Adobe Express versus Canva

In this article, we compare two of the top design tools you can use to create stunning content. In particular, we will be looking at two browser-based design software options: Adobe Express and Canva. We will discuss each solution in terms of user-friendliness, features, pricing, and pros and cons.

Not interested in the particulars and just want to know who each piece of design software is best for? We have you covered:

• Canva: Best for freelance designers and content creators looking for an intuitive and user-friendly interface that is affordable and chock full of customizable templates.
• Adobe Express: Best for non-professional and professional design teams seeking a powerful image creation and manipulation tool from a well-respected software development company.

Canva: Best option for customizable design templates and user-friendliness

Canva is a very popular web-based design tool boasting more than 125 million monthly users. It was released in 2014 and has quickly grown to find its way into the toolset of freelance content creators, small design teams, and professional designers alike. The online content creation tool can be used to design virtually everything imaginable, from scratch or via customizable templates, including:

• Web graphics
• Infographics
• Logos
• Ebooks
• Flyers and brochures
• Business cards
• Social media content

Canva pricing and cost

Canva has several pricing options to choose from, catering to individuals, teams, and educators. Pricing tiers include Canva Free, Canva Pro, Canva Teams, and Canva Enterprise:

• Canva Free: $0 per year for one user. Includes access to one million templates, over 1,000 types of designs, three million stock photos and images, and up to 5GB of cloud storage. Choosing premium templates, images, or designs will result in additional fees, so keep this in mind if you choose this option, as it may be more cost-effective to use the Pro version.
• Canva Pro: $120 per year for one user. Includes access to all premium templates, 100 million images and graphics, 1,000 Brand Kits to simplify company branding, a social planning and posting tool, and 1TB of cloud storage. Users on this tier also gain access to 20 AI-powered design tools and online customer support.
• Canva Teams: $100 per year, per person for a minimum of three users. Includes everything from Pro, plus workflow approvals, centralized assets, real-time collaboration, AI copy assistants, and advanced reporting.
• Canva Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing and features.

In addition to the pricing levels for individuals and teams, Canva also has special offers for educators, campuses, and even school districts, all of which can be found on the Canva pricing page.

Canva features

Despite being an online image editing tool at heart, Canva has a surprising number of features that cover much more than what you might expect from graphic design software. In addition to image editing, cropping, and colour correction, creative teams can make use of the following abilities:

• Photo editing tools, including numerous filters and AI assistants for photo correction
• Video editing tools to edit, trim, and clip video content
• Curved text generator
• PDF converters and PDF editors
• AI image generators and text-to-image generation
• Professionally-designed templates for brochures, web pages, eBooks, business cards, and other media and branding assets
• Access to millions of stock images, graphics, and icons

You can view a full list of Canva’s capabilities by visiting the Canva features page.

Canva pros and cons

Canva offers plenty of advantages to both new and veteran designers as you might expect from such a popular graphic design and photo editing tool. Several of the most important include:

• User-friendliness: Canva is simple to learn and even those new to design or content creation can jump right in and create designs with ease.
• Templates: Canva has templates for every design type you can imagine, making it a great choice if you want to create assets for print or online media, including social media and web page elements.
• Social sharing: Once you create your digital assets, you can easily share them to social channels via a built-in social media planner and scheduler, giving marketing teams few dashboards to rely on.
• Collaboration: Canva has great collaboration tools and administration options if you work with design teams that need to share assets or work on marketing campaigns together.

Although Canva’s pros and benefits are many, it is worth noting that the online design software is not without its cons, which include:

• Limitations: While Canva offers plenty of bang for the buck in terms of features, users who rely on the Free option may find themselves a little limited. While you can accomplish a lot with Canva Free, there are times when you may need to spend a little more to use a premium template or image.
• Export features: Some users complain about the lack of export options for designs, but Canva does cover the basics in terms of image and PDF exportation.
• Connectivity: Having access to Canva from any location is great, but if you have an unstable Internet connection, you won’t have access to work on designs, as there is no offline mode.

Adobe Express: Best for designers seeking a secure and trusted design tool

Adobe Express could be considered a younger sibling to such creative design suites as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Instead of focusing mainly on illustrations and photo editing, however, Adobe Express is designed with content marketing in mind. It combines all the elements marketers need to launch a brand and marketing campaign from the comfort of a friendly, yet robust, user interface. Using the design tool, you can:

• Edit and create videos
• Create graphics, images, icons, and social media assets
• Design custom logos
• Edit and manipulate images
• Make informative infographics

Adobe Express pricing and cost

Like its competitor Canva, Adobe Express offers a number of pricing tiers for individuals and teams, Enterprises, Students, Educators, and Nonprofits. Each tier has its own set of features and there is even a free option (with limited features) if you want to give it a test drive and check out its design features.

• Free: $0 per month. Includes access to basic editing tools, a limited number of assets, 25 Generative AI credits per month (for AI image generation), 100,000+ templates, 1,000 custom fonts, and over 1 million photos, videos, and music tracks. Users also gain the ability to schedule and post to 1 account per social network.
• Premium: $9.99 per month, per user. Includes everything from the Free tier, plus 250 Generative AI credits, access to the full library of templates and royalty-free assets, 25,000 fonts, and advanced editing tools. Additionally, Premium users gain 100GB of storage space and the ability to plan and schedule social media content for 3 accounts per social network.
• Teams: $6.99 per month, per user with a minimum of two users. Includes everything from the Premium option plus real-time collaboration tools, reviews and approvals, robust asset management features, brand management kits, advanced security tools to encrypt and protect assets, and 1TB of storage per user.

You can learn more about the different pricing tiers – as well as pricing for Enterprise, education, and nonprofit, by visiting the Adobe Express pricing page.

Adobe Express features

Adobe Express is a Canva alternative with all of the features you would expect from a creative design tool. In addition to the expected image retouching, colour correction, and photo editing tools in this category are known for, Adobe Express offers a gambit of other capabilities, which include:

• Generative AI tools including Generative Fill, Text to Image, and Text to Template
• PDF creation, editing and conversion tools
• One-click tasks for visual assets, such as removing background, resizing, and merging videos
• Templates for social media and print media, including TikTok videos, Instagram posts, and Facebook posts
• Remote editing so long as you have an Internet connection
• Customizable brand kits to ensure consistent fonts, colours, and designs across your campaigns

You can see a full list of Adobe Express’ abilities by visiting the Adobe Express features page.

Adobe Express pros and cons

Adobe Express has an impressive lineage, coming from the makers of, arguably, the most well-known and trusted design software company in the world. In addition to its trustworthiness and rich feature set, Adobe Express also has notable pros and benefits:

• Intuitive interface and administrative dashboard (for teams) designed for quick setup and use
• Features and tools that cover the gambit of design needs, whether you are a marketer, content creator, web developer, social media guru, or designer
• Saves time and reduces errors thanks to its One-click editing features
• Third-party app integrations to add to Adobe Express’ rich number of features
• The mobile app and Generative AI features are pretty solid
• Works quickly and not a lot of complaints in terms of glitches or errors
• Ability to add encryption and 2FA authentication to assets

That being said, Adobe Express does have a few cons worth discussing, which include:

• Issues editing charts and graphs
• Some users report problems working with files created in previous versions of the software
• Could use more templates and images
• Third-party app integration is not as robust as it could be

Adobe Express versus Canva: which is better?

When choosing any graphic design platform, the right choice always comes down to what best suits the needs of your creative team, project, and individual needs. As for what factors to keep in mind when choosing graphic design software, we tend to recommend:

• Features and tools
• Pricing
• User-friendliness
• Security
• Reliability
• Third-party app integrations

When comparing Adobe Express to Canva, we found both were reasonable in terms of pricing for both individuals and content teams. Both design tools also had a great selection of features, with Adobe Express offering a better set for marketing teams and Canva leaning more towards designers.

Both design suites have AI capabilities, giving users the ability to leverage Gen-AI into their design and marketing efforts. Additionally, both options allow you to enhance their own software features by using 3rd party integrations – Canva has more options available, but Adobe Express was noted for having higher-quality integrations. In general, we found that Adobe Express tends to be more of an all-in-one marketing hub great for content marketing teams or individuals, while Canva lends itself more to creative teams with a focus on design and branding. At the end of the day, your choice will come down to your own needs and both design tools are great options. In addition, both Adobe Express and Canva have free versions and free trials, so nothing is stopping you from taking both for a test drive.

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