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CorelDRAW 2025 Review: Design with Precision

Posted on July 19, 2025

Overview of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2025

Ever considered having a collection of software that can handle photo editing, page design, and vector illustrations all in one place? That’s exactly what the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2025 offers. This suite is a blend of graphic design software, a photo editor, and one of the most comprehensive alternatives to Adobe Photoshop available. It was tested to see how it stacks up against its competitors.

Pricing and Plans

The Corel suite is more affordable than many of its competitors. Additionally, there’s an option to purchase a license instead of subscribing. A 15-day trial is also available. After six years since the last major update, Corel made its professional apps compatible with Mac in 2019, and version 2025 continues this compatibility. Whether you have a Windows or Mac computer, you can download the suite and test it for free for 15 days.

After the trial period, you’ll need to invest. Unlike Adobe, Corel gives you a choice: a one-time purchase for $549 / £659, or an annual plan at $22.42 / £26.58 per month. The one-time purchase is roughly equivalent to two years of rental but doesn’t include upgrades or some additional features. This price includes PHOTO-PAINT (a Photoshop equivalent) and DRAW (an Illustrator equivalent). Compared to Adobe, this is a good deal as those two apps would cost around twice as much.

Features of the Suite

The suite includes six apps, but only two are major ones. There’s an online service that’s a good addition, though it’s only for subscribers. Why isn’t ‘Capture’ included with the Mac version, or at least is the Mac version priced lower since it doesn’t have all the apps that come with the Windows version?

CorelDRAW is the main app, a vector illustration and page layout program similar to Adobe Illustrator. It comes with PowerTRACE, an AI-powered bitmap-to-vector tracing tool, which is a time-saver. Next is Corel PHOTO-PAINT, which is Corel’s Photoshop equivalent. With it, you can edit images and create pixel-based projects. Corel Font Manager is an alternative to your computer’s default font management tool, which we found fun and easy to use, and also gives access to over 1,000 Google fonts.

CorelDRAW Web is a browser-based service for creating projects online, but it’s only available to subscribers. Capture, a screen capture tool, is Windows-only. Despite paying the same price, Mac users get fewer features compared to Windows users. We’ll take a brief look at the two main apps, PHOTO-PAINT and DRAW.

Integration Between Apps

The integration between all apps in the suite allows for sharing numerous features, including Pantone Dualities, which bring powerful color management between all apps in the suite, designers, and printers through industry-recognized palettes.

Corel PHOTO-PAINT

We found this image compositing program to be very competent, with tools similar to its competition, even if its way of working is different and will necessitate a bit of a learning curve if you’re used to the way other apps do things. One of the two main apps of this suite is PHOTO-PAINT, designed to be welcoming. You must sign in before using it, but once you’re in, you’re greeted with a welcome page offering online tutorials. Even when you open a file, you’ll find a ‘Learn’ sidebar on the right to guide you through any creative process.

If you’re familiar with other image compositing tools, it won’t take long to acquaint yourself with PHOTO-PAINT as the concept is pretty much the same. You have tools in a sidebar on one side, with an inspector sidebar on the other, and contextual parameters above. You’re offered a range of tools to retouch or enhance an image, and of course create one from scratch. If you’re used to Photoshop or other tools that borrow easily from that program’s interface, you will quickly feel comfortable in PHOTO-PAINT, although there are enough differences to impose a learning curve on you. Still, for most of the basics, you’ll find yourself up and running in no time.

CorelDRAW

CoreDRAW is an impressive vector-based drawing package with powerful tools, which seamlessly combine bitmap drawings and photos with resolution-independent vectors. When you launch CorelDRAW, you’ll be graced with a very similar welcome page to PHOTO-PAINT, along with tutorials and a ‘Learn’ section when you’re in the app proper. This family resemblance extends to file formats, as CorelDRAW can open PHOTO-PAINT documents. The reverse is not as seamless, as the DRAW files need to be converted; DRAW can handle bitmap content just as well as vector ones in its files.

CorelDRAW is a program designed to work with vectors, essentially resolution-independent art, represented by mathematical equations. You have at your disposal powerful tools and brushes to design complex artwork which will look sharp and crisp at any resolution. Perhaps the most impressive tool we explored is PowerTRACE, which is fully embedded within CorelDRAW itself. Its purpose is to convert a bitmap image into a vector equivalent. Depending on your image’s complexity and your computer’s power, it may take a few seconds for the action to complete, but we were highly impressed by the results.

Other impressive tools are the Painterly brushes, which allow you to replicate realistic brush strokes inside CorelDRAW. This means you get great detail and effects, which are easily scalable with zero resolution issues. CorelDRAW comes with hundreds of preset brushes but if you feel the urge to own more, there’s an online store which you can access via the Welcome screen, where you can purchase additional packs. Also, as yet another incentive to get you to subscribe rather than buy, you’re given a further 100.

A further bonus for subscribers is CorelDRAW Web, which allows you to perform quick edits to projects directly from a compatible web browser, from any machine. You can upload existing work and carry on with this online, or bring projects you started in the browser to further refine in CorelDRAW itself. It’s a very nice touch, and it’s pretty amazing what you can achieve from within a web browser these days – for those who don’t mind renting their software, that is.

Should I Buy CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2025?

Buy it if…

You’re looking for an affordable design suite that allows you to work with bitmap pixel-based images, and vectors, work online when you need to, gain access to Google fonts, and even record your screen (PCs only).

Don’t buy it if…

All you want is to draw a little and don’t wish to feel overwhelmed with a powerful set of tools with far too many features, and you don’t like that those who buy get fewer features compared to those who subscribe.

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