Affinity Designer vs Procreate: Which Graphics App is Right for You?

When it comes to powerful graphics apps for digital artists and designers, two of the most popular choices are Affinity Designer and Procreate. Both offer robust tools and features for creating stunning digital artwork, but they each have their own unique strengths. So which one is the best fit for your creative workflow?

In this in-depth comparison, we‘ll break down the key differences between Affinity Designer and Procreate to help you decide which app is right for your needs. Whether you‘re a professional graphic designer, a digital painter, or just starting out with digital art, this guide will give you all the information you need to choose the perfect graphics companion.

Overview of Affinity Designer and Procreate

First, let‘s start with a quick overview of each app:

Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is a vector graphics editor developed by Serif for macOS, iOS, and Windows. It‘s designed as a professional tool for creating concept art, illustrations, branding, icons, UI designs, mock-ups, and more.

Some of the key features of Affinity Designer include:

• Vector and raster workspaces for combining shapes, text, and textures
• Comprehensive vector tools like the pen, node, and shape tools
• Raster tools for brushwork and textures
• Boolean operations for combining shapes
• Preset brushes and custom brush creation
• Grids, guides, and snapping for precise designs
• Unlimited artboards and pages
• Advanced typography options
• Customizable shortcuts and saveable workspaces
• PSD, AI, PDF, SVG, EPS and FH file support
• Seamless switching between other Affinity apps

Procreate

Procreate is a raster graphics editor app developed by Savage Interactive for iOS. It‘s aimed primarily at digital artists, illustrators, and designers who want to paint, sketch, and create artwork on an iPad.

Some of the main features of Procreate include:

• Intuitive interface designed for Apple Pencil and touch
• Huge library of 200+ brushes with full customization
• Dual-texture system for natural brushstrokes
• Smudge tool for blending colors and textures
• Layers, masks, alpha lock and clipping masks
• Drawing guides like symmetry, perspective, and isometric
• Easy color selection with classic and harmony modes
• 4K canvas resolution with 64-bit color
• 250 levels of undo and redo
• Powerful selection tools and transformation options
• Time-lapse recording and playback
• Export to PSD, TIFF, PNG, PDF, JPEG and Procreate files
• Dark mode interface

As you can see, both Affinity Designer and Procreate are very capable apps with a lot of advanced features. But they do have some significant differences in design philosophy and workflow. Let‘s dive into some of those key distinctions.

Affinity Designer vs Procreate: Key Differences

Design Model: Vector vs Raster

The most fundamental difference between Affinity Designer and Procreate is the underlying design model. Affinity Designer is primarily a vector graphics editor, while Procreate is entirely raster-based.

What does this mean in practice? Vector graphics are made up of scalable points, lines, curves and shapes based on mathematical equations. This makes them infinitely scalable without losing quality.

Affinity Designer excels at creating crisp, clean graphics that can be printed at any size, making it ideal for creating logos, icons, illustrations, and print designs. The vector personas allow you to edit shapes and paths with precision.

Raster graphics, on the other hand, are made up of a grid of pixels. When you zoom in or scale up a raster image, it can start to look blurry or pixelated. Procreate is a pixel-based app, meaning it‘s optimized for creating digital paintings with natural-looking brushstrokes and textures.

The raster-based model is more intuitive for freehand drawing and painting, but it does mean you need to work at a high resolution if you plan to print your artwork at a large size. Procreate supports up to 4K canvases to give you plenty of pixels to work with.

It‘s worth noting that Affinity Designer does include raster brushes as well, so you can add textures and paint effects to your vector designs. But for creating artwork from scratch with brushes, Procreate has the advantage.

Compatibility and Availability

Another key difference is which devices and operating systems you can use each app on. Affinity Designer has the edge here, with full featured versions available for macOS, Windows, and iOS. The desktop app is optimized for mouse and keyboard, while the iPad app supports Apple Pencil.

Procreate, on the other hand, is exclusive to iOS devices. There‘s no desktop or Android version. If you want to use Procreate, you‘ll need an iPad. On the plus side, the app is designed from the ground up for the iPad, with an interface that‘s tailored for touch and Pencil input.

So if cross-platform support is important to you, Affinity Designer is the more versatile choice. But if you‘re fully committed to the iPad and Apple Pencil for your digital art, Procreate provides a more focused and optimized experience.

Brush Engines and Painting Tools

When it comes to digital painting, brushes are everything. Both Affinity Designer and Procreate offer a wide range of brushes, but Procreate is the clear winner in terms of sheer variety and customization.

Procreate comes with over 200 brushes built-in, covering everything from basic sketching pencils and inking pens to natural media brushes like oils, watercolors, and gouache. It also has a powerful brush engine that lets you customize every aspect of a brush, from shape and grain to wet edges and color dynamics.

There‘s also a huge community of Procreate brush makers who share and sell custom brush sets. So the possibilities for your painting toolkit are nearly endless.

Affinity Designer has a solid selection of vector brushes for creating variable-width strokes, as well as pixel brushes for adding textures. But the brush library is much more limited compared to Procreate, with only a few dozen presets to choose from. You can customize the brushes or import ABR files, but the options are not as deep as Procreate‘s brush engine.

If you‘re serious about digital painting and want the maximum flexibility for your brushes, Procreate is the app for you. Affinity Designer‘s brushes are perfectly capable for adding artistic flourishes to your designs, but it can‘t match the natural media feel and limitless possibilities of Procreate‘s brush system.

Design Features and Tools

For design work beyond digital painting, Affinity Designer pulls ahead with its robust toolset for vector editing, layout, and effects. The vector tools rival Adobe Illustrator in terms of features, with precise path editing, clever shape tools like Cog and Spiral, and a Corner Tool for rounding and splitting points.

The pixel tools are no slouch either, with a Flood Fill Tool, Magic Wand for selections, and a full set of Dodge, Burn, Blur, Sharpen and Smudge brushes. Plus you get a complete Gradient editor, Mesh Warp and Distortions, and live filter layers.

Procreate has been adding more design features aimed at illustrators and comic artists, like the Symmetry tools, Perspective Guides, and Text. But the tools are not as comprehensive as Affinity‘s. For example, Procreate has a basic Gaussian Blur filter, but no control over highlights, shadows, and midtones.

Both apps now offer vector export, but Designer has much better control over curves, points, and boolean operations. When it comes to design features, Affinity Designer provides the more complete package.

Color and Output

For professional printing, color accuracy is crucial. Affinity Designer supports RGB, CMYK, LAB, Grayscale color modes, and 16-bit per channel. It also has live CMYK and Gamut warnings, and ICC color profiles. So you can have confidence that your designs will print exactly as intended.

Procreate supports RGB color with 64-bits per pixel, which provides a wide gamut. But there‘s no CMYK mode for print design work. If you‘re creating digital illustrations for print, you may need to tweak the colors in another app before sending to the printer.

Ease of Use and Learning Curve

When it comes to ease of use, both apps have their strengths. Procreate has a very intuitive and streamlined interface that‘s easy to pick up and start sketching with. The gesture controls feel natural, like a two-finger tap to undo.

Procreate‘s simplicity can be limiting for some advanced features. But if you‘re new to digital art and want an app you can learn quickly, Procreate is very beginner-friendly.

Affinity Designer packs a lot of pro-level features into its interface, which can be a bit overwhelming at first. But once you learn where everything is, the layout is very logical and customizable. You can pop out and rearrange panels to suit your workflow.

The desktop version has a steeper learning curve than the iPad app, since it relies more on keyboard shortcuts and menus. But you have more precise control thanks to the mouse and modifier keys.

Overall, Procreate is easier to grasp initially, but Affinity Designer rewards the time you invest in learning its full capabilities. It really comes down to how complex your needs are.

Pricing and Value

Affinity Designer and Procreate are both very affordable compared to subscription-based apps like Adobe Creative Cloud. Affinity Designer costs $49.99 for the desktop version and $19.99 for the iPad app. That‘s a one-time price for a perpetual license.

Procreate is only $9.99 to download on the App Store, which is an unbeatable deal given the power of the app. The Procreate Pocket iPhone app is also a steal at $4.99.

In terms of overall value, you can‘t go wrong with either app. But if you need both a desktop and iPad version, Affinity Designer is cheaper than buying two separate apps. The learning resources and large community also add to the long-term value.

Final Verdict

So which app should you choose in the Affinity Designer vs Procreate debate? The answer depends on your specific needs and use case. Here‘s a quick summary to help you decide:

Choose Affinity Designer if:

• You do a lot of vector illustration, icon design, logos, and print work
• You need precise control over shapes, points, and paths
• You want CMYK and color management for print
• You need to edit vector and raster elements together
• You work on both a desktop computer and iPad

Choose Procreate if:

• You‘re primarily a digital painter or illustrator
• You want the most natural painting experience with a huge brush library
• You create art exclusively on an iPad
• You prefer a simpler, touch-first interface
• You want the most affordable professional-grade painting app

Personally, I use both apps in my creative workflow. I start most of my illustrations in Procreate, sketching and painting with the Apple Pencil. Then I bring the file into Affinity Designer to create vector shapes, add typography, and optimize the colors for print.

The power of Procreate‘s brush engine combined with the precision and polish of Affinity‘s vector tools provides the best of both worlds. But if I had to choose just one, I would lean towards Affinity Designer as the more versatile tool for a wider range of design projects.

Hopefully this in-depth comparison has helped you understand the key differences between Affinity Designer and Procreate. The right app for you will depend on your style of working and the kinds of projects you take on. But you can‘t go wrong with either of these feature-packed and affordable tools for digital art and design.