Adobe competitor Affinity to be sold to Canva

Image provided by Canva

I’ve been a long time user of Affinity Photo as it offers a one time purchase fee that gives you access to a hefty photo editing suite that can rival the capabilities of Adobe Photoshop. I’m not against subscriptions, but it’s nice to be able own a powerful software that you don’t feel pressured to use because of a monthly payment.

The Web-based design platform Canva has just announced that they are acquiring Affinity and their software suite that includes Designer, Photo, and Publisher applications.

The 90-person United Kingdom based team at Affinity will now go on to join Canva to integrate their software with their new parent company. It’s early in the acquisition so we don’t have much of any information regarding what the plans are going forward for the Affinity suite of apps, but I definitely hope Canva keeps Affinity Photo and maintains the one-time purchase model.

Having an alternative to the juggernaut that is Photoshop is vital for the market and Affinity has been able to carve a small niche in the market space. With more than three million users, Affinity’s market share pales in comparison to the 22 million subscribers of Photoshop. Still, I hope Canva continues to offer software based editing suites and don’t completely strip the Affinity product as it is into their web-based subscription model.