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8 Best Canva Alternatives for Graphic Design [Free & Paid]
![8 Best Canva Alternatives for Graphic Design [Free & Paid]](https://visme.co/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Header-1200-2-500x280.png)
Written by: Orana Velarde
Looking for a Canva alternative?
Here’s a list of 8 Canva alternatives (both paid and free) to help you create designs that stand out: Visme, Adobe Spark, Design Wizard, Easil, Snappa, Crello, Stencil and PicMonkey.
Let’s examine each of these tools and see what’s the best graphic design solution for you.
8 Best Canva Alternatives for Graphic Design
Tool #1: Visme
Visme is a graphic design tool that goes beyond what you’d expect from a regular tool. The drag-and-drop editor is intuitive, easy to use and packed with features.
With Visme, you can create professional and attractive presentations, infographics, social media graphics and more. It’s a robust Canva alternative for users looking for an all-in-one design tool.
Watch the explainer video below to find out more.
Here are some features that make Visme stand out from other Canva alternatives:
Advanced data visualization tools.
Visme's data visualization tools include over 40 charts and graphs, customizable flowcharts, an interactive map builder, an easy-to-use table maker and plenty of customizable data widgets.
The Graph Engine can help you create any type of chart with data you input manually or import via a spreadsheet. With a collection of charts and the ability to sync live data, you can create a personalized dashboard visualizing data about your company.
A large variety of professionally designed templates.
With the help of Visme templates, you can create stunning social media graphics, flyers, interactive projects, presentations, and multi-page documents for print or embedding on your site.
Create videos and GIFs for social media, as well as animated slides for pitch decks or even school projects. There are templates for hundreds of business and education use cases.
Infinitely vertical infographics.
Visme's infographic maker is a valuable tool for content creators in any niche. Not only are there hundreds of templates to choose from, but the editor also has a draggable bottom bar.
This intuitive bar lets you change the length of the infographic according to the content you put in. Other tools also let you change the length of the infographic, but not this intuitively.
Photo editing tools.
Visme has a built-in photo editor that lets you enhance your images right inside your browser. You don't have to use a separate tool to add filters and overlays, resize, crop or rotate your photos.
The photo editing tools also let you drag-and-drop royalty-free stock photos or upload your own images, add text on top and even add creative cutout frames to your images.
Animation and interactivity.
Visme offers a robust suite of animation and interactive features, such as exclusive animated illustrations, popups, hover effects, and links to other slides or external websites.
In less than an hour, you can create an interactive presentation, infographic or ebook, or whip up animated videos and GIFs for your website or social media.
Collaboration features.
Team plans have collaboration features to help teams work on projects together with the ability to leave comments, edits and notes. Managers, designers, marketers and content creators can work together to create the best visual graphics for the company easily.
Analytics features for teams and large businesses.
Visme offers teams and enterprises the ability to track views and generate leads with live projects. You can design any type of project, publish it to the web and Visme will host it for you.
A variety of download and sharing options.
The best part about designing in Visme is there are so many different ways to share your content online and offline. Download it in high-quality PDF, PNG, JPG, GIF and HTML5 formats, or publish your visual online and generate a private or public link.
Who is it for?
Visme is for everyone!
The graphic design features in Visme are helpful for individuals and even better for teams.
Individuals can be students, educators, digital marketers, social media managers, graphic designers, visual content creators and more.
Furthermore, the collaboration features on Visme are great for marketing teams, social media teams, visual content teams, and other business departments that need to create reports, presentations, proposals and other types of documents.
- Visme is for you, the blogger
- It’s for you, the small business owner
- It’s also for you, the marketer in the company you work for
- And it’s even for you, the CEO of a startup looking for funding
- To top it off, it’s for you the academic who visualizes research projects and statistics
- And wait — it’s also for you, the student who needs to create a visual project for your homework
Pricing
Visme has a free plan that you can use for as long as you want. It's a great way to test out the tool and get a feel of all that it has to offer.
Once you realize that you need a more robust plan with additional features, however, you can pick between the Standard and Business plans.
Visme's Standard plan is ideal if you're just getting started with visual graphic design, but Business is your best choice for non-stop design features.
There's also an Enterprise plan that is custom-priced according to your company’s needs, number of users and capacity. This plan is perfect for large teams and companies that need full control over their visual marketing and design needs.
There are separate pricing tiers for students and teachers under Education. If you're a nonprofit organization, you may even be eligible for a discount.
Tool #2: Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is an online Adobe tool for quick graphic design. It’s definitely not Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, but as one of the best alternatives to Canva, it does the job quite well.
The interface is clean and simple and the onboarding to new projects is streamlined. You can create social media graphics in most of the common sizes.
Adobe Spark also helps you create simple, responsive websites and short animated videos. The design tools inside the editor look simple at first, but are actually quite good under the surface. There's curved text, interesting animations effects, clean icons and images from Adobe Stock.
What stands out in Adobe Spark is the branded stories feature. You add your main brand assets like logos, fonts and colors, and the tool creates a simple template collection just for your brand.
Who is it for?
Adobe Spark is best for people that want to create social media content easily and fast. Anyone with a Creative Cloud subscription can use Adobe Spark. There’s also a standalone subscription for individual users.
This is not a tool for non-designers who need everything on hand at all times. It’s more for someone who can manage with the bare necessities but also has a bit of a designer background.
Pricing
Adobe Spark is included in every Creative Cloud subscription. If you don’t have a subscription, there are three plans to choose from — one is free, and the other two are paid.
The paid plans are as follows:
- Individual: $9.99/month
- Team: $19.99/month
With the Individual plan, you get the first 14 days for free.
Tool #3: Design Wizard
Design Wizard is an easy-to-use Canva alternative for creating static graphics or short videos. The tool offers templates for most social media assets plus some documents and presentation-style projects.
Inside the editor, you have a choice between a static graphic editor and a video editor. They are two completely different editing spaces. The design features in Design Wizard are reminiscent of Adobe tools with terminology like “layers” and “artboards”.
What’s missing from Design Wizard are design elements to add to both static and video projects. There are no data visualization tools, icons or illustrations available. But in the video editor, there is a handy timeline for editing.
Who is it for?
Design Wizard is for people who need to design simple visual assets without going too deep into the technicalities. The templates are varied and pretty standard for many topics, niches and industries.
This is not a tool for someone who needs to visualize data or wants to have granular control over their compositions and designs. Design Wizard is perfect for casual bloggers and people who are active on social media.
Pricing
Design Wizard offers three plans; one free and two paid. The Basic plan is free with pay as you go features, so it's a good choice if you're just starting out and experimenting.
The paid plans are as follows:
- Pro: $7.42/month
- Business: $37. 42/month
Tool #4: Easil
Easil is a Canva alternative with fresh and vibrant templates. The most popular are the Instagram stories and other common social media sizes.
Depending on the subscription there are more and more templates available for use. As an alternative to Canva, it does the job quite well.
The editor has a considerable amount of design elements to work with. The most notable is the long list of shape masks. There are also icons, illustrations, patterns and images.
Easil also has a granular locking feature to create templates for teams. You also have the ability to create animated GIFs in this design tool.
Who is it for?
This tool is for users that need mostly social media visuals and blog related graphics. There are thousands of social media templates in many different styles.
Most of the designs are trendy, not so much suited for the corporate space. Easel is more for bloggers and creative entrepreneurs. Easil is also well-suited for small teams that create content for the same purpose, like a small business or startup venture.
Pricing
Easil has three plans; one free and two paid. The largest plan is a bit on the expensive side but offers a lot of options for graphic design creation.
The paid plans are as follows:
- Plus: $6.25/month
- Edge: $49/month
Tool #5: Snappa
Snappa’s graphic design templates only cover sizes for social media channels and blog graphics. Apart from those, there are no templates for business-related graphics like business cards or documents. Nevertheless, Snappa is still a good alternative to Canva.
The editor is simple and clean. The design elements include icons, vectors, photos and a simple set of shapes. The vectors are displayed all black and can be color customized.
However, there are no animation features and you can’t create GIFs.
Who is it for?
Snappa is mostly directed at social media marketers and bloggers. The Buffer integration for social media scheduling is a big pull for that market.
The template styles are geared towards small businesses and small startups. There are no data visualization tools so it’s not suitable for businesses or academics. Snappa is for casual design with a purpose.
Pricing
Snappa has three tiers; one free and two paid. The free version has a capacity for one user and thousands of templates.
The paid versions are as follows:
- Pro: $10/month
- Team: $20/month
Tool #6: Crello
Crello is a powerful contender to Canva. This tool has a large number of templates in many styles and formats. From social media to print and marketing assets.
The editor includes a large library of animated illustrations, reminiscent of Instagram stories. These aren’t customizable though, and what you see is what you get. The basic shapes are hiding behind the elements tab and have to be searched for.
Who is it for?
Crello is for anyone who has been using Canva and wants a bit of a change. The images are different because they are from a different provider. The stickers are a lot like Instagram stories so it’s easy to create those faster.
Even though Crello does include some business-related templates, the design tools are more fun than professional. There’s a limit to how professional you can get with Crello.
Crello is not for people who need to visualize data. It’s more for bloggers and small businesses that need to create visuals for social media.
Pricing
Crello has a Free plan with acceptable limits to try out the tool.
The Pro plan is $7.99/month
Tool #7: Stencil
Stencil is a very simple graphic design tool with limited features. The main idea with Stencil is to use a background image and put text over it.
There are some simple icons and shapes to add to a design. The editing features for what they offer are easy to use. Unfortunately, there’s no animation, interaction capabilities or video backgrounds.
The editor offers a section with quotes which is a nice addition. All you have to do is choose a quote and it’s instantly added to the image you chose for the background.
Who is it for?
Stencil is for people who need to create content fast and don’t need further tools. It’s perfect for content creators who make quotes on a regular basis as there are lots of those to choose from.
The templates list has sizes for Amazon shirts and Zazzle products as well. It’s the perfect graphic design tool for the casual content creator.
Pricing
Stencil has a Free account with a limited number of images a month and other similar limits.
The paid plans are as follows:
- Pro: $9/month
- Unlimited: $12/month
Tool #8: PicMonkey
PicMonkey is one of the most robust alternatives to Canva, apart from Visme. There are plenty of templates to choose from, but PicMonkey is one of the best tools for creating from scratch.
The editor has a large selection of design tools to work with. The most notable of all the editing features is the photo retoucher. It does a lot of what Photoshop can do, but is easier to use.
Another interesting feature is the pattern and effects tools, which can be applied not only to the background but also to shapes in the design.
Who is it for?
PicMonkey is for anyone who needs to create professional-looking visual graphics for any purpose. It’s specially suited for users who need photo retouching features as well as graphic design tools.
This tool is for creative entrepreneurs, bloggers, small business owners, and startups. It’s not for data visualization users or academics.
Pricing
PicMonkey doesn’t offer a free subscription. The paid tiers are as follows:
- Basic: $7.99/month
- Pro: $12.99/month
- Team: $33.99/month
There is a 7-day free trial for the first two tiers. However, they do ask for a credit card when signing up for the free trial.
Looking for a Canva Alternative?
If you're looking for a good Canva alternative that offers more features and value, we recommend taking Visme for a test drive. Some have even called Visme “Canva on Steroids.”
Not only will you be able to do everything that you could do with Canva, you'll have access to advanced features like data visualization tools, professional templates, animation and interactivity, a personalized Brand Kit and more.
Have you tried Visme yet? Sign up for a free account today and give us a try. Let us know in the comments below about how you feel it compares with Canva.
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About the Author
Orana is a multi-faceted creative. She is a content writer, artist, and designer. She travels the world with her family and is currently in Istanbul. Find out more about her work at oranavelarde.com