Design software includes features like design templates, photo editing, collaboration, and cloud storage. In today’s digital world, small businesses without a technology-enabled approach to graphic and social media design are falling behind.

This article will discuss the differences between two of the largest players in this space: Canva and Adobe Spark. We’ll discuss the notable strengths and weaknesses of each tool, and provide recommendations for who each tool will suit best.

All of our recommendations are based on research, product demos with the software companies, and dozens of hours spent hand-testing design tools. More details regarding our research process can be found on our design category page.

Canva & Adobe Spark Comparison Summary

We researched and extensively tested both Canva and Adobe Spark. Canva received a SoftwarePundit Analyst Rating of 93 while Adobe Spark received a rating of 85.

Here’s a breakdown of our review criteria and how Canva
and Adobe Spark performed in each category:

In terms of pricing, Canva
begins at $12.99 per month per user. Adobe Spark’s pricing starts at $9.99 per month per user.

Both solutions offer the standard features found across document management tools. These include design types, tool kits, collaboration features, cloud storage, and exporting options. Canva
is overall much more powerful than Adobe Spark. Canva’s strongest features are its user-friendly presentation, photo and video creation, and content planner.

Overall, Canva
is the best option for businesses looking to create high quality graphics and videos as easily as possible. Although Adobe Spark is easy to use and affordable, each feature it offers is respectively more robust in Canva
.

Here’s a quick breakdown of who will prefer each option:

Table of Contents

• Canva & Adobe Spark Comparison Summary
• Canva & Adobe Spark Price Comparison
  • Canva Pricing
  • Adobe Spark Pricing
• Canva & Adobe Spark Top Feature Comparison
  • Designs
  • Tool Kit
  • Collaboration
  • Cloud Storage
  • Exporting
• Canva & Adobe Spark Integrations
• Bottom Line

Canva & Adobe Spark Price Comparison

Overall, Canva is more affordable than Adobe Spark. Both solutions offer more features and storage with their more expensive plans.

Canva Pricing Details

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 Canva’s pricing options for its Pro plan based on how many users you have:

Adobe Spark Pricing Details

Adobe Spark pricing starts at $9.99 per user per month. It is one of the more affordable solutions on the market today. Adobe Spark also provides a free plan like Canva and Visme.

Adobe Spark also comes with a team plan for $19.99 per month. Consider this option if additional admin features are important for you.

Note that Adobe Spark is included with Adobe Creative Cloud. This plan is $52.99 per user per month and features other Adobe products such as Adobe XD and Illustrator.

Canva & Adobe Spark Feature Comparison

Overall, Canva
has a more powerful breadth of features than Adobe Spark. Canva
has a more robust tool kit as well as real-time collaboration.

For a full analysis of each solution’s features, read our Canva review and Adobe Spark review.

Designs

Both Canva
and Adobe Spark offer various design types to create. However, Canva comes with more templates. Canva also features more design types.

Both solutions come with a number of templates to create designs from. Canva comes with far more templates than Spark. Examples are seen below.

Templates for both solutions help you create the following:

Tool Kit

Adobe Spark’s tool kit is weaker than Canva’s. It generally comes with less elements than Canva and there is a lack of curation as well. Canva’s tool kit is the best option for beginners with simple design needs.

You can access the following tools when editing content in Adobe Spark:

Canva’s tool kit includes selectable and premade elements and graphics you can quickly plug into your designs. Furthermore, Canva automatically recommends graphics similar to the template style you’ve selected. This additional feature further streamlines your workflow.

You can access the following tools when editing content in Canva:

Both solutions offer similar photo editing capabilities. You can adjust saturation, brightness, and clarity. Although these features are less robust than alternatives like Adobe Photoshop, we still feel they are effective for designers in need of quick coloring edits.

Collaboration

Collaboration in Canva is superior to Adobe Spark’s capabilities. This is because Spark does not offer real time editing like Canva. Instead, files can only be edited by team members individually. Adobe Spark also doesn’t offer collaboration for mobile users.

Projects in Canva can be edited by team members at any time. Collaboration in Canva is very similar to document management software solutions such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage in both applications is simple to set up and effective. Adobe Spark can be fully cloud-based like Canva. You have the option to keep files fully in the cloud or save local files for personal use. This means that you do not need to save your own projects before uploading them to the cloud which takes up space on your hard drive.

Unfortunately, version control is not included in Adobe Spark. This is ultimately why we recommend Canva’s cloud storage capabilities over Adobe Spark’s.

Exporting

Adobe Spark’s exporting and sharing options are limited when compared to Canva. We especially recommend Canva if you’re a marketer looking to automate your posts to social media. Canva comes with a number of exporting and sharing features that are very helpful for marketers and bloggers.

You can export your file as the following in Adobe Spark’s free plan:

Canva, unlike Adobe Spark, comes with a content planner which is ideal for marketers. This planner integrates with a number of social media platforms to schedule posts on specific days. This is an invaluable tool for bloggers and small businesses who run both content creation and marketing strategies.

Adobe Spark can only directly upload to Facebook and Twitter. Conversely, here are the social media platforms you can automate posts on with Canva:

Integrations

Canva and Adobe Spark both offer a number of popular integrations found in standard design software. Here are some of the most popular native integrations both solutions offer:

Bottom Line

Overall, Canva is the best option for businesses looking to create high quality graphics and videos as easily as possible. Although Adobe Spark is easy to use and affordable, each feature it offers is respectively more robust in Canva.

If you’re interested, visit Canva or Adobe Spark today to get started.