Competing Tools: Crello vs Canva - Determining the Superior Choice for Designing Amateurs

In the realm of online graphic design tools, two names often stand out: Crello (now VistaCreate) and Canva. Both platforms are designed to be accessible for non-designers, offering simple drag-and-drop interfaces that make creating professional graphics a breeze. However, each tool has its unique strengths and differences.

Crello (VistaCreate)

Crello is an intuitive graphic design tool, ideal for creating professional social media posts, marketing content, website graphics, videos, and animations. It offers approximately 31,000 templates for various designs, including animated designs, social media posts, blog content, covers and headers, advertising content, marketing materials, event content, and presentation templates. Crello supports print design and integrates with marketing tools like Buffer, HubSpot, and Marketo.

Crello's free plan comes with branding on videos, but its Pro plan, costing $7.99 per month when paid yearly, offers unlimited downloads, removal of image backgrounds, and instant customer support, among other features.

Canva

Canva, on the other hand, is a popular design tool used for creating social media graphics, print, marketing, and advertising content, videos, and animations. It boasts an extensive drag-and-drop interface with built-in integrations for email and social sharing. Canva offers a vast template library, with over 2 million templates, covering many design needs, including social media, print, presentations, and even desktop wallpapers.

Canva's free version offers a decent storage space and the ability to invite team members. Its Pro plan, priced at $12.99 per month or $119.99 per year, includes one-click Magic Resize, 75+ million premium stock photos, audio, video, and graphics, and 100 GB storage, among other features. Canva's team collaboration features are robust, offering built-in workflows for design approval and control over who uploads designs or edits elements.

The Key Differences

While both tools share similarities, they differ in key areas. Crello focuses slightly more on print designs and marketing professionals who want ready-made assets linked with marketing tools. In contrast, Canva is more widely known and may offer a larger variety of templates and integrations, which can benefit beginners seeking both creativity and ease of use.

Canva's Pro version includes more extensive asset libraries and can handle more complex workflows such as team collaboration and educational discounts/support. For photo and image editing, neither are as advanced as traditional editors (e.g., Photoshop), but Canva offers a richer ecosystem of assets and editing options compared to Crello, which focuses mainly on templates and marketing design elements.

Alternatives

If you're looking for alternatives to Crello and Canva, options include Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark), PhotoPea, Piktochart, and others best suited to specific tasks. Adobe Express is user-friendly for quick social graphics, web pages, and short videos, while PhotoPea offers a Photoshop-like browser editor, more advanced and free/low-cost but without the template/asset library.

In conclusion, Canva offers a broader selection of templates, a richer feature set for beginners and teams, and more extensive educational resources, while Crello/VistaCreate is a solid, cost-effective option focused on print and marketing material templates with good integrations. Alternatives like Adobe Express serve different niches, while PhotoPea is better for advanced image editing without template support.

Competing Tools: Crello vs Canva - Determining the Superior Choice for Designing Amateurs