When you drag one layer to fall below the other, the top layer is automatically masking the one below. Every layer can be made to mask automatically by putting it in the right order. It takes some time to get used to the new panels and shortcuts, but after a few hours of drawing you'll be up and running for sure.Īside of the performance, another key difference is present. The software looks and feels great and the difference in smoothness compared to Inkscape is noticeable directly. We installed the Mac version and gave it a try. And when the program needs to be able to run on Mac and Windows and still needs to be feature rich like Illustrator, Affinity Designer takes the first spot on the stage.Īffinity Designer has a free demo version you can try for 90 days.

Luckily there are other options out there who still work with a single licence and don't require you to take a subscription of any kind. It's the leading software, but with a monthly fee of around 25 euro it's also a damn costly one.

When thinking about vector graphics, Adobe Illustrator is probably the first thing to come to mind. This was the main trigger for us to have a look at the competitors and see what's out there. But sadly this was not the case and the issues remained present. There was a good chance the issues with the beta were just some child deceases and would be gone with the official release. Not long after our review, the beta was finished and the official version 1.0 of the popular open source vector drawing software was released. As far as we can remember, the previous version didn't had issues of this magnitude.

You're still able to work with it, but it just doesn't feel smooth at all. In some cases, just a couple of layers with paths could cause the program to become sluggish. There were random errors with some of the panels, but the most noticeable problems all had to do with performance. It can now run as a standalone application on the macOS for the first time. The new software made a huge leap forward, especially for Mac users. Just a while back we did a quick review of the fresh v1.0 beta release of Inkscape.

Inkscape review or illustrator