Have been looking through a variety of desktop publishing apps to try and make the best decision for what I'm going to use.
I'm looking a comparison of the different apps out there currently.
I need an app I can easily make flyers, design/update my business card, save images as vectors, etc.

Indesign : Have used it before, but the obv. Drawback is paying $20/month for iD , and not having a huge need for all of the functions of iD.

MS Publisher : Going to start my free-trial of it here in a little bit. Is it worth the $100 or $7/month? Need something to design small flyers with and other simple tasks.
Looks pretty solid for these simple things, but... MS is a definite drawback. Seems everything they design is so different mechanics-wise to the last or next design
( IE differences between windows7,8,and 10. )


Affinity: Made by the people who produced Serif, Affinity is there new Graphic Design software system.
Works well with PSD ( which I have a subscription of ) , and looks like an amazing software for $50 and no subscription.
Unfortunately I haven't seen much about this app online while I've been looking for other Desktop Publishers. I only know about Affinity because I went looking to see if Serif Page was still being updated.
Apparently it's won some awards and such ( but what hasn't... right? )

Other: Let me know what else is out there. I tried out Scribus, didn't have high hopes, and it pretty much lived up to that. It's a little too.... user-unfriendly for me to do anything quickly.
Hard to see the changes in their text editor, doesn't seem to have the same smooth mechanics as almost all software does nowadays. ( I mean, even OpenOffice is pretty solid now )
Anyway, I have turned my sights away from the Opensource programs.


Any thoughts/suggestions?

Alright, so I found my answer yesterday..

AffinityDesign / AffinityPhoto

Checked out the AffinityDesign free trial and it is amazing. The differences between this and Adobe are very small, esp. if you aren't a professional with a professional level set-up.
Started using it and was instantly blown away by how well it competes with Adobe and how small the learning curve is to switch over.

To quell the arguments about how Adobe is the Industry Standard and Leader:

Is it the same level as Adobe? No - but damn close. Blows programs like GIMP out of the water.

Does it have everything I need? Yes.

Does it have everything Adobe does? No.

Does it have stuff Adobe does not? Yes. ( Previews for gradients, brush strokes, layer filters, and an amazing panel to adjust the "snap to" , with all sorts of functions and tolerance level. You can also save your history with projects to go back to it later and still have the undo capability ! )

Is it free? No. They are like $50/program, one time purchase

Is it laggy like GIMP? No, It's super lightweight. Even when compared to photoshop. One video I watched show this program running @300mb ram with no projects open in it, and PS @ 850mb ram with no projects open.
You can actually listen to music or run whatever you want while it's open.

Definitely worth the free download for anyone who doesn't want to pay for the full Adobe Suite
I do a lot of small scale stuff in Adobe, and do not have an expensive professional computer.
Graphic design is more of a hobby than a living, though I design some stuff for my small business on my own.
I use Photoshop and Lightroom for picture editing now, once my subscription for that is up I'll likely switch to Affinity Photo.
But I'm definitely going to get AffinityDesign




Do not use:
MS Publisher
Scribus

Very annoying to use if you are used to the Adobe set-up

This post was edited by Keasbey_Nights on Sep 20 2017 07:59pm