Adobe Creative Cloud vs Adobe Firefly vs Affinity vs Flux
A side-by-side look at Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Firefly, Affinity and Flux for filmmakers: what each one can do, what it costs, and where they actually differ.
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Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop and Firefly AI in one subscription
- Price
- From $9.99/mo (Firefly Standard); Creative Cloud Pro $69.99/mo list ($34.99/mo first 3 months for new subscribers)
- Learning
- Steep
- Best for
- Editors who finish in Premiere and After Effects and want generative fill, extends and title or motion work in the same app
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Adobe's generative studio for images, video and audio, with commercially cleared models and partner models
- Price
- Free daily generations, or Standard from $9.99/mo (2,000 credits); Pro Plus and Premium have a 30% first-year promo ending Oct 21
- Learning
- Easy
- Best for
- Generative fill and object removal on plates, stills and reference frames in Photoshop
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Free pro photo, vector and layout editor from Canva, with paid Canva AI tools
- Price
- Core app free; Canva AI tools inside Affinity need a paid Canva plan
- Learning
- Moderate
- Best for
- Key art, posters and title cards for a film or doc, built without a Photoshop subscription
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Image model family for accurate text and photoreal stills, plus FLUX 3 video with native audio
- Price
- Pay per image on the API, from $0.014 (FLUX.2 klein 4B). Open weights are free for non-commercial use; commercial open-weights licences are quoted by sales.
- Learning
- Moderate
- Best for
- Key art and concept frames where legible text in the image matters
The short version
Where they differ
- Affinity is the only one without text to video.
- Affinity is the only one without image to video.
- Affinity is the only one without custom training.
All 4 offer: image editing, upscaling.
Feature by feature
Adobe Creative Cloud vs Adobe Firefly vs Affinity vs Flux: capabilities
| Adobe Creative Cloud | Adobe Firefly | Affinity | Flux | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | From $9.99/mo (Firefly Standard); Creative Cloud Pro $69.99/mo list ($34.99/mo first 3 months for new subscribers) | Free daily generations, or Standard from $9.99/mo (2,000 credits); Pro Plus and Premium have a 30% first-year promo ending Oct 21 | Core app free; Canva AI tools inside Affinity need a paid Canva plan | Pay per image on the API, from $0.014 (FLUX.2 klein 4B). Open weights are free for non-commercial use; commercial open-weights licences are quoted by sales. |
| Infinite canvas | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| AI agent | Yes | Yes | Partial | No |
| Chat assistant | Yes | Yes | Partial | No |
| Team collaboration | Yes | Yes | Partial | Not confirmed |
| Text to image | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| Image editing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Text to video | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Image to video | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Video to video | Yes | Yes | No | Partial |
| Native audio in video | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | No | Yes |
| Lip-sync | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | No | Yes |
| Voice / TTS | Yes | Yes | No | Partial |
| Music & SFX | Yes | Yes | No | Partial |
| Upscaling | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Character consistency | Not confirmed | Partial | No | Partial |
| Camera control | Partial | Not confirmed | No | Partial |
| Custom training | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Third-party models | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | No |
| Public API | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Not confirmed | No | Not confirmed |
| Desktop / local | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | No | No | No | Partial |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Commercial use | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | Partial |
Each column comes from that tool's own researched page. "Not confirmed" means the vendor doesn't say.
Plans
Pricing compared
Adobe Creative Cloud
| Creative Cloud Pro | $69.99monthly (annual plan billed monthly) |
|---|---|
| Creative Cloud Standard | $54.99monthly (annual plan billed monthly) |
| Single app (Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator) | $22.99monthly (annual plan billed monthly) |
| Photography | $19.99monthly (annual plan billed monthly) |
| Firefly Standard | $9.99monthly |
| Firefly Pro | $19.99monthly |
| Firefly Pro Plus | $49.99monthly |
| Firefly Premium | $199.99monthly |
Adobe Firefly
| Free | Freemonthly |
|---|---|
| Standard | $9.99monthly |
| Pro | $19.99monthly |
| Pro Plus | $49.99 ($34.97 first year, promo ends Oct 21)monthly |
| Premium | $199.99 ($139.91 first year, promo ends Oct 21)monthly |
| Pro for teams | $19.99 per licensemonthly, annual |
| Pro Plus for teams | $49.99 per licensemonthly, annual |
| Premium for teams | $199.99 per licensemonthly, annual |
Affinity
| Affinity (core app) | Freen/a |
|---|
Flux
| Open weights, non-commercial | Freeone-time download |
|---|---|
| API pay-as-you-go | From $0.014 per imagepay-per-image |
| Builder (open-weights licence) | Contact saleslicence |
| Platform (open-weights licence) | Contact saleslicence |
| Professional (open-weights licence) | Contact saleslicence |
| Enterprise | Contact salescustom |
The verdict
Which one should you pick?
Adobe Creative Cloud
Pick it for
- Editors who finish in Premiere and After Effects and want generative fill, extends and title or motion work in the same app
- Agencies and brands that need commercially cleared generative assets for client delivery
- Motion designers who build mograph in After Effects and generate stills or plates in Firefly
Stands out
- Only suite where editing, motion graphics, grading, audio and stock sit in one subscription with Firefly generation layered on top
- Adobe's own Firefly models are marketed as commercially safe (licensed and public-domain training data), and paid plans carry commercial rights
Watch out
- Full suite is expensive: Creative Cloud Pro is $69.99/mo list, and generation is metered on top
- The AI layer is split across Firefly credits, beta agents and partner models, so costs and availability differ per feature
Adobe Firefly
Pick it for
- Generative fill and object removal on plates, stills and reference frames in Photoshop
- Storyboard and mood-board work in Boards, with partner models for each shot
- Filmmakers already paying for Creative Cloud who want AI inside Premiere and After Effects
Stands out
- Commercial-clearance story: Adobe's own models are trained on Adobe Stock and licensed or public-domain content, and Adobe says outputs are safe for commercial use. Partner-model outputs carry their own terms.
- Native Creative Cloud integration: generative fill, removal and expansion run inside Photoshop, and Premiere Pro and After Effects get Firefly features. Midjourney, Flux, Leonardo and Stable Diffusion have no equivalent in an NLE.
Watch out
- Image quality for photoreal hero art still trails Midjourney and Flux in most side-by-side comparisons
- Credits are consumed at different rates by model, so one plan's allowance is hard to predict across partner models
Affinity
Pick it for
- Key art, posters and title cards for a film or doc, built without a Photoshop subscription
- Logo, lower-third and end-card graphics that need vector output and print layouts
- Cleaning up and masking still frames before feeding them to an AI video model as references
Stands out
- The core app is free for individuals with no watermark or trial clock, which is the main gap against Photoshop's 7-day trial and paid-only plans.
- One app covers raster, vector and page layout as switchable studios, so a logo, its print layout and its photo mockup stay in one document.
Watch out
- No video generation or video editing; stills and graphics only
- AI features sit behind a separate Canva subscription, with a monthly allowance that runs out quickly on heavy generation
Flux
Pick it for
- Key art and concept frames where legible text in the image matters
- Environment plates and set-design variations at 2K or 4K, priced per megapixel
- Studios that want open weights and custom LoRAs running locally in ComfyUI
Stands out
- Open weights: FLUX.2 [dev] and the klein models can be downloaded, self-hosted and fine-tuned, with LoRA rights on the licensed tiers. Midjourney is closed.
- Pay per image with no subscription: FLUX.2 [klein] 4B from $0.014 per image, FLUX.2 [pro] from $0.03. Midjourney and Adobe Firefly sell monthly plans.
Watch out
- Video is new. FLUX 3 Video availability and FLUX 3 Image early access have been described differently across sources, and video pricing is not published
- Open-weights models are non-commercial by default, and commercial use needs a licence quoted by sales
Each column comes from that tool's own researched page, checked against vendor pricing and changelog pages (oldest check: ). Sources are listed on each tool's page.
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