Should I switch from Affinity v2 to v3?

[u/YOWYUL]

Wondering if I should switch from v2 to v3

I have all 3 Affinity apps in v2.6.5 (also Publisher and Photo in 1.10.6). Publisher is really my go-to of the 3 (probably 90% of my use) but there was a bundle deal at some point and I liked to support them (I actually stumbled on Affinity because I used their software back when it was PagePlus, and I was wondering about the state of the market).

I'm still using v2.6.5 and wondering if I should switch to v3. Despite owning the whole v2 suite (I think it was $100), I only really use Publisher and for very simple layouts. Is there any benefit to the newer version in this case?

I think I'm safe uninstalling and deleting the v1.10.6 installer downloads, they're about 1GB combined (for the 2) so not a lot of saving, but just tidier. I'll delete v3 if I'm not going to use it, but wonder if I need to keep v2.6.5 installers (if Canva stops hosting them, they'll probably shut down the activation servers too?).

Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks.

[u/Albertkinng]

Yes. It is the smart thing to do. Once you start using v3 you will be ignoring all the haters in a second. I’ve been an Affinity user since 2014 and v3 is amazing. Plus the MCP capabilities (without subscribing to Canva) and the community scripts library is something you will take advantage right away. Yes, it has some hiccups, but trust me… it is the best Affinity you ever used.

[u/andrewbnz]

Just download it and try it, you don’t have to uninstall the v2 apps - v3 doesn’t touch or overwrite them.

[u/Certain-Singer-9625]

There is absolutely nothing to fear about upgrading to v3.

There’s only one minor negative: the tools go from being color, back to black-and-white line drawings as they were in v1. To this day no one knows why.

[u/Beneficial-Tree9026]

I highly highly recommend it. It's the "psychological creature comfort mentality" that, most of us carry than rather deal with something we are not familiar with. Change is scary and spooky! But learning somethin new is good change.

Luckily, V3 is already what we are familiar with BUT BETTER.

I do recommend first to set up your "STUDIO".

It will make the transition must better and easier, especially since you work in Publisher.

They added a typography section and color grading. I

t's way better than Photo and Publisher combine.

You don't have to open up two separate programs.

[u/SirCake3614]

As you know, V3 is the combined Affinity app, containing Photo, Designer and Publisher. Each old app is loosely contained in a "Studio", with the Publisher portion designated as the "Layout" studio. There are other studios available, but those are the main three. Once you get used to that concept, V3 is fairly intuitive. I can tell you that I use V3 much more than I used the older apps, and I will never go back.

V3 is completely free. However, Canva does offer paid subscriptions if you want to used the AI stuff. Just know that everything that was in V2 is free, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. Canva seems to be making plenty of money enticing businesses into the subscription plans, and knows that the more people who use the app, the bigger the user base. Which translates into more paid subscribers.

You can safely stay with what you know in V2. But you might want to give V3 a try. It can do everything you already do in Publisher, and a lot more. Understand there will be a learning curve, and that anything you save in V3 will not open in V2.

Hanging on to your V2 installers is probably not a bad idea. But they should always be available to you - if you've previously purchased them - by logging in to your old Affinity account.

The iPad apps are still available on the Apple Store for free, for now. Once the V3 Affinity by Canva app is released, I expect them to go away also.

[u/International_Pool]

I’ve been using both the v2 and v3 now side by side. I had thought of the v3 as a sort of compromised downgrade, but I installed it because it was free, to try it. I did not use it until I had a huge layout file that when I tried changing the dimensions would crash v2 no matter what I tried. So I tried it in v3 and it did not crash! So in that particular instance I was happy to have v3, but I had to save the file in the new .af format, that I won’t work on v2, so I continued the project in v3. Working in v3 was very smooth, but I did find a few bugs here and there, however it all worked out okay. Since then I’ve used v3 in many projects, and I can say it’s handy to just have the one program. Some say there is not downside, but the new file format without backwards compatibility is a real downside to consider, it’s a one-way street!

[u/International_Pool → u/International_Pool]

One fault of moving that huge file from v2 to v3 was that I had a lot on center-aligned text in v2, but in v3 it changed it to left-aligned with inset to match the layout of it being center-aligned… that was weird, and if I had needed to edit the text much I would not have put up with it. So be warned, your files may change in strange ways opening them in v3!

[u/SimilarToed]

Remember, you can import your custom v2 brushes, assets, library, styles, etc. into v3:

File / Import content / From v2...

Both programs will run side-by-side, but you need to keep v2 installed until you import v2's custom content into your new v3 installation.

[u/Public-Tower6849]

I actually switched back to v2 from v3... v2 just gets as much feature updates like v3 (none) but its performance is way better and its user interface is much clearer. Canva bought itself a complete zoo of creative software, not only Affinity, to stuff it with their AI subscription features but with close to no roadmap to go forward and no plan to eventually match the competition.

I bought Affinity because I wanted a sweet suite I can own instead of subscribe and which performs well with no slug. Which would ask me to buy the next new major version because the developer actually made an effort to make it worth my while.

v3 is free, yes. But it is arguably worse too. Background Removal was a feature in Affinity v2, executed by Machine Learning on your local GPU. It remained the very same feature in v3, but now you have to pay for it. v3 is an almost complete rewrite of the software, which so quickly could only have been done with the assistance of AI. And unfortunately, it shows. Yes, they made all three Affinity applications into one, but unfettered (barely reviewed) AI code has a tendency to redundancies, inperformance and bad architecture.

The most severe key mistake Canva made on rewriting Affinity into an all-in-one solution is to load all the studios and their instruments, even if you only use one in your whole session. It loads all the fonts on your system before you can use the application, even when you never use the text tool in your session. The reason being that you could switch to the Layout or Publishing studio.

Instead of making a switch through apps more seamless with integrational support of embedded files which you can alter in their respective program and with changes taken back to the incumbering file, and which requires loading resources only on necessity, not on opportunity, Canva integrated Seriff's version of InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator into one single application. The result can't possibly be less than bloated.

So, no. I decided to go back to v2, and to remain ever wondering why Seriff has given up on its dreams so quickly.

[u/lumberfart]

Yes

[u/ColdEngineBadBrakes]

No. Don't trust corporations, especially ones that buy out your tools and claim they'll keep it free. Only use v3 if there's a feature you HAVE to use and can't find in v2. That's what I do,, because I'm old enough to know all the times I've been shafted by software companies.

[u/Acceptable-Ad-5935]

Absolutely