Figma, Canva, Adobe: Which Design Stack You Need in 2026

Over the past 5 years, the design services market has transformed. Adobe is no longer a monopoly, Figma has become the standard for UI, and Canva has carved out the niche of design for non-designers. Here are several working approaches.

UI/UX Design

Figma. Free for teams of up to 3 editors, Professional $15/seat/month, Organization $45/seat/month. The de facto standard for UI/UX. Since 2024, part of Adobe (but operates separately).

Sketch. $10/seat/month. Former macOS standard. Now holds a smaller share but is still used.

Penpot. Open source, free. Alternative to Figma. Can be self-hosted.

Illustrations and Vector Graphics

Adobe Illustrator. $23/month separately or part of Creative Cloud ($60/month). Standard for vector graphics.

Affinity Designer. One-time $70 (no subscription). Alternative to Illustrator. In 2024, Canva acquired Affinity, but lifetime access is preserved.

Inkscape. Open source, free. Simple interface, but functionally works.

Raster Graphics

Adobe Photoshop. $23/month. Standard for photo editing.

Affinity Photo. $70 one-time. Sufficient for most tasks, cheaper than Photoshop.

Photopea. Free web tool with an interface similar to Photoshop. Suitable for occasional tasks.

GIMP. Open source. Functional, but UX is unfamiliar.

Design for Non-Designers

Canva. Free, Pro $15/month, Teams $30/month. Turns design into template assembly. Suitable for marketing, social media, presentations. Strong AI generation capabilities.

Adobe Express. Free, Premium $10/month. Adobe's answer to Canva. Slightly weaker in templates, but integrated with Creative Cloud.

3D and Motion

Blender. Open source, free. Used for both 3D modeling and animation. Mature program, competes with paid ones.

Spline. Free, Pro $9/month. 3D in the browser, simplified for non-3D artists.

After Effects. $23/month or part of Creative Cloud. Standard for motion graphics.

AI Generation

Midjourney. $10-30/month. Best quality for artistic tasks.

Ideogram. $10/month. Stronger at handling text in images.

Adobe Firefly. Free basic, included in Creative Cloud. Integrated into Photoshop and Illustrator (Generative Fill, Generative Recolor).

Realistic Stacks

UI/UX Designer. Figma + Adobe Creative Cloud + Midjourney = $15 + $60 + $20 = $95/month.

Marketer at a Startup. Canva Pro + Adobe Express + free web tools = $25/month.

In-house Designer at a Small Company. Figma + Affinity (instead of Adobe subscription) + Midjourney = $15 + 0 (Lifetime) + $20 = $35/month plus one-time Affinity purchase.

Where to Save

If you rarely use Adobe, switch to Affinity. One-time payment of $70 pays off in 4 months of Adobe subscription. After 2024, Affinity is owned by Canva, but the interface and products remain.