Canva has quickly become one of the most popular online graphic design tools thanks to its ease of use, attractive templates, and free plan. But while Canva is great for many people, it‘s not the only option out there. Other graphic design platforms offer unique features, specialties, or pricing models that might make them a better fit for your needs.
In this post, we‘ll take an in-depth look at the top 8 Canva alternatives. For each tool, we‘ll explore the key features, pricing, pros and cons, and how it stacks up compared to Canva.
Whether you‘re looking for more templates and graphics, animation capabilities, built-in photo editing, or a simpler interface, one of these Canva competitors should fit the bill. Let‘s dive in.
1. Visme
Visme is a powerful graphic design tool that offers much more than just social media images. In addition to graphics, it handles presentations, infographics, video, audio, animations and other visual content.
The drag-and-drop editor is intuitive and even fun to use. You get access to a huge library of customizable templates so you can always start with a professional design. Visme also provides free stock photos, icons, and other assets to incorporate into your visuals.
Some standout features of Visme include:
- Build animated graphics and presentations
- Create interactive infographics with charts and graphs
- Add video and audio to your designs
- Collaborate with team members
- Get analytics on who viewed your content
While Visme has a bigger learning curve than Canva, that‘s because it packs in so many powerful features. Once you get oriented, the creative possibilities are endless.
Visme offers a free plan so you can try out all the functionality. Paid plans start at $15/month and include more storage and premium templates.
Pros:
- Highly versatile with graphics, videos, presentations and more
- Huge selection of templates and design assets
- Powerful features like interactivity and animation
- Free plan available
Cons:
- More complicated and steeper learning curve than Canva
- Many features limited or unavailable on free plan
2. Placeit
Placeit is an online design tool that focuses on simplicity. It offers an extensive library of templates for social media posts, logos, posters, t-shirts, mockups, and more. The templates are constantly updated with new options for every occasion.
What makes Placeit unique is its product mockups. You can quickly place your t-shirt design on a range of shirts, hoodies, and models to create professional-looking lifestyle photos.
No design experience is necessary to use Placeit. Simply pick a template and customize the text, colors, and graphics to fit your brand. While not as versatile as Canva, Placeit wins points for speed and ease of use.
Placeit starts at $14.95/month for unlimited downloads. There‘s no free plan but you can purchase templates individually if you only need a few.
Pros:
- Extremely easy to use
- Huge selection of templates for all types of content
- Get photorealistic product shots with the mockup tool
Cons:
- Fewer customization options compared to Canva
- No free version available
3. Easil
Easil is a drag-and-drop design tool aimed at non-designers and marketers. It focuses on helping you produce on-brand content across your social channels, ads, presentations and more.
A key feature is Easil‘s Brand Kit, which stores your brand colors, fonts, logos and other assets for easy access. You can share your Brand Kit with team members to keep your visuals consistent.
Easil comes packed with millions of free stock photos and thousands of professionally designed templates. While not as advanced as some other tools, you can add design flourishes like image shadows, text masks, and animations.
The extensive template library and Brand Kit make Easil a great choice for cranking out visual content quickly. Plans start at $7.50/month, with a limited free version available.
Pros:
- Help non-designers create on-brand content
- Includes Brand Kit and team collaboration features
- Simple but has some advanced design options
Cons:
- Not suitable for highly complex designs
- Free plan is limited
4. Stencil
Stencil is an online graphic design tool built for speed and simplicity. It‘s geared towards social media marketers and influencers who need to produce attractive visuals quickly.
Stencil focuses on doing a few things really well:
- Over 5 million high-res, royalty free stock photos
- 1,350+ templates perfectly sized for each social network
- Instantly resize images for use across different platforms
- Live preview of your designs on each social site
- Share directly to social media or via Buffer integration
If you primarily create quote graphics, promotions, and other social content, Stencil is a fast and efficient way to do it. Plans start at $9/month with a limited free option.
Pros:
- Built for speed – crank out social media visuals quickly
- Huge, searchable library of high-quality stock photos
- Each template is optimized for size on a specific social network
Cons:
- Lacks features for creating other types of content like Placeit and Visme
- Free plan is limited in features and uploads
5. Venngage
Venngage is an online design platform that specializes in infographics and data visualization. While it supports other types of designs, it really shines at making information beautiful and engaging.
Venngage provides hundreds of professionally-designed infographic templates and themes. You can also create designs like social media posts, posters, and reports, but the focus is on data-heavy content.
Some of Venngage‘s standout features include:
- Charts, graphs, timelines, maps and other data visualizations
- Smart templates that adjust based on your data
- Ability to import data from spreadsheets or paste it in
- Icon and illustration library to liven up your designs
If your content or industry involves a lot of stats, processes or ideas to communicate, Venngage is worth checking out. Plans start at $19/month with a limited free version available.
Pros:
- The best tool for creating infographics and data visualizations
- Turns spreadsheets and raw data into appealing graphics
- Intuitive drag-and-drop editor
- Decent selection of templates for other design types too
Cons:
- Not the best choice if you don‘t create a lot of data visualizations
- More expensive than tools like Stencil and Easil
6. PicMonkey
PicMonkey is a graphic design and photo editing tool in one. It packs a ton of features into an interface that‘s still simple enough for beginners to use.
With PicMonkey, you can edit photos, create designs and touch up images. Unique editing capabilities include:
- Remove background from photos
- Instantly change colors of objects, clothing or hair
- Whiten teeth, remove blemishes and wrinkles
- Add makeup, change hairstyles or experiment with color
PicMonkey provides thousands of customizable templates for social posts, logos, invitations, cards and more. The built-in stock photo library ensures you‘ll always have the perfect image.
PicMonkey offers a 7-day free trial, after which plans start at $7.99/month or $72/year.
Pros:
- Combines graphic design with powerful photo editing tools
- Extensive touch-up and beauty features for portraits
- Mobile app available for designing on the go
Cons:
- No free plan (only a 7-day trial)
- Cheaper alternatives if you don‘t need the photo editing features
7. Adobe Creative Cloud Express
Adobe Creative Cloud Express (aka Adobe Spark) is a graphic design app that lets you easily create social posts, web pages, and short videos. As part of the Adobe Creative Suite, it integrates with tools like Photoshop and Illustrator.
Creative Cloud Express sports an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface for building designs. It comes with a variety of templates for social media posts, ads, flyers, logos and more. You can also start from scratch with Adobe‘s fonts, stock photos, and icons.
Some notable features include:
- Automatically remove background from photos
- Animation tool to make text, images or icons move
- "Quick Actions" to resize, trim, merge, convert files and more
- Brand Kits to save your colors, fonts and imagery
- Schedule and publish your designs directly to social
Adobe Express has a free plan with limited templates, storage and features. Paid plans start at $9.99/month and include the full library, brand kit, and more.
Pros:
- Backed by Adobe‘s expertise, assets and integrations
- Good balance of ease-of-use and advanced features
- Create both static and animated content
Cons:
- Interface can be a bit complex compared to Canva
- Many features restricted on free plan
8. Snappa
Snappa is perhaps the closest direct alternative to Canva in terms of look, feel and functionality. It‘s an intuitive design tool for creating graphics for social media, ads, blogs, and more.
Snappa provides pre-set templates perfectly sized for each social network and digital ad platform. The editor is beginner-friendly, with simple tools to add text, graphics, effects, and textures.
Some key Snappa features include:
- Library of 5 million royalty-free, high-res photos
- Millions of vector graphics, arrows, frames and other shapes
- Preset sizes and safe zones for every social media image type
- Remove background or make transparent with a single click
- Upload your own fonts and save brand color palettes
- Crop images to a specific size or aspect ratio
- Integrate with Buffer to share designs directly on social media
Snappa offers a limited free plan with access to a small selection of templates and graphics. Paid plans start at $10/month for more features, downloads and team accounts.
Pros:
- Simple, intuitive Canva-like interface
- Good selection of customizable templates and content
- Easily resize and repurpose designs
Cons:
- Fewer templates and features than Canva
- Can be too basic for professional designers
How to Choose the Right Canva Alternative
With so many excellent Canva alternatives available, how do you pick the right one? Here are some factors to consider:
Specific content needs: Will you primarily be making social media images, infographics, t-shirts, or something else? Some tools specialize in certain formats.
Experience level: Beginners will want the simplest interface and most templates, while pros may prefer more advanced customization.
Team functionality: If you‘ll be collaborating, look for a tool with shared folders, brand kits, commenting, and built-in approval flows.
Asset library: Check that the platform has the kind of templates, stock photos, graphics and fonts you need.
Integrations: Some tools integrate with social media schedulers, cloud storage, or other platforms you use.
Price:Plans range from free to $20+/month. More expensive typically means more features, storage, and accounts.
Overall, Visme is the most powerful and full-featured alternative to Canva. It can handle pretty much any type of visual content and includes advanced capabilities like animations and interactivity.
For those who want the absolute simplest way to produce great looking graphics, Placeit is an excellent choice. Just pick a template, customize it, and you‘re done.
PicMonkey is worth a look if you want to combine graphic design with photo editing features. And Venngage is the clear winner when it comes to infographics and data visualizations.
No matter which tool you choose, you‘ll be taking your visual content to the next level. Pick the Canva alternative that fits your needs and start designing!
