Photoshop offers the most compatibility overall. The Affinity Photo Develop Module for Raw processing (Image credit: James Abbott) For more options, see our guide to the best photo-editing software, and make sure you also check out our guide to the best laptops for photo editing. In this article, we’ll look at how the two programs compare in several areas to help you to decide which is best for you.

Affinity Photo is popular for its perpetual licence, whereas Photoshop uses a subscription model that makes it significantly more expensive. The two programs are extremely similar in many ways, but their pricing structures are completely different. But since then, it's firmly cemented itself as a compelling alternative to Photoshop, offering many of the same tools and features for adjusting and manipulating images, as well as tools for design. Affinity Photo is much newer, developed by Serif in 2009 and launched in 2015. It was the first image editing software to be made available to the public and it's maintained its dominance as the industry-leading image-editing software ever since. Adobe's Photoshop was developed by Thomas and John Knoll in 1987 and was sold to Adobe Systems Inc in 1988. First, a bit of history on Affinity Photo vs Photoshop.

Xcode 11 download mac