Procreate vs. Affinity Designer: Which App Should You Use?

Procreate and Affinity Designer are among the leading digital art and graphics tools available today. Although there’s certainly overlap in what they can do, they are two very different programs that shine in separate areas.

Overhead view of an artist creating a piece of botanical artwork by hand with watercolors and colored pencils — The app you choose should depend on your needs and goals–you can achieve this hand-drawn look with Procreate, then turn it into a vector with Affinity Designer. Still from Skillshare class Procreate Watercolors: Let’s Paint Roses and Create Botanical Designs! by Silvia Ospina

As you consider which one might be right for you, understand that this guide is less about deeming one the “winner” over the other, and more about defining the highlights and differences between Procreate and Affinity Designer. This way, you can determine which is best for your artistic goals, skill level and budget.

If you’d like a quick refresher on either program, check out:

This article will explore the features, pricing models, learning curves, use cases, and ecosystem compatibility of both Procreate and Affinity Designer, providing a clear decision-making framework.

Core Capabilities

What is Procreate best known for? Where does Affinity Designer shine? Let’s get a quick overview of what each can do.

Procreate

If you prefer to work with raster images (made of pixels), Procreate is your tool. It markets itself as a complete art studio you can take anywhere on your iPad, and it certainly delivers options with a massive library of more than 200 brushes.

Further, you have the option to customize Procreate’s brushes, download thousands of other brushes or even create your own. You can also exercise incredible color control with features like Color Dynamics, Color Harmony and Color History.

Affinity Designer

For creating vector images, Affinity Designer is the way to go. Affinity Designer positions itself as the epitome of professional, scalable design, with features to support top-quality illustration, web design, game development and UI design.

Affinity Designer works on Windows, macOS and the iPad, making it highly accessible and great for collaboration. Additionally, the tool can work with both raster and vector images.

User Experience

Which app has a steeper learning curve? What is the interface like for beginners and pros?

Procreate

Some creatives find Procreate more intuitive than Affinity Designer, thus making it ideal for those new to digital art and design. You’ll likely be able to work faster in Procreate, even if you haven’t really used it before.

Procreate uses multi-touch gestures, keeping the interface simple for a smoother workflow. If you find navigation buttons and constant on-screen features distracting, the Procreate interface could work better for you than Affinity Designer.

It’s maddening when digital tools can’t keep up with your creativity. Procreate’s brushes match your pace with the fast Valkyrie graphics engine, which is designed to make the most of the iPad’s power.

Affinity Designer

For those looking for numerous options to support highly complex projects, Affinity Designer has more to offer. While it might take you a bit longer to learn the features and how to use them, you’ll enhance your capabilities across the board.

Affinity Designer handles thousands of objects with no lag, allows an unlimited number of artboards and includes a sophisticated range of typography options. Again, however, utilizing all these features will require some learning and experimentation.

Like Procreate, Affinity Designer uses gestures for smooth navigation. Once you have a handle on using the program overall, you may find the latter’s gestures more efficient.

Platform & Compatibility

Which devices support each app? How does that affect workflow flexibility?

Procreate

You can use Procreate and Procreate Dreams on the iPad, and Procreate Pocket is a version for the iPhone. With a simple AirDrop, you can swap files between the different versions.

Notably, the fact that Procreate is firmly in the Apple iOS universe means it’s not terribly accessible to anyone not using Apple products. This can be limiting for certain collaborations.

Affinity Designer

With desktop counterparts for both Windows and macOS, in addition to its iPad version, Affinity Designer is less about portability overall. You do have the option to buy the various versions in a suite, and it’s relatively easy to swap files between operating systems.

For demanding projects with numerous contributors, this versatility is essential, especially when part of the team works remotely.

Pricing Model

How do the cost structures compare—one-time purchase or subscription? What’s the value over time?

Procreate

You only pay for Procreate once, whether you’re getting Procreate, Procreate Dreams or Procreate Pocket. As of June 2025, Procreate Dreams is $19.99, Procreate is $12.99, and Procreate Pocket is $5.99.

No matter how you use Procreate, the one-time purchase is sure to pay for itself in enjoyment and expression. And if you sell your work, the potential for ROI is sky-high.

While you can share a Procreate license among a few people in a family situation, the pricing and licensing aren’t really meant for a business setting.

Affinity Designer

Additionally, Affinity Designer is a one-time purchase, but It is more expensive than Procreate. You have, at the time of this writing, the option to buy specifically for macOS or Windows at $69.99, and iPad at $18.49.

Alternatively, purchase the universal license for macOS, Windows and iPad at $164.99. Even at this higher price point, Affinity Designer is a fine deal, considering all the things it can do.

If you’d like to buy multiple Affinity Designer licenses for a business setting, you can contact the company for a quote. Certain non-profits may qualify for free licensing.

Professional Use Cases

Which tool aligns better with certain creative disciplines, and what sort of projects are they best suited to?

Procreate

If you want something as close to working with analog tools as possible, including the “imperfections” of hand-made art, Procreate is the way to go. For individual artists, and organizations that don’t need highly complex design, Procreate should work well.

For example, if you’re into lettering and want to create something that looks hand-drawn for a logo or poster, Procreate lets you do so with an organic feel.

With Procreate, you’ll enjoy:

Brushes that look realistic and textured
2D animation capabilities
Working with pixels

Affinity Designer

For large, complex projects in professional settings and pieces that can endlessly scale to whatever the client needs, Affinity Designer is the solution for you. Whether you’re a freelance designer taking on a range of different jobs, or managing a team of creatives in cutting-edge marketing, Affinity Designer is up to the job.

For example, imagine a client needs a new logo that scales easily from business cards to billboards. Affinity Designer’s vector format makes it easy to shrink or enlarge an image, and without any blurring or pixelating.

With Affinity Designer, you’ll enjoy:

Pattern design and previews of pattern repetition
Geometric art designs and accurate pattern layout
Vector files that easily scale up and down

Export & Workflow Integration

How do each app’s export capabilities and file compatibility compare? Can you switch between them? People do use P to draw and then bring it into AD

Procreate

Because Procreate only functions on iPad and iPhone (both iOS), you can easily swap files between Procreate, Procreate Dreams and Procreate Pocket. However, there isn’t a version for macOS, Windows, or other operating systems besides iOS.

This is somewhat limiting in work settings, as well as to anyone wanting to work on a Desktop. If you want to use Procreate, you can only do it on a relatively small screen (relative to large desktop screens, anyway).

Fortunately, it’s possible to take Procreate files, export them as a .PDF or .PNG and bring them into Affinity Designer, as demonstrated in this Procreate To Affinity Designer Workflow.

Affinity Designer

You can use Affinity Designer in Windows, macOS and the iPad. To transfer files between macOS and the iPad, you can simply AirDrop the file from one to the other. Swapping between Apple products and Windows is a bit less seamless, but it is manageable with cloud storage or exporting files in a common format, such as PDF or JPEG.

This accessibility is ideal for working situations, and collaborative teams that want to work on desktops and iPads.

You do have the option to import files created in Procreate into Affinity Designer. This is handy if you need to vectorize something you prefer to make in a program with a more organic feel.

Community & Learning Resources

Are there strong tutorial ecosystems or communities behind each tool?

Procreate

On its website, Procreate offers a Help Center, Community sharing, the Beginners’ Series, and guides for using Procreate in the classroom. You can also seek out communities on Facebook, Reddit and YouTube.

At this time, Procreate has publicized that it has no plans to use generative AI. While acknowledging that the technology is compelling and has merit, its approach is not suited to Procreate.

Affinity Designer

Within its website, Affinity Designer offers a Learning Portal that provides guidance for both desktop and iPad users. Through the portal, you can also find support articles, product support, account help and Affinity Spotlight, which is an overview of getting started with Affinity as a creative tool.

In addition, you can look for community forums on Facebook, Reddit and YouTube.

Which One Is Best for You?

Hopefully by now, you have a sense of where both Procreate and Affinity Designer shine, and how those highlights cater to different artistic goals, workflows, skill level and budget. Perhaps you’ve even realized that you want to try both, or start with one and move on to the other later.

Skillshare is happy to be your guide along the way as you get to know one or both of these excellent programs. Check out the classes on:

Procreate:

Affinity Designer:

Both:

And that’s only the beginning of what you can do!

Written By

Katie Mitchell

Katie lives in Michigan with her husband, kids and pets. She enjoys cooking, travel and live music.