Affinity Designer vs. Inkscape

[soterios]

Can someone provide reasons why purchasing Affinity Designer is advisable/preferable to continuing with Inkscape?

To provide context, my needs are light, I'm not a professional designer, and don't do design work for a living.  I do occasional projects requiring vector work, and so far Inkscape has fulfilled my needs, but what do I get with Designer that I don't have with Inkscape that might make it worth spending the money for, even at my level of use?

In particular:

• Is Designer more stable? 
• Are there more tools in Designer? 
• Is it any more intuitive than Inkscape? 
• Does Designer handle work with a dense number of data points better than Inkscape does?

Thanks for any insights.

[MikeW]

The only person who can truly answer those questions is you.

Download the trial and see if what AD can do and how well it can do it for your needs.

[soterios]

Thanks, Mike.

In fact, I have downloaded the trial, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to exhaustively test it before the trial expired. I am hoping that people who have more extensive experience with both products could give me some insight.

[catlover]

• Is Designer more stable?   YES
• Are there more tools in Designer? NO
• Is it any more intuitive than Inkscape? YES
• Does Designer handle work with a dense number of data points better than Inkscape does? DON't KNOW

Mike W is correct : the only one who can answer these questions is you. Maybe you could get another trial ???

[Mithferion]

Before using Designer I was an Inkscape-only user. For me, it was a smooth transition, and nowadays I rarely use Inkscape (it has a place in my heart).

So, that could be the same for you, but you need to use it in order to know that.

Best regards!

[Friksel]

Hi @soterios, I agree with @MikeW that it's a personal thing. But I can tell you there are so many things better in Designer then in Inkscape I can only advise you to just buy the program. I'm sure you don't regret it. Designer is so much more stable, loads faster, got a much more professional - dark - interface, and a much better UI. A lot of Inkscape features are counter intuitive, but Designer looks a lot more like the best part of Illustrator, combined with some better vector editing from other tools. I'd say: just buy it, it's only around 50 euros and you get all free upgrades 'till next major version. The only thing I can think of that Inkscape has, but designer don't (yet), is image tracing. 

Bottomline: very intuitive and much more professional oriented and fast. --> And much much much more fun to use, so happy face and better designs!

But these are just my 2 cents. 

[gdenby]

Speaking as someone who has to run Inkscape under the XQuartz windowing system on a Mac, I'd have to say the on screen response is not good at all. And, I've read comments indicating that the XQuartz project itself may be fading, as there has been no update in about 18 months.

Inkscape has a bunch of features not found (yet) in Designer. But on the Mac side, the interface is so hard to use that over 15 years of intermittent use, I'm still often at a loss for what to do. I guess in common use, I'd have to say that Inkscape's learning curve is way higher than AD. If you already are comfortable w. Ink... and it gets the job done, sure stick with it. I keep it on my system and thrash w. it a bit often enough. But Designer, once you get the hang of it, is remarkably easy to use, and on my hardware, fast enough that there 90% of all operations are done with no lag, or ones that are at best a few seconds.

And, from my perspective, Serif's fees for Affinity product are nominal. 

[Alfred]

27 minutes ago, soterios said:

Is it any more intuitive than Inkscape?

This question implies that you find some aspects of Inkscape unintuitive, but intuitiveness is in the eye of the beholder! Perhaps you could give us some indication of the areas you have in mind.

If you’re willing to wait a while, the trial version will be reset after the retail release of AD version 1.7, but (given that version 1.7 hasn’t even been released to public beta yet) you might be in for quite a long wait. If you decide to go ahead and purchase the current retail version now, you’ll be covered by a 14-day money back guarantee.

[firstdefence]

Download the trial and play, make one of your projects and see if it suits your needs and workflow.

5 hours ago, soterios said:

 so far Inkscape has fulfilled my needs

I think you have already answered your question. But try Affinity Designer using the trial you might be surprised.

5 hours ago, soterios said:

what do I get with Designer that I don't have with Inkscape that might make it worth spending the money for, even at my level of use?

Us  lol!

 

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Download the trial and play, make one of your projects and see if it suits your needs and workflow.

Sadly, it’s no longer possible for the OP to do that with the version 1.6 trial.

4 hours ago, soterios said:

In fact, I have downloaded the trial, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to exhaustively test it before the trial expired.

 

[firstdefence]

4 hours ago, soterios said:

Thanks, Mike.

In fact, I have downloaded the trial, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to exhaustively test it before the trial expired. I am hoping that people who have more extensive experience with both products could give me some insight.

maybe show a few of your projects to give some idea of what you do?

[Mithferion]

Having both Inkscape and Designer might prove to be useful: You will have both tools at your disposal. If you want to explore more into design, you can open PSD files, learn and create, for yourself.

Best regards!

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, firstdefence said:

8 hours ago, soterios said:

what do I get with Designer that I don't have with Inkscape that might make it worth spending the money for, even at my level of use?

Us  lol!

No kidding, don't underestimate the incredible amount of support the staff & user community offer through this forum. It isn't unusual for someone to post a video or even fully worked example for a 'how do I make/do this?' question, more often than not within a few hours of the time the question is posted.

Another plus is that both the Mac & Windows versions are built using native OS code, which can greatly improve responsiveness for some operations & integrate very well with other OS level features.

[SrPx]

My take in the "poll"

Is Designer more stable?  Hmmm, at least in Windows, definitely yes.
Are there more tools in Designer?  I believe there are more in Designer. (depending on if we speak about tools or features, am thinking of features)
Is it any more intuitive than Inkscape?  ehm... inkscape is not hard to learn, but has some cumbersome ways, not too fast. IMO, AD has better UI, and more standard to what people know.
Does Designer handle work with a dense number of data points better than Inkscape does?  Yep, I believe so. If anything, because in Windows is much more stable, but also, looking at some examples in the forum gallery, AD can really deal with tons of nodes (not sure if with tons of certain objects). I could see a bunch of crashes in Inkscape Windows port before getting there.

That said. Nope, I don't think you "need" AD ( * runs away to avoid a Serif's rpg launcher missile * ). But I'd buy it !  ( * Serif launches a heat seeking missile to intercept the first one * ) because...! The more, the merrier, and I've been in that position when working as a web coder, I'd still do art in the evenings, I'd get any extra tool to make my work more enjoyable and easier. Any artist does great by having a small arsenal in the shelf to have options that may vary with each project. It's 50 bucks....

[InfoCentral]

If you want to animate then Inkscape can save in the Synfig file format.

How to Import Inkscape Project to Synfig

[MrMattSim]

Definitely buy Affinity!

Both products have their strengths, and inevitably each with have features not present in the other. The only thing that I truly miss when working with Affinity is Inkscape's AMAZING node editing. For example:

• Insert = add new nodes at midpoints of all selected nodes
• Ctrl + click node = cycle thru node types
• ! = Invert node selection.
• Grow or shrink node selection; spatially or along path.
• Sculpt selected nodes based on distance from drag point. (ie, elastic distortion) 
• Node hovering along with any transform shortcut-keys (eg: scale or rotate) will perform the transform using the hovered node as the base point! (Although, this is a larger problem in general about Affinity's lack of nudge controls for scale and rotate)

Nowadays, I always work in Affinity by default. But if i've got precision node editing to do, i've got to decide if it's worth the effort to pop-out into Inkscape. Also, maybe it's just my install, but the Affinity node editing doesn't seem to work as advertised (specifically thinking of ctrl+drag curve out from node).

Anyway, like I said, buy Affinity; you'll end up loving both and dreaming of a collab.