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Affinity Studio now free

(www.affinity.studio)
1199 points dagmx | 16 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.54s | source | bottom
1. WillAdams ◴[30 Oct 25 18:42 UTC] No.45763650[source]▶
Thoughts on opensource alternatives?

- Inkscape is an obvious one --- there's also https://cenon.info/, perhaps Gravit Designer? Any word on Graphite.rs 's stand-alone desktop version?

- GIMP, Paint.net, Darktable and Krita

- Scribus or LaTeX or Typst

replies(7): >>45763666 #>>45763757 #>>45764085 #>>45765145 #>>45766539 #>>45771887 #>>45780664 #
2. GuinansEyebrows ◴[30 Oct 25 18:44 UTC] No.45763666[source]▶
> GIMP

still no cmyk, and AFAIK text editing is almost worse than useless. not everybody's use case, but it keeps me spending 12.99 a month for PS.

3. raincole ◴[30 Oct 25 18:49 UTC] No.45763757[source]▶
And Blender.

Yeah I know it sounds like a joke, but all Blender's icons are made in Blender, so it's officially an 2D vector graphics app too.

replies(1): >>45764822 #
4. starkparker ◴[30 Oct 25 19:15 UTC] No.45764085[source]▶
Haven't seen anything on Graphite.rs (site is still suggesting Q4 2025) but people on the Affinity Discord have been putting a lot of disgruntled new eyes on it.
replies(1): >>45764705 #
5. scroot ◴[30 Oct 25 20:06 UTC] No.45764705[source]▶
Thanks for posting, I hadn't even heard of this
6. shrinks99 ◴[30 Oct 25 20:17 UTC] No.45764822[source]▶
Most of Blender's icons are actually made in Penpot which is also what the Blender foundation uses for UI prototyping. The brush icons are made in Blender though!

https://penpot.app/penpothub/libraries-templates/blender-con...

https://code.blender.org/2024/11/new-brush-thumbnails/

7. indrora ◴[30 Oct 25 20:49 UTC] No.45765145[source]▶
Gravit Designer was sunset 9/1 of this year after the acquisition by Corel.
replies(1): >>45770420 #
8. sedatk ◴[30 Oct 25 23:16 UTC] No.45766539[source]▶
Paint.NET isn't open source, is it?
replies(1): >>45770431 #
9. WillAdams ◴[31 Oct 25 10:29 UTC] No.45770420[source]▶
Darn, that's sad to hear.
10. WillAdams ◴[31 Oct 25 10:30 UTC] No.45770431[source]▶
Good point, free as in beer, right?

https://github.com/orgs/paintdotnet/repositories

replies(1): >>45775408 #
11. qustrolabe ◴[31 Oct 25 13:41 UTC] No.45771887[source]▶
GIMP doesn't have "Patch tool", it doesn't have "Inpaint Brush" that is like content aware fill but brush, it doesn't have content aware fill either. I remember there were some plugins that provide features kinda similar to those tools but it was a huge pain to install and use them through nested filter menus. It's a great program for free open source, but it's decades behind on feature parity with other editors, and launch times long enough for me to prefer opening Photopea tab in browser instead
12. sedatk ◴[31 Oct 25 18:55 UTC] No.45775408{3}[source]▶
Wow, awesome, I had no idea.
replies(1): >>45777079 #
13. sedatk ◴[31 Oct 25 21:48 UTC] No.45777079{4}[source]▶
Oh, only some code for some plugins are there. Bummer. :/
replies(1): >>45785245 #
14. pseingatl ◴[01 Nov 25 10:46 UTC] No.45780664[source]▶
Viva Designer as an alternative to Publisher. There's also a Linux version as well as Mac and Windows.
replies(1): >>45780665 #
15. pseingatl ◴[01 Nov 25 10:47 UTC] No.45780665[source]▶
oops, sorry, Viva is not open source.
16. WillAdams ◴[01 Nov 25 20:53 UTC] No.45785245{5}[source]▶
Yeah, I don't know why I keep thinking paint.net is opensource....