[7] Affinity Designer's core functions include vector pen and shape-drawing tools, support for custom vector and raster brushes (including the ability to import Adobe Photoshop (ABR) brushes), dynamic symbols, stroke stabilization, text style management, and vector/pixel export options.

[5][8][9] Affinity Designer provides non-destructive editing features across unlimited layers, with pan and zoom at 60fps, and real-time views for effects and transformations.

[16] With version 1.5 in October 2016, the application received multiple new features, including symbols, constraints, asset management and text styles.

[20] Version 1.7 was released in June 2019 adding some key features such as HDR support, unlimited strokes and fills to a single shape, new point transform tool, new transform mode in Node tool, Lasso selection of nodes, new sculpt mode added to pencil, and also some big performance improvements.

[22] Version 1.9 was released in February 2021, containing "substantial performance gains when working with complex vector documents" and hardware accelerration for Windows.

[23] In November 2022, Serif launched the second major version of Affinity Designer, incorporating shape builder and knife tools, vector warping, and an x-ray view.