Affinity is probably your best bet.
I will test drive Serif Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer at the beginning of next year. I really hope they're worthy alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator like so many users are reporting.
They will be releasing a layout program soon
Yeah, that's gonna be interesting, too. For DTP there are at least some more alternatives available. I've been using QuarkXpress 3 and 4 a while back and it has always been as powerful as InDesign. The recent version is probably a safe bet for serious DTP, too. Then there are Viva Designer and Scribus, that became awesome powerful and IMHO is really an amazing Open Source Software.
Sooner or later I would expect Affinity to move over to a subscription model if they want to stay competitive, or start raising their prices.
Raising prices would be o.k. if it's a product of high quality. Subscription IMO is not a deal breaker, but it depends on how the subscription works. E.g., there is software I use that has a one time fee, but after one year you won't get any more updates if you don't pay for one up to three years through an upgrade subscription. That's a fair model, because you are always staying ready for operation with the version you have installed. Then there is the possibility to make the main part of the app fully operational after end of subscription and charge for updates and extra services like cloud storage, sync services or cluster rendering on a yearly basis. Operational capability is the main reason for me not to jump into a Creative Cloud subscription, the price tag is just a minor issue.
I remember the days with QuarkXpress and the hardware dongles, that sometimes suddenly refused to work. Because no service provider nor any serious creative professional can live with the risk to be inoperable, even just for an hour of a day, the dongle lead to installation of suspicious software cracks even though the license was paid, just to get rid of the delicate dongle. That was weird.
Concerning Creative Cloud, I'm sometimes working in places where I don't have any internet access for quite a long period and I couldn't afford to be forced to get an internet connection, just to renew or reactivate my license. On the other hand, I don't like the idea, that I won't be able to access and more important to export or convert my own data anymore, if I'd decide to stop my subscription at some time. Then Adobe could stop their activation servers at some point for older versions, like they have done before for older CS suites, that would be annoying.
Sketch is another app that I would have enjoyed to utilise for my workflow, but I don't think that Sketch does have a more liberal subscription model than Adobe CC, that makes it a no way for me.
I entirely understand that software companies are somehow forced to choose the subscription model to survive and I don't blame them for doing so. As they do have the freedom to choose their business model, I'm glad that I can select the technology that gives me the highest benefit, at least if there are some options available. If there were more people with my demands, the majority of recent subscription models wouldn't be accepted like they're existing today, because finally it's just the user's decision what he's paying for and what not. From a big (former) Adobe fan!
