Is the support for linux planned in the future? I join the rest of users who have doubts about this

[Noemi Moncada]

Hello,

Is the support for linux planned in the future? I join the rest of users who have doubts about this. It would be great to have an option available for linux with a professional level as we have DaVinci Resolve.

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @Noemi Moncada.

 

8 hours ago, Noemi Moncada said:

Is the support for linux planned in the future? I join the rest of users who have doubts about this.

If you have seen other users’ posts about Linux, why have you risked further fragmenting the discussion by creating yet another thread instead of posting to one of the existing threads (of which there are already too many)?

[kaffeeundsalz]

8 hours ago, Noemi Moncada said:

I join the rest of users who have doubts about this.

There should be no doubts about this at all. Serif have stated multiple times that Linux support for the Affinity suite does not and will not exist.

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

Serif have stated multiple times that Linux support for the Affinity suite does not and will not exist.

Serif have indicated clearly that they won’t pour their resources into the development of a Linux version of the Affinity Suite until such time as they are satisfied that they would achieve a reasonable return on their investment. That time is not now, but I don’t think any of us should say that it will never come.

[Komatös]

And as a addition to what has already been written here:
Davinci Resolve is not a real benchmark against which other developers have to measure themselves.
Blackmagic Design's main revenue comes from the sale of hardware for video production. 

[Isaac.Batis]

 

[R C-R]

@Isaac.Batis, why post a link to a locked topic?

[Isaac.Batis]

"In the blocked topic, there is a very interesting petition. I invite the person who created this one to take a look at it, if they are interested."😅

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, Isaac.Batis said:

"In the blocked topic, there is a very interesting petition. I invite the person who created this one to take a look at it, if they are interested."😅

Then why not just post a link to the petition itself (which BTW has just 35 signatures after all this time)?

[Isaac.Batis]

👨‍💻👩‍💻 Sign our petition and help bring Affinity to Linux!

 

🌍 Let’s bring Affinity to Linux! 🚀

Affinity is one of the most powerful graphic suites on the market, but it is still unavailable for Linux. We, users and design professionals, know that a native Linux version would further strengthen the professional market, providing a serious alternative to Adobe and making Linux an even more attractive platform for creatives.

👨‍💻👩‍💻 Sign our petition and help bring Affinity to Linux!
Your signature could be the key to showing Canva and Serif that the Linux community is ready to embrace this powerful creative suite.
 

  🙂 Petition 👇

Affinity for Linux – A Strategic Opportunity

To: Serif, Canva, and the Affinity Community

We, graphic designers, editors, illustrators, photographers, advertisers, and other creative professionals, officially request the development of a native version of the Affinity suite for Linux.

With Serif’s recent acquisition by Canva, there is a unique opportunity to establish Affinity as an accessible and professional alternative in the market. This initiative would not only benefit Linux users but also expand Affinity and Canva’s reach into a new segment.

 

Why is Linux a viable market?

1. A growing market 🚀
   Linux is seeing increasing adoption among creatives, developers, video editors, and motion designers.
   Distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Pop!_OS, Zorin OS, and Arch Linux are becoming increasingly popular among designers and graphics professionals.
   Companies like Valve (Steam) and Blackmagic (DaVinci Resolve) have already invested in Linux and are seeing positive results.
2. Lack of strong competition 🏆
   There is no professional and integrated graphics suite on Linux at the level of Affinity.
   Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are not available on Linux, creating a gap in the market.
   Software like GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, and Scribus are fantastic, but they do not fully replace the professional workflow of Affinity.
    
3. Easier development 🖥️
   Technologies like Wine and Proton already allow many users to run Affinity on Linux, but a native version would ensure better performance and compatibility.
   An official version could be distributed via Flatpak or AppImage, ensuring compatibility across distributions.
   The Affinity codebase for macOS could facilitate a port to Linux, as both share a UNIX-like core.
    
4. Expansion of Affinity and Canva’s user base 🌍
   The Linux community is highly engaged and tends to support companies that invest in the platform.
   Many professionals are willing to purchase a perpetual Affinity license for Linux, as they prefer to avoid Adobe’s subscription model.
   With Linux’s market growth, Affinity’s presence would solidify Canva’s position in the global creative industry.
    

Our Request
We ask Canva and Serif to consider developing the full Affinity suite for Linux (Photo, Designer, and Publisher). This initiative:

• Does not undermine open-source software (GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, Scribus) but rather complements them, strengthening Linux as a viable system for professionals.
• Creates a real alternative to Adobe in the Linux market, benefiting designers, illustrators, and graphic editors.
• Encourages more Windows and macOS users to migrate to Linux, knowing they will have high-quality tools available.

Next Steps

• Assess the feasibility of a Linux port.
• Consider a Beta version to test the market.
• Engage with the community to understand needs and technical challenges.

We urge Canva and Serif to hear our voices and consider this unique opportunity to expand Affinity’s impact! 🚀

 

 🙂 Petition Link 👇

🔗  Sign and share to bring Affinity to Linux!

 

💬 Share with your friends and creative colleagues! Let’s make some noise to ensure that Linux gets a professional design suite like Affinity!

#AffinityForLinux #GraphicDesign #LinuxForCreatives #Affinity #Canva #Petition #Technology #OpenSourceSoftware

[PaulEC]

32 minutes ago, Isaac.Batis said:

a very interesting petition

27 minutes ago, R C-R said:

just 35 signatures after all this time

Well, it's obviously of interest to lots of people, it's only got a few less votes than people who want Heinz to use a different type of sausage in their tinned beans! 😆

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, PaulEC said:

Well, it's obviously of interest to lots of people, it's only got a few less votes than people who want Heinz to use a different type of sausage in their tinned beans! 😆

Yeah, not exactly the kind of thing to convince Canva/Serif that there is a large enough market to make it profitable to develop for Linux. If anything, it confirms that there is not remotely enough to justify that.

[Alfred]

6 hours ago, R C-R said:

Then why not just post a link to the petition itself (which BTW has just 35 signatures after all this time)?

Why create a new petition in the first place? A quick search on Change.org reveals that there is another ‘Affinity on Linux‘ petition, started a month earlier, which has a dozen times as many signatures and ten times as many supporters.

[RobWu]

There are some solutions to be found online for getting Affinity to work on Linux with Wine.

Is it perfect? No.
Does it work? Most of the time yes.
Will we ever get Affinity on Linux? No, as has been stated over and over again.
Stop flogging the dead horse...
 

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

26 minutes ago, RobWu said:

There are some solutions to be found online for getting Affinity to work on Linux with Wine.

Is it perfect? No.
Does it work? Most of the time yes.
Will we ever get Affinity on Linux? No, as has been stated over and over again.
Stop flogging the dead horse...
 

Why should Serif Labs take effort to develop Affinity Suite?

There’s no consumer money to earn on Linux (and also on Android), that’s why they refuse to do that job…

So, every Linux user here, give up your wishes for Affinity Suite.

[RobWu]

34 minutes ago, AffinityMakesMeWonder said:

There’s no consumer money to earn on Linux (and also on Android)

That's not entirely true, as there are plenty of applications that run on Linux that are NOT Open Source Projects.
In the VFX/video part of my work there's Davinci Resolve, Fusion, Nuke, Flame, Houdini, Polytrans etc. for Linux.
On the Internet/IT/system management/streaming hardware part there's a TON of Linux based commercial software.

So your comment on this is a bit short sided.
And some of the mentioned apps are pretty hefty price wise, so yes... There are commercial Linux apps and used a lot.
But due to licensing and patent issues, some things do often not work properly or work at all, e.g. certain video and audio codecs on Linux do not exist due to licensing.

But all this is a completely different discussion

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

4 hours ago, RobWu said:

That's not entirely true, as there are plenty of applications that run on Linux that are NOT Open Source Projects.
In the VFX/video part of my work there's Davinci Resolve, Fusion, Nuke, Flame, Houdini, Polytrans etc. for Linux.
On the Internet/IT/system management/streaming hardware part there's a TON of Linux based commercial software.

So your comment on this is a bit short sided.
And some of the mentioned apps are pretty hefty price wise, so yes... There are commercial Linux apps and used a lot.
But due to licensing and patent issues, some things do often not work properly or work at all, e.g. certain video and audio codecs on Linux do not exist due to licensing.

But all this is a completely different discussion

Partly right - what I meant with ”no consumer money” is, consumer = private persons, hobby software etc etc…

I don’t mean that not corporations and companies using Linux, they certainly do!

If you looking into DaVinci Resolve for Linux, probably the majority is using the free version, not upgraded to Studio versions.

DR Studio is $300 just now ($100 on iPad) - I’ve using Davinci a lot on my Mac and iPad Pro - the free version is very powerful and enough for me to edit some Drone movies I’ve taken with my Dji Mini 4 Pro…

So, to summarize my opinion on Linux is, very few is willing to pay for software, and if they do it must be reasonable prices…

[RobWu]

2 hours ago, AffinityMakesMeWonder said:

Partly right - what I meant with ”no consumer money” is, consumer = private persons, hobby software etc etc…

It depends on the software as well. Affinity is used by hobbyist and professionals alike. As is the Adobe Suite.
So there's a big gray 'consumer' area there. You mentioning Resolve (non Studio) already proves my point.

 

2 hours ago, AffinityMakesMeWonder said:

So, to summarize my opinion on Linux is, very few is willing to pay for software, and if they do it must be reasonable prices…

That also depends, as I stated with software like Nuke or Houdini.
There's also a very big gray area where hobbyists are also willing to pay some money to be able to use it.

Houdini Apprentice (free license) is very popular as is Houdini Indie. Same with Nuke non-commercial or Nuke Indie. And for what it does, I find these options reasonably priced. Everybody spends a certain amount of money on a hobby, for what is acceptable to them but maybe outrages for others. (proper DSLR photography for instance...)

I think one of the main problems is that Linux is free, so the main idea is that all applications should be free as well.
Which make no sense at all, as the devs have to live/eat as well. It's one of the reasons why so many great OSS project die at some point.
No financial support, or support from other devs to keep the project going will end any project, no matter how popular.

[R C-R]

The main problem is simply that there is very little evidence to suggest that there is a big enough market for Linux versions to justify the cost of developing & maintaining them, plus the additional ongoing costs of supporting them. If 10,000+ people signed the petition, that might be enough to convince Serif/Canva to do it, but there does not seem to be any real indication that will happen in the foreseeable future.

[RobWu]

17 hours ago, R C-R said:

The main problem is simply that there is very little evidence to suggest that there is a big enough market for Linux versions to justify the cost of developing & maintaining them, plus the additional ongoing costs of supporting them. If 10,000+ people signed the petition, that might be enough to convince Serif/Canva to do it, but there does not seem to be any real indication that will happen in the foreseeable future.

Also, what distro and GUI? There's so many versions floating around, picking one is already hard for a starting Linux user. And how do you distribute the applications? What method of packaging?
These things are so, so much simpler in the Windows or Apple environments.

[wonderings]

Does Linux not have search functions? Seems these pop up somewhat regularly from Linux users without searching and seeing a massive thread as well as a large thread on people who have gotten Affinity to work, or partially work in Linux with Wine.

[Noemi Moncada]

23 hours ago, R C-R said:

The main problem is simply that there is very little evidence to suggest that there is a big enough market for Linux versions to justify the cost of developing & maintaining them, plus the additional ongoing costs of supporting them. If 10,000+ people signed the petition, that might be enough to convince Serif/Canva to do it, but there does not seem to be any real indication that will happen in the foreseeable future.

 

On 5/6/2025 at 7:15 AM, RobWu said:

There are some solutions to be found online for getting Affinity to work on Linux with Wine.

Is it perfect? No.
Does it work? Most of the time yes.
Will we ever get Affinity on Linux? No, as has been stated over and over again.
Stop flogging the dead horse...
 

 

On 5/6/2025 at 6:18 AM, Alfred said:

Why create a new petition in the first place? A quick search on Change.org reveals that there is another ‘Affinity on Linux‘ petition, started a month earlier, which has a dozen times as many signatures and ten times as many supporters.

A decade ago, gaming on Linux was rubbish and not even worth installing Steam. Things have changed a lot now, and more than most people thought. Valve's move was risky, but it ultimately paid off, with millions of consoles sold worldwide and native games developed for Linux. In the long term, I think that Linux gaming will continue to advance. Several months ago, I saw that Amazon had a job opening for Linux gaming.

I think the biggest problem Affinity has is not Linux but the competition from Adobe, AI-powered image generation tools, services like Canva. It is unknown if Affinity will be successful on Linux, but you never know until you try. There are successful projects that reached the goal against all odds.

[Alfred]

32 minutes ago, Noemi Moncada said:

I think the biggest problem Affinity has is not Linux but the competition from Adobe, AI-powered image generation tools, services like Canva.

Serif, the company behind the Affinity apps, is owned by Canva now.

33 minutes ago, Noemi Moncada said:

It is unknown if Affinity will be successful on Linux, but you never know until you try.

It’s noteworthy that Adobe seems to be continuing to steer clear of the Linux market.

[Noemi Moncada]

8 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Serif, the company behind the Affinity apps, is owned by Canva now.

It’s noteworthy that Adobe seems to be continuing to steer clear of the Linux market.

I already knew that Canva and Affinity are the same owners only mention Canva's name as an analogy.  I do not know why you say it moves away I am not reading anything about it

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, Noemi Moncada said:

I do not know why you say it moves away I am not reading anything about it

I think Alfred means Adobe is not doing much to offer its apps on Linux.