There are no legit, legal versions of Adobe Illustrator for sale in perpetual license form. Anyone claiming to offer legal, perpetual license versions of Illustrator (or any other Adobe CC apps) is simply full of crap. They're either selling pirated software or just looking to scam people out of money and not offer anything in return. Buyer definitely beware.
It's still possible to buy perpetual license versions of CorelDRAW, but they're buy once versions that cannot get reduced upgrade pricing. However, considering just how much Corel (aka Alludo) is charging per year for just 2 full apps (Draw and Photo-Paint) the buy once version might be a better deal. Just buy another one a few years or more later. I like CorelDRAW for certain design tasks, but it falls short in some other areas. I really don't like how it will rasterize certain kinds of objects if they have complex clipping and/or gradient fills with varying levels of transparency. I'll often bring Corel-generated artwork into Illustrator to do final color work before generating the PDF for print output to avoid those limitations.
The "Affinity App" (formerly separate Designer, Photo and Publisher apps) is another alternative. It's free. But that free price is geared as a loss leader to convince users to get a Canva Pro subscription. Affinity Designer has its own quirks, both inside the app as well as its ability (or lack thereof) to import artwork. It doesn't understand CorelDRAW CDR files at all. Designer will only open the PDF portion of Adobe Illustrator files. Not everyone saves their Illustrator .AI files with PDF compatibility enabled. Importing PDF data rather than Illustrator data has its own pitfalls. Limitations in alternative graphics apps can lead to valuable lost time.
Yeah, no one wants to be on the hook for subscribing to software from Adobe or anyone else. In our own use case it's easier having Adobe Illustrator and not having to put up with headaches trying to output our own artwork or trying to bring Adobe-centric artwork from corporate clients into a non-native software environment.
