look like yours. When i open my fill and stroke the window opens up to half my screen. Can you help please?

Thanks Nick for all your video tutorial 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Great explanation 👏 keep up the good work

Before watching: Affinity moatly has a better UI I think except for the align tools, inkskapes are better there. Also Inkscape has convert bitmap to vector and affinity doesn’t. After watching: yay you covered these things!

This was a great video. But I feel that way about any of your videos. Thanks so much for all you do.

Thank you SO MUCH for this Quality review ♡ I was feeling so frustrated being new and thinking I was warping vectors wrong somehow. But Affinity just doesn't do that :) I really appreciate your help 🔥👍

Even before watching the video: Inkscape is still my go to software because it's free and open source. Affinity Design (I do have a licence but I no longer use macOS) is AMAZING!!! And the price is very affordable. Could it be better? Sure. Is it worth the price? HELL YEAH!

Wide panel in right side of any thing like stock and fill panel problem in latest inkspace version how can I make it less wide.

Thank you very much for comparison.

I needed this video since I got access to Affinity Photo through my school

How can you work as graphic pro if inkscape has no CMYK? We work maybe 0.000001% of our time in RGB.

can you do a video on how to make glitter digital papers or back grounds

nice. ever since your first vid of Affinity I moved over to that product and have been happy. I would agree that the skewing/perspectives in Affinity are non-existent but the layer masking and non-destructive features are so good. :D

Have you tested large files in Designer (100s of complex vectors)? When I tried this in Inkscape it basically froze, even on a fast computer. I think it tries to draw everything all at once, no matter your camera zoom level or position. Was hoping Designer was better for that sort of thing.

I'm new to graphic design and was wondering what'd the best way to begin should I just make text I'm not goof with making things with shapes so confused

Great content! Thanks for sharing!

Thank you for all your videos! You are a great teacher. However, I have a question that is holding me back. How did you handle transferring all your colors and assets saved in your libraries from the creative cloud? Did you just have to recreate years of assets saved in the libraries?

I love this comparison. I've moved over to affinity recently and personally I like it a lot more than inkscape. I haven't needed some of the things mentioned so I'm happy with affinity. I still have Inkscape installed just in case. One thing I can't figure out is how to export an svg file that can be uploaded to canva and where the colour can still be edited. I've tried many different settings but nothing has worked. It only gives me the "edit image" option once uploaded to canva. Do you have any idea on how that can be done?

Imma die hard affinity user as its the first software i used to learn on and teach myself graphic design. But since watching this i think ill be reading more into inkscape. Thanks

Hey Nick, you have totally awesome tutorials on Inkscape and logo design. I love the way you teach stuff. One question, are those tutorials you have on your website still relevant in 2023? I've moved to Affinity Designer from Adobe Illsutrator recently even though I still use it for various usecases. Do you think it's good idea get your course bundle which has everything or just Affinity Designer? Your honest advice is much appreciated.

Which is the easiest to get into for beginners?

Hi. Thanks for your videos and tuts! Im in inkscape since last month, i used inkscape for my first time 4 yrs ago. Now with the new interface, i found a really brand new program and interface more user friendly than before. I tried also affinity without any good vibes. I think inkscape is my definitive vectorial app. I love it and i feel better than illustrator with a nice gui.i've a issue. The performances are unsane. Lag with a mid Project full of line or shapes. I have a lot of problems managing a logo with gradients or a lot of layer. Any suggestions? Or solitions about?

Well, you got some points here, although i love the Designer UI and the personal assets i agree that Inkscape have some good pro tools.

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!

Thanks a lot for the video!

Really missed your content! Hope you'll be able to put more out

On the thumbnail of the video you have modern tool icons in sidebar for affinity designer, but I couldn't find the option, so is it just a shot of inkscape with affinity logo over it?

I love your vids! Could you do one about your favorite plugins for for Inkscape and gimp?

Now you tell me. After I bought designer 2. I saw Inkscape ages ago. Totally forgot about it. Thanks for this amazing comparison.

Welcome back, Nick.

Affinity becomes even more powerful with Affinity photo and publisher. The tight integration is like having one very powerful graphic editor. Where it falls over, is bugs. After using it for more than a year, there are bugs that have been opened for years that will likely never be fixed. It has so much potential, but I'm not sure where Affinity is going. Development seems to have significantly slowed down. I don't think their business model is sustainable. The software is almost free. $50 one time and free upgrades forever.

Love you ways of teaching

Thanks for the video, I'm a long-time user of Inkscape, mostly happy with it, but Designer looks like it might work pretty well in tandem with Inkscape, not instead of it, that brush tool looks great! You might want to play around with a parametric EQ for the sound in your video, to lower the volume of the frequency of the persistent and loud whine you have in the audio. It's some sort of electric equipment noise bleeding through your mic, probably your computer.

I agree that Designer is very lacking in most specialized uses. Inkscape, on the other hand, HAS this feature set but can be VERY hard to figure out. I'd like to give an honorable mention to Clip Studio Paint (CSP), which is geared toward producing Raster images. It does, however, offer Vector Layers, which allow you Import & Export SVG vectors. Inkscape and Designer can both save in SVG format. Its inter-app functions are very limited, but I have used CSP as a production tool for some "designerly" projects.

This has made want to go back and try inkscape again

Expert comparison. 👏👍🌟

Left Adobe recently because of the Ai scandals. After trying the usual competitors I can say this confidently, there is no replacement for Adobe Illustrator, at least not with one app. I did a deep dive in Inkscape, really liked it at first, especially the color and bezier tools. I quickly realized that it was too unstable with a wacom tablet for my normal workflow, I overlooked that and started using the mouse to do a lot of drawing with. Then I lost a couple files and a lot of work, even my backup file that was open in the background at the same time as the working file was wiped clean of everything object. That being said my workflow is both detailed and messy and these were big illustrations with hundreds of path "layers" and, probably fine for simple use. I wouldn't personally wouldn't trust it again for detailed professional illustration work. I'm also not a fan of the character palette in Inkscape, or it's typography feel general. After watching this video I'm not really impressed with Affinity and I'm not spending another week learning palettes and shortcuts on a substandard app. Not sure what I'm going to do at this point, but will probably use cs paint for now for illustration and Inkscape for typography and simple layout until I find a better solution. Definitely not using Inkscape for complex illustrations like I did with illustrator. Not going back to Adobe.

Hey,do you know why Inkscape freezes when i try to save a file? Can you help me,please?

Has the new V2 changed anything? Did any improvement or update happened or is it the same?

de hecho concuerdo con la conclusión del video, si se aprende a usar ambos y se combinan en el flujo de trabajo, jamás se dependerá de illustrator (ejemplo: inkscape tiene para hacer espirales y affinity no, y viceversa). Por cierto destaco la compatibilidad total de Affinity con Inkscape para abrir sus archivos svg.

I am one of those people that have both, Inkscape and Affinity. For the projects I tinker with, Affinity Designer often wins out. Most notably from AD having an appearance panel similar, but less capable as Adobe Illustrator. The ability to add multiple strokes to paths, with different blend modes is a creative dream. Also having the Xor tool in the geometry (boolean) operations is a bit nicer than the workflow of Inkscape has for buildling shapes. One final way I liked AD over Inkscape is having live guides on canvas (Inkscape now has them in the latest release).

Beginner here, I like what you said in the end - these two apps can work together. Designer seems more rounded but Inkscape probably has more chops. So maybe learn Designer first? Then again the other way also works. Any advice? P.S. I am also working my way through Affinity Photo.

Fair comparison in my view. I actually do work in Designer on a regular basis after leaving Adobe since they adopted the CC subscription mode. I'm primarily doing designs for print so Designer's support of CMYK and corresponding color profiles is in fact a HUGE advantage over Inkscape to me. However, you’re perfectly right about the multitude of useful options avaible for vector design as such in Inkscape and I do miss quite a few of them in Designer, which - on the other hand - on the whole has a way better UI than Inkscape's which to me is a bit overwhelming and extremely complex (maybe just because of all those options - but then: everything comes a some sort of a cost, even if it's a steeper learning curve...). That's still true, I think, even when there hve been and still are a few unintuitive quirks in Designer’s UI, which I have found sort of unnerving ever since. But, Designer has been running smoothly on my my iMac from the start while Inkscape (v 1.0.0) at least feels a bit (or more) awkward every now and then. All in all I guess I'd actually be using Inkscape a lot more if it had CMYK support and were more stable on macOS as it's vector features are really awesome - and as you can vectorize bitmaps like in Illustrator. One last thing in favour of Designer in my opinion, however, is its seamless integration via "Studio Link" into a Affinity Publisher workflow - this is quite unique and in my view very useful.

So I've been trying to open EPS (.eps) files in Inkscape on windows and it will not open the file. Can we get a tutorial on how to do this?

Thank you 💗

Thanks for the video Nick. Though there is a lack of CMYK in Inkscape, what you can do in Designer doesn't make me want to switch. On changing windows, I wish Inkscape had Tabbed Windows or a dedicated menu option to change windows. Several times I have 2-3 windows open in Inkscape. In the View Menu there is Next/Previous Window. Seeing this video made me look for something, which I found: Control-Tab will switch to the next window. For Mac, Command ~ (tilde, top left of keyboard)

Hi Nick, you speak almost as fast as your brain works - and man, your brain travels at the speed of light. You must have a truly amazing brain. Thanks for the awesome videos.

I want to also compliment many of your commenters, too…I’ve learned quite a few things I have not known about both apps. One thing is clear, I going Adobe-free in about a week.

Affinity Designer is not the only tool that offers vector and raster editing in the same editor. The original is Canvas, from Canvas GFX (formerly Deneba - circa 1980's).

Simple and Nice.

Krita have raster and vector, not like affinity, but does the same effect with the mix of shape and paint inside of vector shape

Designer has on-canvas alignment handles as well, by the way

Great video. Perhaps you didn’t know, or conveniently forgot to mention that Affinity Designer is also available for iOS (iPad). I think that is something important to mention since the iOS and desktop versions have the same features, allowing users to edit work across all platforms. And if all you have is an iPad, the regular price for Designer is only $19. I don’t think Inkscape is iOS compatible.

Hi, i saw Ubuntu in one of your videos. If you still use Linux, how do you publish your videos? What is your recording program, editing softwares, etc. Video editing is a real headache for me on Linux. Everything is ready but I have to convert files a lot if I want to edit with a program like DaVinci. I thought I can learn some tips about video editing from you.

Glad I found this video. I have never used Inkscape and only heard of Affiinity last month. On the fence re which one to learn. I like that Inkscape is free but I heard it has a steep learning curve. Affinity now has a new version and its on sale. Even more tempting as the $75 v1 in Canada is much more than the v2 $56 sale on now. It now has some of the text skewing features you mentioned that were lacking in thieir first version. I don't want to learn both so I'm wondering how much easier Affinity is to grasp? Also, I checked their specs and I'm not sure, but it seems like it needs a gaming graphics card to work properly. Any ASAP advice would be appreicated. Not sure how long the sale is on for. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. I will certainly be looking at more of your videos and have subbed. :)

Would love to see an update now for affinity v2!

Hi there Nick thanks for your videos and great tutorials. Please do a review and some testing on my favourite \design software Xara Designer?

You can customize Affinity Designer's toolbar and get all the distribution commands on top, rather than hidden in the align panel.

Is it possible to compare with affinity 2?

Hello ! Nice video ! I am all agree with you for the two software, but I one thing realy suck with Inkscape : It do not manage CMYB (CMJN) profil color and PDF export ! And it's all that is discredit Inkscape in front of any vector software...

I have a logo that I had made and I'd Like to change the color of part of it. The kicker is that it is in vector and I'd like to keep it that way. I use Affinity and my knowledge is growing but I can't quit figure it out. If you could help me out that'd be much appreciated!!!

The ability to not warp things in affinity designer is the achilles heel for me.. but i still love it

I'd lave to see a broad comparison of the major contenders, Inkscape vs Illustrator, vs Affinity Designer, vs Vectornator vs Pixelmator Pro vs Apple Pages. I have Macs and Windows/Linux PCs and an iPad so I can choose which works best for me. Macs offer the most/best options but I'd like to see if there is anything I am missing elsewhere. I work a lot in print. I've tried Inkscape but am put off by its lack of cmyk support and ugly/clumsy UI. If I can be shown more reasons to switch I might try harder. Apple's free Pages on macOS and iPad OS is my favourite doodler, because it is fast, accurate and has brilliant Chart, DTP, Templates, Pre-supplied Shapes, Boolean, Snap to tools, Reset Object and Object Styles. I can create hundreds of vector designs in no time at all, far faster than anything else I have tried, despite it lacks some features. btw Illustrator's Artboard snap to art is just click on a grouped object with the Artboard tool (Shift O) easier, faster and smoother than Inkscape.

non destructive editing is one of the most requested features for inkscape and gimp

I dont know if you will see this nick but may I use your Esports logo for my video game business please. I have tried many logos and I really liked this one.

@6:26 Krita does that now! Btw. Could you make a comparison video between Corel Vector (Gravit Designer) and Inkscape?

its impressive how many softwares you know. can you do pls tutorials about unreal engine 5?

Great video! I really need to watch more of your Inkscape videos. :) By the way, what's the name of the theme music you use? Thanks for posting!!!

Los dos programas me gustan mucho y los uso hace más de 5 años, el que más uso es Inkscape ya que afiniti no está para Linux, yo uso ambos sistema Windows y Linux, y avece depende de en cuál sistema estoy, aprovecho para hacer o terminar algún que otro diseño

support CMYK and PANTONE?

A Gimp vs Affinty Photo comparison would be cool to see too.

It's fairly niche, but Inkscape can do a bunch of stuff from the command line - and the file format is easily hackable, so you can build applications that generate documents from code.

I would love for you to make a tutorial on how to make that logo with the deer in Inkscape

Please do try Figma some time and make a comparison between these 3 applications!