The programs are very different and essentially build for different purposes allthough Serif might not understand it. Or perhaps they do but try to sell the maximum amount of licenses they can anyway. They have a 30 years old history of aggressive selling and marketing but they seem to be more serious about their products after the Affinity line took over. But they really should relax on the marketing. They do not have a vector beast in Designer.
They best explanation is that VectorStylers name is brilliant - it really is a program for drawing with vectors and manipulating vector objects as vectors. Affinity Designer should in that context be named PixelStyler. You can create beautiful things in Affinity using their very basic vector toolset - and inferior, bugged boolean algoritms (!) - but you can in every other vector program as well. The difference is that Serif hit a sweet spot with their new user interface. It just bloody works and does so fast. They also offer a very interesting mix of vectors and pixels that many artists just love. Me included. The problem is that manipulating the vectors like it is possible in VectorStyler is all manual work. But they seem to aim at artists that use Affinity to CONTROL bitmaps (textures and brushes) with simple vector tools; PixelStyler.
In the case of Affinity Designer I came for the vectors and stayed for the bitmaps. The vectors just being "control shapes".
Serif also created a success by investigating what many actually need to create even complex visual designs: Simple shapes and vector effects. And all the classic FX from Photoshop that creates effects we know from photography and the world: inner light, outer light, glow, shadows, blur, bevel, emboss and a few more. It was a wise early start but somehow they never seemed to be able to deliver more. But Serif did deliver the essentials implemented the right way from the beginning.
Coming to VectorStyler - and many who learned drawing vector in Affinity but eventually hit the feature roof will - you will encounter the difference. Much slower workflows in certain areas. In Affinity I create tons and tons of vector objects and assign FX to them. Shadows, blur, emboss. Hundreds of times. It is FAST in Affinity and results in rasterized output. But I can create huge, complex works of art blazingly fast. I have read hundreds of time how artists praise Affinity for this artistic freedom and how fun it is to be able to work so fast, creating amazing effects and art.
I would suggest to look at Affinity and investigate what works so well for their customers that didn't for them in Illustrator. Simply because you can learn from their succes. Former succes. I don't see them innovating anymore. Their contribution was a modern, well thought out, easy to use interface and the vector-pixel mix. VectorStyler is a different beast and if @vectoradmin aims at picking up veteran and educated Illustrator and CorelDRAW customers mostly with an attrative, very similar and much cheaper product, that is fine. If also picking up the millions of Affinity users is a dream - looking at workflows like they were implemented in Affinity is key.
If you look at what some are able to produce with their iPad apps using the very simple toolset of Affinity you really realize people want to create with more organic, natural workflows. Not instructing a machine how to cast every shadow. It takes too long, it is boring and not creative.
Personally after some getting used to VS I use it as a supplement to Affinity - perspective, envelope distort mostly - and for some drawings I get printed on physical objects.
But I always start in Affinity - not Illustrator, VS and CorelDRAW I all own - even though the feature set is small and the boolean algoritms are inferior - because I simply work blazingly fast there and it is fun as well. And because I do not need pure vectors for my work.
In conclusion two different products for different use cases - but both can learn so much from each other. I will never be able to pick one of the two and ditch the other. But I like them both very much.
That being said I am lost likely to abandon Affinity Designer for something better should something pop up. Serif do not have the specialists and knowledge in-house for creating something better (after 30 long years in the business also with DrawPlus with the same lead vector developer as in Affinity) and it shows. Especially vector-wise. And I am NOT going to stick with it if the lack of tools continue. Because I can't.
