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Alfred's Serif Users' Forums → General Discussion → Affinity is joining the Canva family
An announcement from Ash Hewson, Managing Director of Serif (Europe) Ltd
what's your take on this Alfred? It's the end of Serif, right?
I don’t think so, Paul, but I do wonder whether the perpetual licence model will survive beyond the current version 2 of the Affinity apps.
I'd not heard of Canva. It doesn't look good for Affinity users. I'm not one.
To followup [sic] on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index. … nt-1193400
Sounds encouraging but the trend for all software is to subscription models. This goes along with "cloud" based features that can be updated for everyone at the same time. Buying and owning your own copy of the Software, in general, is gradually being replaced. Old Serif users are not use to this. Grumble. Grumble. You'd think subscription models would fail as it seems so much better to pay once and own it. But instead, subscription models are becoming the norm because you can get started for a low price and quit when you want. Personally I don't like subscriptions.
To address some of what is being said on this thread...
Firstly to be clear I'm not a founder, but have been with the company for 25 years. I'm officially appointed as Managing Director of the company, but also use CEO as my title as that is my role in terms of how other countries would view it.
Both Canva and us have made 100% clear we are committing to perpetual licences always being available. That will include V3 or any other future major upgrade of our apps which are released. What's more I will say with Canva's backing we are not under the same financial pressure we would have been to release a V3 anytime soon, meaning those of you using V2 will actually benefit from more features as free updates which may previously have been held back for a V3 if that makes sense. This is of great benefit from an engineering standpoint too as we are far better testing and releasing features in smaller chunks than saving them up to package up as a sellable upgrade.
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index. … nt-1194508
It's refreshing to see this topic discussed without the vitriol that's being posted on Affinity-focussed forums/Facebook pages.
There are too many people sat at their keyboards thinking that by shouting their views they can turn things to their way of thinking.
Too many people of the "glass half empty" vision.
They've forgotten, ignored or didn't know that Serif was acquired by a US company one before (1996?) and subsequently re-acquired by the Serif management team.
Do many people hell bent on suggesting the words of the pledges are "code" - these people sound like conspiracy=theorists - such a shame.
Personally, I think and hope that good things are coming. The fact that those 4 pledges have been made is positive. Do you recall similar pledges being made in other acquisitions? It's a bold move, because if those pledges aren't honoured the hotheads will have a field day, and I don't think Canva or Affinity want that.
So, let's wait and see how things develop.
Little late joining the conversation, but whenever something 'new' appears, before deciding to buy I seek out websites describing the Pros and Cons and to be honest I always go for the Cons first.
Cons for me are: -
* Firstly, and appears where everything is going these days, Canva is cloud-based software. This is a bother for me as I have always preferred and used stand-alone software that is bought or downloaded to run independently on my system - where also, all such as personal photos and videos are stored privately on my system - and 'not' the cloud.
* Reports are that the free Canva is limited and one will soon want to upgrade to paid features which are an expensive monthly option.
* It is, therefore, a subscription service.
* Comparisons on 'comparison websites' rated Serif software as 'superior' to Canva - so an obvious choice for Canva was to buy-out Serif.
* What you see on your screen with Canva - might be different to what is printed.
* Confusing interface.
* One comparison website said: difficult to use on tablets and mobiles.
AND, here's two troubling Cons (for me anyway): -
* Canva can delete your account at any time they wish.
* Intellectual Property remains with Canva.
The comment has been made, 'let's wait and see'., but for me: too many Cons...
A while since anyone has commented on the buy-out of Serif by Canva, but the Cons (for me) keep mounting up.
Here's another: -
'Canva has many outages and often runs slow'
and/or: -
'Difficult to login - or takes an age to login'
A colleague has taken over one of my DTP projects, which I did on PagePlus X9. He has decided to go the Canva route, having not used any Serif software previously. He reported these issues to me, so I did an online Canva search yesterday and lo and behold these issues, among others, are being widely reported.
If one is leisurely producing a DTP project, no problem - but if one has print deadlines to meet then Canva might well prove to be unreliable.
A while since anyone has commented on the buy-out of Serif by Canva, but the Cons (for me) keep mounting up.
Here's another: -
'Canva has many outages and often runs slow'
and/or: -
'Difficult to login - or takes an age to login'
These cons only relate to using (or trying to use!) Canva. They have nothing to do with the buyout.
I wouldn’t want to use a platform such as Canva for DTP work, but in any case I now have PagePlus and Affinity Publisher to choose from. I also own an ancient copy of Microsoft Publisher which is not currently installed.
Maybe it's me but I cannot find any mention of Affinity on the Canva site https://www.canva.com/
I have also found that many software upgrades are anything but.
Outlook, for example, went from a full featured (albeit buggy) program to a stripped down version of its former self. Lots of useful features had been cut out.
PagePlus and DrawPlus went from full featured sophisticated programs to the Affinity range which had and still has far fewer features and abilities that the former programs had.
When Affinity Publisher first came out I imagined it would be PagePlus on steroids and had projects lined up for it. What a disappointment that was - and still is.
Affinity Publisher is only a few years old, PagePlus has been around for three decades.
Alfred's Serif Users' Forums → General Discussion → Affinity is joining the Canva family
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