Affinity Studio now free

It's a smart approach imo. They had to get a subscription somehow to support AI features which they need to compete (just usage cost wise you can't do that on a one time fee license).

But since they promised not to go subscription when they got acquired by Canva, making it free with AI as the subscription is a clever solution to not break their promise while still introducing a subscription model.

I think their bet is enough people will want the AI, which I think is correct.

As a long time Affinity user, first reaction was: "see, there is the subscription", but on second thought, fair enough, well played. I'll probably get the AI subscription as well.

I do wonder if over time more features will go into that premium plan, but we'll see.

Edit: It seems like some of the AI stuff runs on device, they are not very clear about what does or doesn't. That makes me change my opinion a bit, as that's just straight up a freemium subscription model.

Thank you (long-time Affinity user and fan, and Canva employee here :)

Re. on-device AI features: these still have significant training costs; and Canva as a whole has paid hundreds of millions to date in royalties to creatives, including for AI training.

Affinity is free, forever; but not open source; if that makes sense.

> Affinity is free, forever; but not open source; if that makes sense.

It's free until you guys stop supporting it or go out of business, then it disappears.

I don't think it disappears - the copy I have will still be on my machine, and free to use as well. Unless they implemented something to remotely delete it?

Unless you freeze your machine in its current state, software that isn't maintained will eventually stop working.

This is only true for very badly written software, and/or on platforms that maintain very bad backward compatibility. It's not some natural law of software--it's choices that (IMO) bad developers choose to make over and over.