6 Best Canva Alternatives Compared (Including Free Options) (2024)

Canva has revolutionized the design world by providing simple graphic design tools and lots of templates for all experience levels, but it also makes it quite difficult to create a truly unique brand image.

Moreover, ever since Atlassian took over, users have been complaining about feature restrictions, price changes, and attempts at upsell, prompting many to look for alternatives to this essential tool.

That said, let’s start with an overview and then dive into the details.

The absolute best alternatives available 🏆

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.

⚙️ Features:

• Desktop version that also comes with a mobile app so you can design on your desired device.
• 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 so you can schedule directly to 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.

💵 Pricing:

• 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, and 2GB of storage.
• Premium – $9.99 per month for everything in the free plan, plus premium templates and design assets, over 20,000 licensed Adobe Fonts with curved type, grids, and font pairs, over 160 million royalty-free Adobe Stock photos, premium editing features, 100GB of storage, and more.

The Premium plan has a yearly payment option that saves you 16%. It’s $99.99, which is the equivalent of roughly $8.33 per month.

2. Visme

Although Visme is a bit more expensive than other alternatives om 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.

⚙️ Features:

• 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.
• 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.

💵 Pricing:

Note that all of Visme’s plans allow for an unlimited number of projects and are invoiced on an annual basis.

• Basic – $0 for most templates, public projects, and up 100MB of data storage. 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 250MB storage, all assets and premium templates, no Visme branding, 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 3GB of storage, advanced download formats, privacy controls, analytics, and more.
• Visme for Teams – Everything in the previous plans, with 10 to 25GB of storage per user, custom integrations, onboarding, advanced collaboration options, and more.

3. 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.

⚙️ Features:

• 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.
• Use pre-made shapes as semi-transparent overlay masks, add thematic stickers, create icons, and customize labels to enhance your brand design.
• 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.

💵 Pricing:

• 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 storage for files and projects, and the ability to schedule and post to Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
• Pro – $13 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.

The Pro plan has an option to pay yearly, which cuts the price back to $10 per month ($120 up front). It also comes with a 14-day free trial.

4. 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, ensuring a smooth transition between the platforms, while providing a comprehensive toolkit for your visual content creation needs.

⚙️ Features:

• 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 300dpi 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.

💵 Pricing:

• Free – $0 for up to 10 images, 10 collections, and 10 Instagram shares per month.
• Pro – $15 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 – $20 per month for everything in the previous plan, unlimited images and collections, and up to 100 Instagram shares per month.

The two premium plans are significantly cheaper, at $9 per month and $12 per month, 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.

5. 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, 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 that of Canva, but you do receive a few unique editing features.

⚙️ 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.

💵 Pricing:

• Starter – $0 for one user, more than 6,000 templates, millions of photos, and three downloads per month.
• Pro – $15 per month for unlimited downloads per month, all templates and photos, social integrations, custom font uploads, and image background removals.
• Team – $30 per month for everything in the previous plans, plus support for five users and team collaboration.

The yearly plans cost significantly less per month if you pay annually. The Pro comes out to $10 per month, while the Team breaks down to $20 per month. It’s akin to getting four months for free when compared to the month-to-month rates.

6. 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 the top design software options on this list. 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.

⚙️ Features:

• 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.

💵 Pricing:

• 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 – $1.99 per month for no ads, unlimited downloads, and 80 monthly AI credits to use with Pixlr’s AI image editing tools.
• Premium – $7.99 per month for everything in Plus, but also more assets, and AI credits are bumped up to 1,000.
• Team – $12.99 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.

Quite similar to Canva, Pixlr will also set you up with some attractive price breaks if you choose to pay annually.

For the Plus plan, you’ll get 50% off, which means you’ll only have to pay about $12 for the whole year. The Premium plan is discounted to $4.90 per month, and the Team plan will set you back $9.91 per month. Pixlr also has a really generous (free) Education plan for teachers, students, and anyone that works within the field of education.

Which of these tools is right for you? 🤔

A lot of your choice should really come down to interface, as that’s one of the most important considerations in these simple design tools. 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 🙋

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.

Still have any questions about these alternatives to Canva? Let us know in the comments section!