Canva Competitors & Alternatives
Canva is one of the most popular design solutions on the market today. That market, however, is competitive. Therefore, we recommend comparing Canva against its top competitors before purchasing.
There are many excellent competitors in the design space that are worth considering. Most of Canva’s top competitors offer similarly or less robust features at more affordable prices. Some, however, fall short in both of these categories.
| Software Company | Analyst Rating | Features | Usability | Pricing | Customer Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canva | 93 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 8 |
| Figma | 96 | 9.5 | 10 | 10 | 8.5 |
| Adobe Illustrator | 94 | 10 | 9 | 8.5 | 10 |
| Adobe Photoshop | 94 | 10 | 9 | 8.5 | 10 |
| Sketch | 93 | 9 | 10 | 9.5 | 8.5 |
| Adobe XD | 91 | 8.5 | 9 | 9.5 | 10 |
| Visme | 89 | 8.5 | 9.5 | 8.5 | 10 |
| InVision | 87 | 8 | 9 | 9.5 | 8.5 |
| PicMonkey | 86 | 8 | 9.5 | 8.5 | 9 |
| Adobe Spark | 85 | 7 | 9.5 | 9 | 10 |
Throughout this article, we’ll provide an overview of the main Canva competitors and alternatives, which are:
In this guide, we examine Canva’s features and pricing, and compare these factors against competitors. To gain a better understanding of Canva as a solution, you can read our in-depth Canva review.
All of the information in this article is based upon research, discussions with small business owners, and dozens of hours spent hand-testing the leader human resource software platforms. To learn more about our research and reviews, read about our unbiased review process.
Table of Contents
- Canva Features
- Canva Competitor Overview: Features
- Canva Competitor Overview: Pricing
- Top Canva Competitors
- Bottom Line
Canva Features
Before we compare Canva against its competitors, it’s important to understand the features included in Canva. Canva offers features geared more towards ready-made, highly sharable content.
The five most important features that Canva offers are described in the table below. Canva's compliance support and unlimited payroll are its strongest features.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Designs | Canva’s primary designs are its presentations, social media posts, and videos. This variety of design types and over 250,000 templates means that your business can easily create quality content for marketing, presentation, or general graphic design purposes. |
| Tool Kit | Canva’s tool kit is built specifically for basic and quick content creation. Canva’s tool kit is slightly less robust than Visme’s. You also lack the flexibility of advanced solutions such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Still, bloggers and marketers will find Canva’s tool kit effective. |
| Collaboration | Canva’s collaboration is one of its best features. It is intuitive and easy to set up. Canva features real time editing that can be leveraged by anyone with a web browser. |
| Cloud Storage | Canva is fully cloud-based unlike Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. This means that you do not need to save your own projects on your device. We recommend Canva if you feel you and your team will be handling a vast amount of projects and files. |
| Exporting | Canva comes with a number of additional exporting and sharing options that are very convenient for marketers and content creators. You can leverage its content planner to automate social media posts. |
Canva Competitor Overview: Features
Below is a chart that compares each platform’s features and affordability. They differ primarily based on how affordable each platform is and how wide their breadth of features is.
For example, solutions like Adobe Illustrator are built more for scalable graphics creation rather than ready-made content. This presents a steep learning curve for businesses that might find solutions like Canva and Visme more suitable for their needs.
Canva Competitor Overview: Pricing
Canva pricing starts at $12.99 per month for up to 5 users. Monthly prices increase with more users. It is one of the most affordable solutions on the market today. Canva also provides a free plan with 5 GB of cloud storage.
Here are the prices of Canva and its top competitors with additional pricing details:
| Software Vendor | Starting Monthly Price per User | Free Trial |
|---|---|---|
| Figma | Free | Yes |
| Adobe Illustrator | $20.99 | Yes |
| Adobe Photoshop | $20.99 | Yes |
| Canva | Free | Yes |
| Sketch | $9 | Yes |
| Adobe XD | $9.99 | Yes |
| Visme | Free | Yes |
| InVision | Free | Yes |
| PicMonkey | $7.99 | Yes |
| Adobe Spark | $9.99 | Yes |
Top Canva Competitors
Below are one-to-one comparisons between Canva and the top alternatives. Canva is best for customers who want the most affordable all-in-one design solution built primarily for ready-made content creation. We’ve ranked Canva’s top four competitors based on their features, pricing, and usability.
#1: Visme
Visme is Canva’ closest competitor in regards to its target user-base and features. Although both solutions share a similar breadth of features, Canva is slightly more affordable than Visme. However, Visme’s tool kit is stronger than Canva’s. Both solutions have free plans.
For more details, read our in-depth analysis of Canva vs. Visme.
- You primarily use design software for ready-made content
- You want to automate social media posts with a content calendar
- You are a beginner to design software
- You are looking for accessible graphic design software
- You leverage graphic design software for infographics
- You are not a marketer looking to automate social media posts
#2: PicMonkey
PicMonkey is another direct competitor to Canva. PicMonkey’s biggest drawback in comparison to Canva is its lack of collaboration features for its more affordable plans. Overall, although PicMonkey is easy to use and affordable, each feature it offers is respectively more robust in Canva.
For more details, read our in-depth analysis of Canva vs. PicMonkey.
- You primarily use design software for ready-made content
- You want to automate social media posts with a content calendar
- You are a beginner to design software
- You are looking for accessible graphic design software
- You do not need to create charts for your designs
- You do not need version control for files
#3: Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is an alternative to Canva included with Adobe Creative Cloud. Similar to PicMonkey, Adobe Spark is easy to use and affordable, but ultimately pales in comparison to Canva.
For more details, read our in-depth analysis of Canva vs. Adobe Spark.
- You primarily use design software for ready-made content
- You want to automate social media posts with a content calendar
- You are a beginner to design software
- You are looking for accessible graphic design software
- You do not need to create charts for your designs
- You do not leverage collaboration in design software
#4: Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is the least similar competitor to Canva in regards to its features. This is because it is best for businesses in need of truly advanced photo editing and design software, no matter the steep learning curve.
Canva, on the other hand, is the best option for businesses looking to create high quality graphics and videos as easily as possible, and willing to give up flexibility in features to do so.
For more details, read our in-depth analysis of Canva vs. Adobe Photoshop.
- You primarily use design software for ready-made content
- You want to automate social media posts with a content calendar
- You are a beginner to design software
- You want the most advanced photo editing software
- You are an advanced graphic designer with flexible design needs
- You do not need to directly post to a variety of social media platforms
Bottom Line
Canva is best for businesses with simple design needs that want to create and share content as easily as possible. It is one of the most user-friendly solutions that we’ve analyzed in the design category.
These strengths earned Canva one of the highest ratings of all products in our design category. In general, it is more advanced and more affordable than most alternatives.
Before you make your purchase, we also suggest comparing Canva to other highly rated platforms:
- Visme is best for businesses that want to create content as easily as possible and do not require advanced social media posting features.
- Adobe Spark is ideal for businesses to create ready-made social media posts and videos and who already own Adobe Creative Cloud.
- Adobe Photoshop is best for businesses with highly advanced photo creation and editing needs.