Since its launch over a decade ago, Canva has revolutionized the design world by providing simple graphic design tools with numerous templates. On top of that, it made design accessible to people off all experience levels. However, despite its enormous positive impact, it’s still not the best tool for creating a truly unique brand image.
Not to mention that ever since Atlassian took over, users have been complaining about feature restrictions, price changes, and attempts at upsell. This has prompted many people to look for alternatives – you’re probably among them. Why else would you be here, right?
Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. These are the tools we’re going to explore in more detail:
1. Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark)
The Adobe Express tool offers an even more impressive set of features than its predecessor, Adobe Spark. Spark was a worthy Canva alternative in its own right, but Express is even better. This is particularly true of the free version which no longer has the Adobe watermark – something you previously had to pay to remove.
Overall, Adobe Express really does a great job of going head-to-head with Canva. It lets you start a brand new project from scratch, but you can also use Adobe’s templates to give yourself a head start. For convenience, there’s an entire suite of “quick action” buttons that you can use to make easy changes to your images, videos, and even PDF files.
- Desktop version that also comes with a mobile app so you can design on your desired device.
- AI tools like Generative Fill, Text to Image, and Text to Template (beta) are powered by Adobe Firefly.
- Easy-to-apply effects, filters, textures, and overlays, courtesy of Adobe Photoshop integration.
- Mega collection of pre-made templates in the exact sizes you need them.
- Library feature that lets you create collections of your digital assets for future use and share them with others if you want to.
- Access to licensed, elegant fonts from the Adobe Fonts library.
- Social integration allows you to schedule directly on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest (though the free plan has a scheduling cap).
- Quick conversion between PNG, JPG, or SVG for images and MP4 or GIF for videos.
- Customizable QR code generator.
- Lots of helpful tutorial videos that guide you through how to use the tool’s features.
Adobe Express offers three main plans for individuals and teams. The prices and details of the annual plans are below:
- Free – $0 for unlimited access to core features, including thousands of unique templates, design assets, Adobe Fonts, a limited collection of royalty-free Adobe Stock photos, basic editing and photo effects, generative AI and 5GB of storage.
- Premium – $8.33 per month for everything in the free plan, plus premium templates and design assets, over 25,000 licensed Adobe Fonts with curved type, grids, and font pairs, over 200 million royalty-free Adobe Stock photos, premium editing features, generative AI, 100GB of storage, version history for 30 days, and more.
- Teams – $4.17 per month, per user with a minimum of two users required. Similar benefits to the Premium plan, but with higher limits on certain things. For example 1TB per user for storage, and version history for 180 days.
2. Visme
Although Visme is a bit more expensive than other alternatives on this list, it’s because it focuses on complicated designs like infographics and marketing documents.
It’s great for people looking for sites like Canva, but that specifically allow you to generate charts and widgets to share within your company.
Visme also comes with a suite of collaboration tools so you can easily work on and share your creations with your entire team. People like social media marketers will find these features particularly useful.
- Beautiful templates with ready-to-go layouts to make everything from infographics to charts.
- Brand kit to keep your color scheme and logo the same.
- Importing and exporting for PowerPoint.
- Privacy controls on some plans.
- Integrated AI features.
- Large library of images, audio, video, illustrations, GIFs and more.
- Team collaboration with comments, annotations, user types, and folder permissions.
- Organization tools like a file manager, analytics, and sharing with other team members.
Please note that all of Visme’s plans allow for an unlimited number of projects. The prices below reflect annual invoicing, but month-to-month payment plans are also available (at a higher cost).
- Basic – $0 for most templates, public projects, up to 500MB of data storage and 10 credits/month to use for Visme AI features. This plan has Visme branding and doesn’t include more premium features like charts and data widgets, or the ability to download your files in a format other than JPG.
- Starter – $12.25 per month for 1GB storage, all assets and premium templates, no Visme branding, 200 credits/month to use for Visme AI features, PDF and PNG downloads (in addition to the default JPG), and all charts. You also get 24/7 email and chat support and access to a one-click background remover for your images.
- Pro – $24.75 per month for 5GB of storage, advanced download formats, 500 credits/month to use for Visme AI features, privacy controls, analytics, and more.
- Enterprise – This plan includes everything in the previous plans, including 10 to 25GB of storage per user, unlimited credits for Visme AI features, custom integrations, onboarding, advanced collaboration options, and more.
3. MiriCanvas
MiriCanvas is a versatile online design platform that offers a wide array of templates and tools for creating various visual content. As an alternative to Canva, it provides users with access to over 36 million templates, photos, and graphics, catering to diverse design needs such as presentations, social media posts, posters, and marketing materials. The platform emphasizes ease of use, allowing you to visualize and edit your ideas directly from your browser.
Overall, it’s a comprehensive solution for both individual creators and businesses looking to produce professional-quality designs without extensive graphic design expertise.
- Extensive template library covering various design categories, formats, and screen sizes.
- Browser-based editor for creating and animating designs.
- Ability to convert designs into videos and animations.
- Collaboration features including shared drives and workspaces.
- Brand kit functionality for managing logos, colors, and fonts.
- Background removal tool for images.
- Integration with popular platforms for direct sharing and publishing.
MiriCanvas has three plans, with the options to pay annually or by the month. The annual plan details are as follows:
- Free – Over 35,000 templates, more than 350,000 free photos and graphics, 1GB of storage and a shared drive for collaboration.
- Pro – $10.93 per month for unlimited premium templates, photos, and graphics, 10 brand kits, 10 shared drives, 10GB of storage, and more.
- Enterprise – Contact sales on the annual plan (on the month-to-month, it’s $26.99 per user, per month). Storage is increased to 100GB and shared drives also go up to 100.
4. VistaCreate
This powerful online graphic design tool is a formidable Canva alternative. Boasting an extensive library of over 150,000 ready-made static and animated templates, VistaCreate ensures that you’ll always find fresh inspiration and stay up to date with the latest trends. It’s arguably the most feature-rich free Canva alternative on this list.
VistaCreate’s free plan is extremely generous and will be enough for many people, especially one-person operations like small blogs or freelancers who need a robust Canva alternative for their graphic design needs. If you’re part of a multi-person organization, then you might consider investing in VistaCreate Pro. It opens up new features like team editing so you can create visual content and brand assets for your business or nonprofit with your coworkers.
- Create custom designs for Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest with pre-made social media templates.
- Plan your social media content using VistaCreate’s scheduler.
- Access fonts, color palettes, and logos in your brand kit to easily use in your content.
- To enhance your brand design, use pre-made shapes as semi-transparent overlay masks, add thematic stickers, create icons, and customize labels.
- Send your designs directly to VistaCreate for printing and get them delivered to your doorstep.
- Design right on your mobile device with the VistaCreate app on both iOS and Android.
- Don’t forget about video, with VistaCreate’s video editor and easy-to-use editing tools at your disposal.
You can save 23% on the Pro plan if you pay up front for the year. It also comes with a 14-day free trial period.
- Starter – $0 gets you access to over 100,000 free design templates, over one million photos, videos, and vectors, a Brand Kit with colors, logos, and fonts, as well as free fonts, music, animations, backgrounds, and objects. Additionally, you’ll have 10 GB of storage for files and projects and the ability to schedule and post to Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
- Pro – $10 per month will get you the entire Starter pack, plus additional features such as a background-removing feature, access to over 70 million templates, photos, videos, and vectors, a team account, infinite Brand Kits, unlimited storage, a resize feature, a Sticker Maker, version history, and the ability to download in HD.
5. Stencil
If you’re seeking a Canva alternative that offers a familiar set of features, Stencil is an excellent choice. Powered by the good folks over at Namecheap, it offers a wide selection of templates, allowing you to jumpstart your visual content creation. The availability of thousands of web fonts, including Google Fonts, ensures that you can find the perfect typography for your designs. Additionally, Stencil allows you to upload your own fonts, enabling you to maintain brand consistency and personalization, similar to Canva.
Another Canva similarity is that Stencil provides access to a vast collection of icons and graphics that are royalty-free and safe for both personal and commercial use. You can enhance your visuals with these elements, adding flair and creativity to your designs. Stencil also offers a comprehensive range of preset sizes, including optimal sizes for social networks, ads, and blog posts, making it effortless to create content tailored to different platforms.
With these shared features, Stencil offers a compelling alternative to Canva. It ensures a smooth transition between the platforms while providing a comprehensive toolkit for visual content creation.
- Over 1,350 premium templates available for you to jumpstart your visual content.
- Access thousands of web fonts from Google to find the perfect font for your image.
- Upload your own fonts directly to Stencil for a perfect match with your brand.
- A collection of beautiful icons and graphics, royalty-free and safe for personal or commercial use.
- Over 140 pre-loaded optimal sizes for social networks, ads, blog posts, and more.
- Download your images at high quality, including 300 dpi for print.
- Share images to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Buffer.
- Save favorite colors and use the eyedropper tool to pick colors from anywhere in the canvas.
- More than five million royalty-free “CC0” images with thousands of new photos added every week.
The two premium plans are significantly cheaper if you pay up front for the year. Overall, in terms of pricing, the Pro plan is extremely similar to Canva, with the annual pricing being even slightly cheaper by about one dollar per month.
- Free – $0 for up to 10 images, 10 collections, and 10 Instagram shares per month.
- Pro – $9 per month for everything in the previous plan, millions of photos and icons, beautiful templates, logos, watermarks, font uploads, premium support, and increases in limits like images per month and Instagram shares.
- Unlimited – $12 per month for everything in the previous plan, unlimited images and collections, and up to 100 Instagram shares per month.
6. Snappa
If you’re looking for sites similar to Canva, then look no further than Snappa. This Canva alternative works well for making graphics for social media and profile pages and has excellent options for bloggers. The templates come in handy for getting the perfect dimensions, while the millions of free, high-resolution photos make for a rapid design process. The Snappa pricing is slightly higher than Canva’s, but you receive a few unique editing features.
- Sleek designer with thousands of free templates.
- Access to millions of free photos and graphics.
- Links to social media accounts and Buffer.
- Font uploads.
- Potential for collaboration and multi-user accounts.
- Quick background removal tools.
The yearly plans cost significantly less per month than the month-to-month plans.
- Starter – $0 for one user, more than 6,000 templates, millions of photos, and three downloads per month.
- Pro – $10 per month for everything in Starter, but with unlimited downloads per month, social integrations, custom font uploads, and image background removals.
- Team – $20 per month for everything in the previous plans, plus support for five users and team collaboration.
7. Pixlr X
Last (but certainly not least) on our list of websites like Canva, is Pixlr. This graphic design tool provides an online Photoshop alternative and a Canva alternative, making it one of this list’s top design software options. You can use it to make more complex designs in Pixlr E, while also going for the quicker design process offered by Pixlr X. Overall, Pixlr X is a solid choice that’s also cheaper than Canva or other tools, like PicMonkey.
- Access to both an advanced photo editing tool and graphic editor and a simpler Canva alternative.
- Thousands of stock images, overlays, and stickers.
- A suite of AI image editing and AI image generation tools.
- Access to thousands of texts, icons, and other assets.
- Beautiful templates and preset dimensions.
- One of the more advanced image editing tools, especially when compared to Canva and most options on this list.
Quite similar to Canva, Pixlr will also set you up with some attractive price breaks if you choose to pay annually.
- Free – $0 for full access to the Pixlr basic editing tools, along with limited access to overlays and stickers. This version limits you to three downloads per days and is supported by ads.
- Plus – $0.99 per month for no ads, unlimited downloads, and 80 monthly AI credits to use with Pixlr’s AI image editing tools.
- Premium – $4.90 per month for everything in Plus, but also more assets, and AI credits are bumped up to 1,000.
- Team – $9.91 per month will get you everything in Plus and Premium, but will allow you to collaborate with up to five team members, with each team member getting 1,000 AI credits per month.
Which of these tools is right for you? 🤔
From Adobe Express to Visme, each of the tools we featured works well for duplicating Canva’s features. We hope it can potentially make your design process more intuitive and less expensive.
A lot of your choice should really come down to interface, as that’s one of the most important considerations when choosing a design tool. Thankfully, all the alternatives that we recommend offer a free version, so you can test out the ones you find most interesting and choose the one you find to be the most intuitive.
If you’re left feeling unsatisfied, there are also other tools, not covered in this article that you can check out. Easil, Fotor, Piktochart, BeFunky, DesignBold, Desygner, and Venngage, are among some of the few. However, we cannot guarantee that all of them offer free versions that let you first test them out before making a long-term commitment.
No matter which tool you choose, you’ll need images and illustrations to use in your designs. To find those, we have some great posts for you:
- The 10 best spots to find free illustrations
- The 21 best free stock photo sites, including our very own MyStockPhotos
FAQs about Canva 🙋♀️
If you’ve read through this entire article, then you probably already have a good idea of what the answers to these questions are going to be. However, if you’re a “scroll-before-I-read” type of person, or you skipped here from the table of contents, then these FAQs are for you.
Yes, Canva has lots of competitors, just like any other design app out there. The most prominent ones are Adobe Express, Visme, and VistaCreate.
Canva used to be better due to the numerous free features and tools it offered. You could have created fully customized and professional-looking designs from the numerous templates available. Ever since Atlassian took over, the free features have decreased, making numerous users unhappy about their work.
There are numerous tools out there, and depending on specific needs and preferences, some may be better than others. We suggest taking a look at these: Adobe Express, Pixlr X, Visme, Snappa, VistaCreate, and Stencil.
The short answer here is Canva is better, primarily because it offers more features in their free plan and doesn’t limit you to just three downloads per month as Snappa does on their free plan.
Canva offers more than 250,000 templates on its free subscription, while Visme offers a limited undisclosed number of templates and design assets. Moreover, with Canva you can immediately download completed assets without any Canva branding, while Visme’s free plan comes with a watermark. Visme can be better for certain users with specific needs (e.g., marketers who need access to lots of infographic and chart templates), but for light use, Canva is going to be better for most people.
Still have any questions about these alternatives to Canva? Let us know in the comments section!
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