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Affinity vs Salesforce Essentials comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Affinity
Ranking in CRM
38th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Salesforce Essentials
Ranking in CRM
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Affinity is 0.9%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Essentials is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Essentials0.6%
Affinity0.9%
Other98.5%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Marcus Quinn - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Information Officer at Business Growth & Software Development Consultancy
Open source, stable and capable of working with existing Adobe files
Affinity Photo needs to work more. They need to align as much as possible with the shortcuts and keystrokes of Adobe. It's just because when you learn a tool as a professional, you tend to learn all the shortcuts and keystrokes. And if they're not the same as the same type of products that you migrated from, you lose productivity because you forget how to do things. You don't know where things are on the menu. You don't know the icon for it because you just know it as, "Oh, if I press this key, I get that." You forget the user interface. You just remember the keystrokes and the shortcuts. So, if that could align as much as possible with what I'm used to from Adobe, that would be good. And there's another product I use called Pixelmator Pro. And as much as I wish Affinity Photos did everything that Photoshop did, I actually ended up using this other product, Pixelmator, more for image editing because I just find it faster and more in line with what I remember from Photoshop. So, they are good. They've designed a good product. It's just the shortcuts and keystrokes need to match what people are used to, especially coming from Adobe because, let's say, it didn't exist. Affinity is a newer product.
AA
Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG
Has provided a reliable service with responsive support and offers valuable features, though pricing could be more affordable
We are a large organization with 14,000 people. As a user, Salesforce Essentials is extremely easy to use. The complete rollout from minimum viable product to final acceptable product took two years for our global deployment. The business operations for our 14,000 people are managed by approximately 10 people on the business side. These business admins are responsible for sales operations, troubleshooting, training, and driving features and requirements from the sales and marketing organizations. Additionally, we work with product owners on the IT side and a team of programmers. Daily operations require about five people for IT work, security programming, system connections, and development execution. For day-to-day user support, we need eight to ten people in the business. We operate on Microsoft Azure private cloud infrastructure. On a scale of 1 to 10, I rate Salesforce Essentials a 9 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable features of Affinity are the connection features it provides because you have a large database of startups. The people who worked in the companies and founded them are displayed in Affinity. It can show if they are using some special intelligence feature and that you may know this person, of your connections. For example, if they know the person. It works similar to the way LinkedIn does when you seek a connection. Additionally, Affinity shows how close this person is and how often they contact each other."
"I like that it's completely automated. It's a very robust system. You are not going to have faults in it."
"For me, the most valuable feature is the fact that they work with existing Adobe files. And open and edit PDFs and web-optimized exports. It's been very good."
"We use Salesforce Essentials for everything we do on the sales side."
"Their reporting and analytics features have a very significant impact on my company's operational efficiency."
"Salesforce provides the best they have with the current version. Most of the features we need are already there, and it's very easy to use."
"The CRM system has SAP Sales, SAP Service, and SAP Billing, with everything integrated into an on-premise SAP CRM system. Salesforce Essentials replaced this on-premise system, bringing all functionalities onto the cloud platform."
"The combination of product and service are exceptional."
"The solution is very scalable and flexible. It can be customized as per the business need."
"High availability is really important for us when getting our reports as a vendor."
"Salesforce makes tracking every product and customer activity easy, enabling managers to monitor their products, such as key products and their peak performance."
 

Cons

"To get people to migrate, Affinity needs to somehow give them an incentive to change. The key is to make it as similar as possible. Shortcuts and keystrokes would be my biggest learning curve. So, to scale, you're going to have to convince people to relearn their workflow, and everybody's too busy to do that. Scalability is kind of mid because you face adoption resistance if you're pushing out to a studio or staff that are used to Adobe. Many products don't think beyond Microsoft and Adobe. If it's not Microsoft, then they don't understand. So, scalability is a challenge."
"It would be better if it were "pay-per-user" instead of "pay-per-account." For example, I'm Siddharth Mallya, and I have two email accounts. Each of those accounts is a separate payable account for me. For instance, I have created a network using my personal email ID, and now I have moved to my company email ID. It'll choose any one of those accounts, and that will become my paid account. For example, if I put in my personal email ID, then that's the account that I pay for. But I'm no longer using it, and it's not going to get updated. If I put in my work email ID, then that's an entirely separate account that I have to pay for."
"Affinity could improve by adding more features. It has been a while since I have used it, but when I did, the features could improve."
"The product's reporting area has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Salesforce should encourage new users by offering smaller license packages, such as packages for three or two users."
"Integrating Salesforce with SAP, considering our business relies heavily on SAP for ERP, has been quite challenging due to the intricate product configurations. Unlike standard products like computers with a few options, our products have hundreds of configurable options, making the integration complex. If such integration were possible, it would have been easier to understand the unique nature of our industry and the limited number of customers who buy steel products, unlike consumer electronics."
"The solution needs to be more user-friendly. It's difficult for a senior to track leads when a salesperson uploads leads. The solution should also improve its integration capabilities."
"Salesforce Essentials does not contain domain-specific solutions."
"Areas that could be improved or upgraded in the next release include analytics, automation capabilities, and stability."
"The primary area for improvement in Salesforce Essentials is its pricing. There are other competitors, like Zoho CRM, that offer similar features at a lower cost."
"The cost of running Salesforce Essentials is significant. The licenses are expensive, and the operational costs are considerable, including the necessity to maintain a team of approximately 15 people to run the system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Affinity is an expensive solution. However, they over a free version trial. The solution is expensive but the people that have used it say it is worth the money."
"Affinity follows a pay-per-account model, and I think there will be a monthly or a yearly paid subscription. I have heard that it was expensive."
"We chose quarterly payments."
"The tool is moderately priced."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"The pricing is a bit on the expensive side."
"The pricing is on the higher side, especially with additional costs for professional services like consultants."
"It's a perpetual license, and the subscription can be expensive."
"Salesforce Essentials is quite expensive, almost 10 out of 10. I don't have the exact cost, but we found it to be very expensive based on our budget constraints."
"I rate Salesforce Essentials' pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
University
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What do you like most about Salesforce Essentials?
Salesforce provides the best they have with the current version. Most of the features we need are already there, and it's very easy to use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Essentials?
Salesforce Essentials is very expensive, but it delivers exceptional value. It is a good platform to have if you can afford it because it has numerous add-ons and modules. Anything that Salesforce ...
What needs improvement with Salesforce Essentials?
The mobile access can be improved in several ways. Salesforce Essentials operates in a table format where the entire user interface is based on tables, more specifically pivot tables. This is not v...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

T3 Advisors, Cushman & Wakefield,
Information Not Available
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881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.