3 Best Canva Alternatives for Amazing DIY Graphic Design

I love Canva and use it all day long, but there are some solid Canva alternatives available for DIY Graphic Design that can be used together with Canva as a “toolkit”. As businesses we can benefit from a range of visual content tools to create our own marketing and social media images – each with their own unique feature set.

BY DONNA MORITZ

This post may contain affiliate links, which means we receive a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase through a link featured in this article. 

Before we start with the Canva alternatives,  let's set the scene for this post. For more than a decade I've shared visual content tools with my audience, and you've requested my favorites, along with Canva. So here are my 3 updated top tools for creating images that are solid alternatives to Canva and can work alongside Canva in your business (plus a few bonus tools).

Why Canva Alternatives?

Canva is a visual design juggernaut. And as one of only a few dozen Canva Verified Experts worldwide, and Top 50 “Super Creator” of templates for the Canva library, of course I love Canva. 99% of my day is often spent in Canva creating designs and training.

But I've also been writing, speaking and training on visual design tools worldwide for more than 10 years, so I believe in sharing a range of options (and my community turns to me for updates on the latest tools and apps). While those tools definitely include Canva at the top, and many of my community use Canva, they also want to try out other software.

I mean let's face it, some of you are just tool nerds. 

So far, there's not one tool that does “does all the things”. So the main tools mentioned below have been selected as Canva alternatives in part as they include features that are not in Canva OR because they complement Canva well.

Here are a few things to consider when reading this post:

1. Fun Fact, I was one of Canva's first 300 users (now 175 million) back in 2014. So of course I love Canva as a quality tool for businesses of any size and I especially love it for templates, video, animation, team functionality, brand assets and protection, and collaboration tools like presentations, docs and whiteboards. And of course all the Magic AI features. Most of all, I love what their company is doing for not-for-profits, education and their charitable work around the world.
2. In providing some alternatives to Canva, I'll be focusing purely on tools that ALSO provide great features in terms of visual design for static images. It's too hard to compare features like video and be comparing apples to apples. So we're focusing on static image design only in this review. The tools I have featured work well with Canva as part of your visual design toolkit, or they can also function well as a stand alone DIY Design tool if you want to use something different.
3. This article originally included 7 tools but I have updated it (including new players!) to focus mainly on 3 quality tools that I think fit my criteria for “alternatives to Canva” for static visual design. For the tool nerds, I've included additional “honorable mentions” at the end.
4. All tools featured are desktop/browser tools primarily and I have focused on that vs mobile. Personally, unless I am doing a quick image or video for Instagram, I prefer designing on a computer for a bigger screen.

A word about AI

Before we begin, I want to address the topic of AI, as some of these tools (and most visual design tools including Canva) use generative AI in some way. From Magic Write in Canva to Image Generators in Canva, Kittl and Adobe Express to external software like Midjourney, AI working our way into workflows in many ways including hidden functionality in most software programs we use. As a blogger and designer, I appreciate the AI that improves productivity while being simultaneously challenged by AI that pulls from millions of pieces of content created by creatives. I hope that as the “guidelines” and standards around AI evolve, fair compensation and credit happens for creators. But for now, AI is here to stay and most industries accept that it is part of how we work. What we can do as AI evolves is to be responsible users, and acknowledge where AI forms a main component of our work. More of that later.

For now, let's jump into my updated top 3 Canva alternatives (and a few other contenders) that can add to your visual content toolkit.

3 Best Canva Alternatives for DIY Graphic Design.

Here are my preferred Canva Alternatives for static DIY design for you to check out. Warning… these tools are addictive!

1. Kittl

Shhhh. Kittl is my not-so-guilty secret. I first heard about Kittl when searching for a tool that would allow me to create cool typography without needing to open any fancy design software. Canva has some cool text effects but not to the level I was seeking.

Then I discovered Kittl. Oh my. 

While Kittl may still be growing and adding features, the feature set that exists already is very impressive and warrants being considered as an alternative to Canva. And it's exciting to know that they have attracted over 30 million+ in funding as a private company. Put simply, the Kittl team has the fire power to keep developing their software to be something incredible.

If you want to follow along with me at home, you can play with Kittl for free here using my affiliate link. Just be warned, you may go down a rabbit hole of creative fun! As we will discuss, Kittl allows all users to have a profile, so you can check out my profile here so far!

What's to love about Kittl?

Kittl not only has amazing fonts, elements, images, templates, text effects and mre. But it also has a blisteringly fast AI image generator, and vector tools to play with. It has become my happy place for designing fun things like Tshirts and AI-generated illustrations. Quite honestly, you can do a lot in Kittl that you can't do in other tools… and much more easily.

We're about to get into the design features, but I want to say straight up that Kittl's text-to-graphic generative AI is fire! Here are a couple of examples of T-Shirt designs I did recently. Each of these illustrations was generated with an AI prompt (and the text created in Kittl):

I don't know about you, but for a first attempt at using the Kittl AI tools, it's not too shabby!

Now that my initial excitement is out of the way, let's take a look at all the core features in Kittl and why it's one of my Canva alternatives:

1. Thousands of Ready to Use Templates

Kittl has thousands of professionally designed teplates, ready to use for personal or commercial products. The quality is high and I am super impressed by the typography and illustrations in the Kittl library. 

There's a certain level of savvy design that shines through in Kittl's templates that make them stand out and this is largely due to the combination of typography tools/features, AI-generated imagery and vector functionality leveraged by the designers:

Kittl's designers can simply create beyond limitations of other tools with these options without having to use more complicated programs like Adobe Illustrator. Designers using Kittl will also love that they can access vector files, something that most other non-Adobe tools have missed.

While Kittl's focus earlier on was on Print on Demand businesses and design for products with templates like T-Shirts, Logos and Posters, they are expanding their library to include many (many!) more marketing templates. So, now you will see everything from invitations to social media templates and banners to cards and planners and more.

And of course, please be aware of Kittl's licensing when using templates and content created in Kittl.

2. Elements Galore

Kittl users have direct access to thousands of illustrations, photos, icons, textures and more. You can easily drag and drop thousands of high-quality frames, icons, illustrations and shapes in your designs. Elements are searchable individually or in collections.

Need some Y2K elements? Easy. I was able to find loads of them before creating this fun sports logo flashsheet:

But… you can also generate your own elements with Kittl's AI Image Generator, which is amazing. I've only just started playing with this but so far, the results are beyond impressive.

Here's an example of a peony flower illustration I created with Kittl's AI (and it's in vector format, so it's color changeable on the template):

Kittl's element library is growing daily. I'm always seeing new elements or element collections to love! And if I can't find what I want, I can go to my design “co-pilot” for help with Kittl AI.

3. Stunning Typography & Text Effects

Did I mention that Kittl has some of the coolest fonts and typography I have seen in any DIY Design Software? There, I said it. It was one of the first things I noticed when I started using Kittl. Step into Kittl's typography here.

Kittl's fonts are searchable by style. Want Y2K fonts? Easy. Need Streetwear fonts? Done. Looking for some Elegant fonts? Got it. And of course all the usual suspect categories of type are in Kittl, such as Vintage, Serif, Sans Serif, Script and more.

You may have also noticed some cool typography in the header image for this post. Hint hint, I used this stunning Kittl template as inspiration for that image:

Fun fact. After choosing this template, I discovered that it was designed by Kittl's founder (and super-talented lettering artist/type designer) Tobias Saul! Now can you see why Kittl features some of the coolest typography and text effects?

Working with type in Kittl is about more than just choosing a font. You can add text stunning text effects like shading and shadows to achieve some very cool results. Think advanced effects like 3D bevel or extruded text. Thanks Kittl:

But wait there's more. Let's transform the text…

4. Advanced Text Transformation)

Now that I have you excited about the Typography, let's play with Kittl's advanced text transformation.

Kittl lets you do all sorts of weird and wonderful things with type in a way that has not been possible until now.. at least not outside of Adobe products.

The Kittl feature I am referring to is advanced real-time “Text Transformation”. According to Kittl, this feature “lets you warp any text with just a few clicks”. As you can see, you can change text using effects like custom, arch, distort, rise, circle and angle:

These features are so much fun to use, and are not complicated to learn. In fact, non-designers can use them to create amazing effects. Using the “Distort” setting, I could easily warp the typography in this design to make it fit the outline of the mountain for a T-Shirt Design:

As I mentioned above, you can use pre-set text transformation styles like “Angle”, “Arch” and “Curved Text” that make the process of achieving stunning typography super easy. Referring back to Tobias' template above, curved and arched text can be seen featured in his stunning design.

What do you think?

With so many fonts, plus text transformation and text effects, there's no end to what you can do in Kittl to bring text to life. I need another blog post to share what is possible, but for now, just now that when it comes to typography… Kittl is King.

Just another reason why Kittl is proving to be a solid choice in these canva alternatives.

4. Millions of Photos

As a designer I love using stock photos, but not just any stock photo. I like stock photos that catch attention and stand out. Nothing boring here, thank you very much. Kittl delivers on this need for quality stock photos, bringing a cool integration with Unsplash and their awesome community of photographers. You'll never be stuck finding that perfect photo again! Oh and did I mention they are free to use? Oh yes, they are.

5. AI Powered Tools

I've already (heavily) hinted at Kittl's AI tools and what they can do. With Kittl you can create cool (I mean really cool) things like generating Vector Logo icons and stunning images like the “kids on bikes” and “spaceman” T-Shirts above.

I am just blown away by the level of detail and quality of the images you can generate with Kittl's technology. I've mentioned a few of these features already, but Kitt's AI tools include:

• AI Image Generator – generate images using AI in any style you like using prompts.
• AI Vectorizer – instantly vectorize an image (whaaaaaat?).
• SVG Converter – convert photos and images into SVG in one click, selecting between sleek moochrome or vibrant color mode, then receive a fully editable vector (I know, it's nuts).
• AI Background Remover – remove the background from any image in one click.
• AI Image Upscaler – increase the size and resolution of an image in one click (without compromising quality of the image).

Here's an example of Kittl's AI Image Generator and AI Vectorizer in action. The image on the left below was created with a prompt in Kittl's AI Generator. Then it was vectorized in Kittl's AI Vectorizer as per the screenshot below: 

 

It literally took a couple of clicks to produce an image, remove the background, covert it into a template and make it a 3-color changeable vector avatar. 

One click to create an image that didn't exist before using Kittl's AI. Then one click to vectorize it.What in the actual heck is happening? Mind, blown.

Tell me you're not impressed by that. I'll wait.

This T-Shirt design below was also created using a combination of Kittl's AI and typography/text effects. It may feature a cute sloth, but it certainly wasn't a slow process! Instead it was blisteringly fast to create the sloth element and convert it to an vectorized image with 3 colors:

And it doesn't stop there. As I said above, can also convert photos and images into SVG in one click. Yes, I know. It's just bananas!

A couple of thoughts about Kittl's AI:

1. It produces some of the best results I have seen in any AI image software. I don't know what they are feeding it, but it's definitely working.
2. Use AI responsibly. If you create something with AI, be sure to read Kittl's terms and conditions about what you can use it for. More of my thoughts about AI in general were mentioned earlier in this post.
3. Definitely disclose that what you have created is created with AI, especially if you are creating something to sell.
4. Used in conjunction with Kittl's other typography tools and elements, AI can be an extra team member helping you to create content. Whether it's using a tool like Magic Write to generate content ideas in Canva to using image generators like in Kittl, AI can be used in positive ways to help your workflow.

6. Other Features

There are more Kittl features to explore and while I won't go into them here in detail, rest assured they are also impressive! These include: 

• Mockups – use Kittl's AI-Powered Mockups to create Mockups in one click
• Infinite Canvas – this is a cool feauture that allows you to create multiple artboards in one canvas. Perfect for creating collections.
• Magic Recoloring – Choose from trending color palettes and then instantly replace the colors in any design with a single click (there's that single click again!).
• AI Quote Generator – generate quotes for your merch or social posts.

More and more features are being added all the time, so watch this space. Kittl has certainly cemented its position in this list of Canva alternatives. 

Pricing:

Kittl has a number of plans, and of course a free plan to get you started:

• Free Plan – that allows you to work on 20 projects and test out the software.You can use up to 20 AI Credits (single use) for generating AI images and it includes up to 500mb Upload space. It includes low-resolution experts and Commercial license (with attribution).
• Pro Plan – starts at $10 per month if paid annually. This gives you 30 AI Credits per day, up to 100 projects, 10GB upload space, Unlimited Vector exports and access to all premium templates with full commercial license and advanced AI features.
• Expert Plan – starts at $24 per month if paid annually. It includes 100 AI Credits per day, Unlimited Projects, 100GB upload space, unlimited vector exports, all premium templates with full commercial license and Advanced AI features.
• There is also a Business Plan which has everything in the Expert plan but with advanced customer support, up to 5 users on the account and branding and team features.

Ready to take Kittl for a spin? You can start using beautiful templates, typography, and tools (including AI) to create stunning images today:

2. Easil

Easil is another awesome Drag-and-Drop Design tool that helps you create Visual Content SO good it looks like a Pro designed it. And if you're looking for a tool with awesome team features… definitely consider Easil. It still deserves a spot on this list of alternatives to Canva.

If you've been following my blog for a while, you'll have heard me talk about Easil. I discovered Easil in 2016 due to the sheer quality of its templates and I even spent a stint working with the company as their Chief Storyteller, building their blog content among other things.

Since that time, Easil has got better and better. If you are a team or franchise and need to create images and video, my two picks are Canva and Easil.

But Easil really shines in terms of it's teams functionality. It's a perfect feature set for Franchises or orginisations needing to create images at scale and on brand across multiple team members or team locations.

In fact, I will say that Easil was probably the first design tool to really “nail” team functionality, and they have continued to build a solid user base around teams across Australia and internationally.

Oh, did I mention they are Aussie too, like Canva (we really do build great products down under).

It's for this reason alone that Easil very much deserves to be in my top 3 Canva alternatives. But the features I have listed below only add to that.

With Easil, you can design at a basic level OR take it up a notch and use designer-level features like Layers, Design Merge (merging elements of different designs) and Text Effects. And then of course you can use Brand Kit, Brand Locking as well as cool team functionality like being able to edit entire collections of images.

Many designers love designing in Easil but it's also awesome for non-designers too, as it's so easy to get started.

Let's take a look at some of the features to love in Easil:

1. Team/Brand Features

Easil is perfect for Teams with Brand Kits and Brand Locking to ensure that your whole team is can design brand compliant digital and print marketing materials with drag-and-drop ease. Here is the brand kit in action:

• Brand Kit (upload your logo, fonts, colors and even images!)

• Brand Locking – Lock your brand with Brand Locking and Brand Permissions. Create templates for your entire team and be sure they won't mess them up! This is perfect for designers that want to protect brand assets but need team members to be able to make basic edits.
• Teams – add team members to access your team assets and control how they can access, edit, share and create team assets. You can also create sub-teams which is great for collaboration or working on different projects or working by division/sub-team.
• Design Approval – you can add Design Approval to team templates to prevent downloading until approval has been made.

2. Cool Templates

Easil has high quality, professional, editable templates which have been designed by designers to be ready to use commercially. The templates are always edgy in Easil.

The templates are inclusive no matter what plan you are on. So, if you are on a free subscription and you access a template, you don't pay for hidden elements. If the image or icon is on the template, it's included.

3. Unique Text Effects & Editing Tools

Easil is intuitive in that you just have to click on your image or text and the exact tool kit or “Action Bar” you need pops up in the dashboard area. It's slick! Here are a number of features that I love:

• Text Effects Tools – including neon/glow effect, drop shadow and text masking (adding images to text or shapes)
• Color Palette Generator – pulls in a selection of colors from your image to use in your design.
• Tables – you can use the Tables feature to create and write ebooks or create menus. So handy for laying out text!
• Remove Background – create designs with transparent backgrounds in just one click.

4. Collections

Easil has a cool (and time-saving) Collections feature that allows you to link designs together and therefore manage designs. You can update text, images and even videos across multiple sizes within your campaign. All in a couple of clicks.

5. Other Features

Here are a few other features that mae Easil one of the top 3 Canva alternatives:

• Folders and Favourites – you can store your designs in folders as well as logos, illustrations, images and assets. You can also tag templates in folders to make it easier to organise your content.

• GIF Maker & Video – As well as the ability to create cool GIFs from templates, Easil now has the ability to upload video to add to designs and templates with a built-in toolset to trim videos, add filters, transparency masks and more. You can also access a library of GIF Stickers to add to your videos.

• EasilStock – This is Easil's exclusive series of stock images – included at no extra charge on ‘Plus’ and ‘Edge’ subscriptions. They are a breath of fresh air when it comes to stock images, prefect for industry or entrepreneurial content. And they add new ones all the time!

• Print Services – You can print from Australia and the US, including flyers, business cards, posters or banners… straight from Easil!

• Great Support – Easil's graphic designers actually jump in on support when necessary, which is super useful when you are not a designer… to help you learn how to DIY effectively. Their support is quite impressive for a smaller-ish team.

Many members of my community use both Canva and Easil.

Here's how the pricing and features work:

Pricing:

Easil has a Free Plan, and two paid tiers (Easil Plus and Easil Edge).

• Free Plan – this gives you access to their Free range of 2,500 Editable Templates, Stock Images and Graphic Elements as well as basic Text effects like Drop Shadow and Glow.  You can also work in layers and groups, organise photos in folders and upload your own images.
• Plus Plan – is $7.50 USD per month. This gives you access to all of the features on the Free Plan as well as well as 10,000+ more All-inclusive Templates, Transparent PNG images, High-res PDF download, Design Merge, Store Designs in Folders and Brand Elements in Favorites, Resizing Tool, Text Masking, Uploading Your Own Fonts and Videos, and download MP4 video and GIFs and Unlimited Free use of 1500+ Free EasilStock Images. You can also batch update designs with Collections and use team functionality like Brand Kit, Design Restrictions/Locking, Design Approvals and multiple teams.
• Edge Plan – is $59 USD per month and includes everything in Plus as well as 25,000 Industry and Event specific templates + Priority Support. They also offer Design Guarantee which allows users to request Easil Design Studio to create one design request per subscription per month. This includes templates you can't find in the library from flyers to posters!

Ready to take Easil for a spin as one of your alternatives to Canva?

3. Adobe Express

Adobe Express was previously known as Adobe Spark Post and is Adobe's easier, DIY design software. It should be no suprise that it's listed as one of the Canva alternatives, given the focus Adobe has been giving this tool as part of it's overall Creative Suite.

Adobe Express is part of the Adobe suite of of tools.  Unlike its more advanced Adobe cousins – Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop – Adobe Express is much easier to use, so it certainly stacks up well as one of the Canva alternatives for DIY Design.

Adobe describes Express as “your all-in-one AI content creation app for making stunning social posts, images, videos, flyers and more”.

As you can see, AI features heavily as it does with Canva and Kittl. Generative AI is up front and centre. Here are some of the features (and Generative AI features) in Adobe Express:

Generative AI features:

• Text to Image – generate images from a detailed text description
• Generative Fill – add or remove elements with a text prompt.
• Text to Template – create templates from a text prompt – new feature.
• Text Effects – apply styles or textures to text with a text prompt.

One-Click actions:

Adobe Express has a number of one-click actions to create videos, photos, PDFs and more. This includes a background remover, ability to resize images, convert to GIFs/MP4, resizing and merging videos and generating QR codes.

Cool Templates

Like the other tools mentioned above, Adobe Express has scroll-stopping templates. You can find professional designed templates for just about every document type from Instagram Reels to flyers to Facebook Posts and Logos.

Pricing:

Pricing for Adobe Express starts with a free plan that gives you basic access to editing tools and assets, 25 generative AI credits and access to 100,000 static templates (no video) and 1000 custom fonts, as well as basic editing tools.

The Premium Plan starts at $10 USD per month and includes to all templates, more Generative AI credits, and access to thousands more fonts, assets, stock imagery, and editing tools.

Ready to take Adobe Express for a Spin?

More Tools?

If you're looking for the other tools listed on this post, here are some “honorary mentions” for other tools that we love. For now, these are the 3 tools that I feel are closet in functionality to Canva for creating DIY visuals are listed above, but if you LOVE tools, then definitely check these out:

1. Picmonkey – this has always been a favorite of mine. In fact it was THE tool I used before Canva was released in 2014. Picmonkey saved us as non-designers. It started out as a cool photo editing tool but now it has not only professional photo editing but 1000s of customizable templates, endless stock photos, graphics and fonts and a lot of cool features like text effects.
2. Studio Go Daddy – previously known as “Over” (and a favorite tool of mine), Over was acquired by Go Daddy and is now known as Studio Go Daddy. The good news is that a lot of the cool fonts, features and templates that go with Over, went with Go Daddy. Includes thousands of templates, fonts, videos and royalty-free images.
3. Vista Create (Crello) – formerly known as Crello, Vista Create is a solid visual design platform, and part of the Deposit Photos family. As well as over 150k professionally designed templates, you can also access a huge library of fonts, music, animations, illustrations, backgrounds, objects and more for your design projects. In addition (as part of the Deposit Photos family), Vista Create provides 70M+ photos, videos and vectors for users. Recent feature additions are brand kit/styles, animation and video, background remover and stickers. You can also design and collaborate on designs together as a team.
4. Visme – is another graphic design tool worth checking out. It includes a drag-and-drop editor and templates for just about everything including presentations, infographics, social media graphics and more. It also has advanced data visualization tools (for charts, graphs, maps and more). They also have AI features (AI Design Generator, AI Image Generator, AI Touch up tools) and more.
5. Snappa – Snappa lets you whip up just about any type of design from social media to ads to blogs to more. Designed with non-designers in mind, Snappa has thousands of pre-made templates, access to over 5 million “non-cheesy” stock photos, 200 fonts and over 100k graphic elements, among other features.

There are more, but this should get you started with DIY Design tools!

Tips for getting the most out of your DIY Graphic Design Tools

1. Look for tools that include images.  Whether it's images that are free for commercial use, or low-cost, make sure you have easy access to images. A bonus is if the tool doesn't charge any extra for images that are included in templates
2. Take note of the templates. Look for a tool that has quality, professionally designed templates that stand out. This doesn't necessarily men the biggest template library, but it does mean the one with the most quality templates.
3. If you are using a design to sell a product, then the best approach is to start with a blank canvas, but if you do use a template, be sure to change the layout enough that it is original. Just changing the text is not enough. you need to change the layout, text, content and images in a way that is unique enough.
4. Use a Brand Kit – if the tool has a brand kit, use it! It's much easier to edit templates or create designs for your brand (either individually or as a team) if you have your brand assets set up properly first.
5. Invest in at least one “paid” tool. Most design tools have restrictions on their free versions, and the reality is that you get more if you pay just a little. Choose the tool you use the most (and with features you want to use) and start there.
6. Have fun! Enjoy playing with the design tools. And remember that a little over 10 years ago, we didn't have anywhere near the likes of Canva, Kittl, Easil and Adobe Express. What a time to be a creative!

Enjoy Creating!

I hope you enjoy exploring these Canva Alternatives, and adding them to your DIY Design toolkit. Save this post for later so you can refer back to it! Stay creative!