When comparing Affinity Photo vs PhotoFlare, the Slant community recommends Affinity Photo for most people. In the question“What is the best photo editing software?” Affinity Photo is ranked 4th while PhotoFlare is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Affinity Photo is:
Pay once, get updates forever.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Lifetime updates
Pay once, get updates forever.
Pro Interface will be familiar to those coming from Photoshop
The interface, especially the Photo persona, is laid out in way that's very similar to Photoshop - a panel for icons for tools on the left, a panel for information and settings on the right.
Pro Compatible with Photoshop PSD files
Affinity Photo can import and export .psd files.
Pro Great performance
Uses the GPU extensively for fast speed on any platform.
Pro Supports layer styles
Layer styles allow non-destructively applying effects to a layer.
Pro Personas allow separation of concerns
At a high level the interface is organized into broad groups of tools called Personas. Personas like Photo for in-depth image manipulation, Liquify for warping the image, Develop for basic RAW photo development and Export for exporting. Each persona displays only those tools that are needed for that task.
Pro Powerful effects
Dozens of visual effects available. All run extremely fast with live previews
Pro Non-destructive adjustment layers
Extensive adjustment layers are non-destructive.
Pro Everything is well organized
Easy to find and use tools.
Pro Runs faster than Photoshop's old code
Pro Lots and lots of undo
Pro The easiest, even easier than photoshop
Pro The perfect combination of Photoshop and Lightroom - all in one
Pro Supports Photoshop brushes, shapes, etc.
Pro Many tutorials
But still it does not actually matter which tutorial you're actually watching, Photoshop or Affinity's, they are pretty much the same.
Pro Very, very cheap for such an app
Pro Has an iPad app
Pro Decent functionality, 100% comparable with Photoshop
Pro Much more lightweight than photoshop
Pro RAW file editing
Pro HDR image editing
Pro Powerful, cheap and lightweight
Pro Very modern and intuitive interface
Pro Color correction
Pro Very fast to learn
Takes about 20 mins, it's that easy.
Pro Growing decently fast
Pro Panorama creation
Pro Imports free images from Unsplash
Pro User friendly
An easy to use GUI, inspired by the equally great PhotoFiltre editor. Very suitable for beginners to add that special touch to photos/images.
Pro Very fast
Starts up very quick and most editing features run at a high speed.
Pro RAW support
This program can open most RAW formats produced by high quality DSLR cameras. Great feature to have if you own a high end Nikon or Canon camera. (other brands supported too)
Pro Open Source
Offers a Community Edition which is free and the full code is available on Github.
Pro Cross Platform
Runs on all major platforms such as Windows, Linux and Mac.
Cons
Con Limited selection of plugins
Plugin support was only recently added to AP and not many plugins have been created for the program so far.
Con Can not import gimp or krita files
Free alternatives like GIMP (and Krita) are sort of "go to" apps you can always install and use for simple image editing or graphics on any computer. Affinity's support for Photoshop is great, but having support also for opening and editing GIMP and Krita files would make the versatility and use of this program absolutely superb.
Con Feature maturity can be low
Some features lack polish or still require more development to make them more useful. Looks like not all features have been given the same development time.