Searching for a replacement to the Adobe Creative Suite

 I'm abandoning the Adobe Creative Suite because it's too expensive.

For me, this is a DRAMATIC change, as I've been using Photoshop professionally since version 3 was released in the early 1990s. This is also a RISKY change because I have a lot of completed projects that have been completed in Adobe InDesign, including books and other professional documents.

My main goal with this switch is to get away from subscription-based software. I want to buy it and use it for as long as I want. Right now, I'm still evaluating which software I will use as a replacement. The top contenders are:

• The Affinity Creative Suite:
• Affinity Photo (Photoshop replacement)
• Affinity Designer (Illustrator replacement)
• Affinity Publisher (InDesign replacement)
• Viva Publisher 11 (InDesign replacement)
• GIMP online (Photoshop replacement)

Functionality:

I have dabbled with the Affinity Suite off and on for more than a year or two. It's pretty good stuff. Each program has most of the basic features of the Adobe software with which it competes. And the software itself seems pretty stable; although I have not yet used it to create any large documents, what I have done with it seems to function quickly without crashes or serious issues.

I can say the same for GIMP. It's an oldie-but-a-goodie and I have had to use it professionally for about a year to make minor graphic edits for various work projects at a worksite that didn't have Photoshop available. In that instance, I was able to use an FREE online version of GIMP to resize, crop and make minor fixes to images.

Viva Publisher 11 is the software with which I have the lease experience. I just started testing it this week and, honestly, it seems to be a contender because it can actually open InDesign files, and seems to do a pretty darn good job of it, too.

Cost:

The Affinity programs are sold separately and each is currently on version 2. They cost about $70 per app, with a "Universal License" that lets you buy all three for $165. However, these programs are often DEEPLY DISCOUNTED, especially before a new release comes out. I just paid $30 for a lifetime universal license to version 2 of the Affinity Suite. Based on this discount, I strongly suspect they will be rolling out version 3 during the week of Black Friday. I suspect that they'll offer a discount to upgrade when they roll out the newer version (they have done this in the past).

Viva Designer has a free version, but if I were going to use it I would need to Commercial Edition and, unfortunately, that runs about $400!

Conclusion:

I do not want to pay $400 for a single app, but since it is the only one that natively opens an InDesign file, it may be my best option. Before I pony up the cash, though, I am going to look for ways to translate the InDesign files to Affinity via an intermediary step: Writing the INDD file extension to IDML.

More on this to come.