Canva: Pros and Cons

Canva is an online beginner-friendly platform used not only in graphic design, but in education, business, and even event planning. The web-based software offers thousands of free templates, stock photos, clips, stickers and graphics, artistic effects, photo montage features, and video editing tools. Like any other editor, Canva has its pros and cons. Read our Canva review to learn more about this graphic design platform and see if it meets your needs.

Library of Pre-Made Templates

Ran out of design ideas? No worries! Canva has myriads of templates for various occasions - edit your content for your Facebook page or Instagram account, create a YouTube thumbnail, make a calendar, design business cards, decorate your resume, and more. All you have to do is type a keyword and pick one of the suggested templates. Then you can effortlessly customize these pre-designed layouts according to your own taste and needs.

Built-In Video Editor

What makes Canva different from other graphic design platforms is its feature-rich video editing toolkit. You can frictionlessly edit your video: get rid of unwanted parts with a cropping tool, apply transitions and animation, add background music and captions, convert your clip to MP4 file format, and more. Canva lets you create a memorable collage with multiple clips at once and design a professional-looking presentation for work and school.

Countless Text Styles

There are a few useful caption features in this program. Before selecting a font, you can pick a heading, a subheading, and a body text option. In the drop-down menu, you will find fonts in a handful of styles: classic, bold, italic, hand script, futuristic, and so on. In addition to the best fonts, Canva offers a variety of customizable caption presets made by professional designers. You can easily change their color, alignment, and spacing.

Seamless Workflow

Canva is a drag-and-drop graphics creator that doesn't require any experience in this field. Besides, there is a mobile app by Canva, so you can quickly switch to your smartphone or tablet for working on your project on the go. In case you prefer editing on your computer, consider installing the desktop version for Windows. All you need is a Canva account - it will allow you to switch between the devices and continue your work with no hassle.

System Requirements

OS: Windows 10 (Version 1909) or higher

Processor: At least 1 GHz (dual-core) or faster processor

RAM: 1GB (4 GB recommended)

Available drive space: 1 GB

Download Canva for Windows

How much does Canva cost? Well, it depends on your needs. There are three Canva pricing plans to choose from - Free, Pro, and Enterprise. If you aim to use this service for basic editing actions, then you can easily get by with the free version. This plan offers over 8000 templates, tons of stock images and graphics, and most design tools that beginners might need.

Comparing the free Canva vs Canva Pro, the latest offers more customization. At the Canva subscription cost of up to $12.95/month, you can upload your own fonts, remove the background in one click, resize your design, and even store brand assets such as logos, color palettes, etc. In case you need Canva for an agency or corporation with many team members involved, the $30/month Enterprise plan with unlimited storage is a better option for you. For the Canva price, you can manage team editing with full control of the process.

Although Canva is a credible graphic design service, it still has a few drawbacks you will come across. For example, it might take time to find a suitable template, and it’s hard to tell whether a template is free or paid. Sometimes things don’t exactly go smoothly with the mobile app as well. Even though it lets you continue working on your projects on another device, you’ll still have to put up with its limited functionality. Besides, your whole design might get ruined in a second if you lose your Internet connection. The desktop version doesn’t work offline either.

If these issues are a big deal for you, but you’re not willing to download anything complicated like Adobe Photoshop, then try Photo Collage Maker, a viable desktop-based alternative to Canva. Whether you have a stable Internet connection or not, the program will work flawlessly. Unlike Canva, Photo Collage Maker lets you effortlessly find the collage template you need thanks to advanced search settings, and use ready-made printing layouts once your design is ready. Besides, it does most of the work automatically - all you need to do is select a collage template, fill the gaps with your images, and decorate it the way you like.

Photo Collage Maker

Canva

Basic photo editing features

Photo album and scrapbooking suite

Convenient search in template library

Built-in printing module

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