By Rebekah Carter
Canva vs Adobe Express: which is better? If you had asked me a couple of years ago, I probably would have said Canva, hands-down.
It’s definitely one of the simpler design tools out there, and our team at Ecomm.Design uses it a lot to create images for blog posts, ecommerce templates, and more.
But both Adobe Express and Canva have evolved a lot lately.
Canva is still one of my favorite tools for design, but I’ve found myself relying more and more on Adobe Express for specific things, like accessing various typefaces, royalty free images, and unflattened PDFs.
So, which product should you choose?
The Quick Verdict
TLDR: Here’s my verdict.
Adobe Express is a more affordable solution if you just need a single license, and it’s much better for exporting PDFs, accessing various typefaces, experimenting with royalty-free images, and aligning your design tools with other popular solutions, like Photoshop.
Canva is the better option for small teams (like ours here at Ecomm.Design).
Canva features a lot more collaboration tools, slightly more advanced AI tools, and a wider range of templates. It’s also a more powerful option for video editing.
Canva vs Adobe Express Pros and Cons
Canva Pros
- Excellent AI tools
- Downloadable desktop app
- More templates
- More export options
- POD solutions
- More powerful video editor
- Better collaboration features
- More generous paid plans
Canva Cons
- Flattened exports (PDFs)
- Some limitations with customer support
- No background remover on paid plans
- Slightly more expensive.
Adobe Express Pros
- Unflattened PDFs
- Much cheaper for a single user
- Background removal included on the free plan
- Excellent customer support
- More royalty-free images and typefaces.
- Excellent integration with Adobe products.
Adobe Express Cons
- Fewer templates and more stock image restrictions
- Slow loading times
- Only available on browser or mobile
Canva vs Adobe Express: Feature Comparison
Adobe Express and Canva have a lot of similarities as web-based graphic design tools, intended for beginners. Both support users in creating various assets, from email signatures to YouTube videos.
You can also access templates, free design assets, and drag-and-drop editors on both.
Both tools also offer generative AI features, although I found Canva’s a little more powerful (more on that later). So, let’s break down some of the core features, and how they compare.
Design Templates and Exports
First, Adobe Express and Canva both make it simple to get started with design, through a range of templates, however Canva offers considerably more options.
With Canva, you get 250,000 templates (for free), and 610,000+ on the free plan. With Adobe, you get thousands of basic templates on the free plan, and over 100,000 on the paid plan.
The quality of the templates on both platforms is fantastic, but Canva gives you more freedom to create just about anything, from presentations, to documents, logos, social media posts, and even products that you can print with Canva Print.
Adobe offers templates for social media posts, documents, presentations, flyers, and so on, but there are definitely a lot fewer options, particularly on the free plan (which is what I was using here).
Canva’s AI tools also make it easier to find the templates you need, or create them from scratch. Although Adobe offers a great “Start from your content” option if you want to create something based on an existing asset, like a flyer.
In terms of “export” options, Adobe’s only redeeming feature is that it offers unflattened PDF export Canva offers more export formats, including PPTX, GIF, and SVG.
Photo and Video Editing
Canva and Adobe Express both offer access to drag-and-drop editors, and simple photo and video editing tools.
You can make standard adjustments to both videos and photos in both platforms, filling the background in images, removing an image, resizing videos, and so on.
Adobe Express even allows you to do some of these things with just one click from your dashboard.
Both tools also offer access to various filters and effects, and can replace specific aspects of an image for you.
Notably though, Canva doesn’t offer background removal on its free plan. Adobe does offer background removal, and can even invert cutouts, so you remove the photo subject, instead of the background, which is handy.
Both tools are incredibly intuitive, and offer access to a huge range of free assets you can use in your designs.
However, Canva offers slightly more stock resources (over a million compared to over 800,000 free images on Adobe’s free plan).
When it comes to video editing, Adobe Express offers a range of formats to help you create content for different purposes, like TikTok and Instagram Reels.
Canva offers a similar experience, and also has a handy “Beat Sync” tool, to help you edit the music in your content.
When I dove a little deeper into everything offered by Canva, I did feel the video editing tools were a little better.
For instance, you get more GIF design tools, free video clips, backgrounds and scenes. Plus, the platform loads a lot faster than Adobe too.
Website Design, Brand Kits, and Collaboration
Most people will use Adobe Express and Canva for social media images, or basic templates. We use Canva to create the images we use on this website. However, both tools do allow you to create basic, single-page websites.
I’d definitely recommend considering a proper website builder if you need one though, such as Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify, as the websites you can create are pretty basic.
Here’s an example of a Canva wireframe for a website:
What you can create with a lot more efficiency though, are brand kits.
Adobe Express has its “Brands” tool, where you can upload logos, color palettes, and other assets you want to keep consistent across your assets (like fonts).
Adobe Express is particularly excellent for fonts, with over 25,000 options compared to Canva’s 2,000.
Canva also offers these features via its “Brand Hub”, along with some additional tools on Teams plans, such as the ability to set content restrictions and approval workflows.
Speaking of team-based tools, Canva is much better for collaboration. Although Adobe offers access to shared Docs, and an admin console for license management, Canva allows users to create automated workflows, work simultaneously on products with colleagues, and assign permissions to teams.
Canva even gives you the option to sort projects into multiple categories, and share them with teams through Slack, LinkedIn pages, and more.
Canva vs Adobe Express: AI Tools
As noted above, both Canva and Adobe Express now feature generative AI tools.
Adobe offers a range of four AI features at the time of writing: Text to image, generative fill, text to template, and text effects.
Basically, all of these tools allow you to access the benefits of the Adobe Firefly platform to create assets for your brand.
All of these features are great, but Canva’s AI tools are even stronger.
With Canva Magic Studio, you get access to AI solutions for creating a wide range of different templates and assets.
You can generate images from scratch using Dall-E and Google’s software.
There are AI tools for morphing fonts, animating images, resizing content, creating videos, and so much more. You can even use AI to magically expand or edit different images.
Plus, Canva is a lot more generous with how much you can use these tools. Adobe Express paid users get 250 AI credits a month, while Canva Pro users get 500 credits per month.
Ease of Use and Customer Experience
After taking the time to experiment with both Canva and Adobe Express, I can say they’re both very easy to use.
Canva makes it simple to find the templates you need, customize images to suit your requirements, and experiment with artificial intelligence. It’s also extremely easy to collaborate with team members and keep track of your projects.
Adobe Express is just as straightforward. You can instantly find templates in your home dashboard, access a range of “quick action” options, like the “remove background” features, and use AI to generate all kinds of content.
However, I felt like I had a lot more freedom to experiment with Canva than I did with Adobe Express. While Adobe Express’s interface is simpler and cleaner, Canva inspires you to create more and explore a wider range of options.
Customer Support
While Canva is a little more intuitive overall, Adobe Express does offer better customer support. Both platforms give users access to a ton of self-help resources, like tutorials, FAQs, videos, and guides, which I love.
However, you can reach out to Adobe through phone, live chat, email, and social media.
With Canva, you’re limited to only email support, and responses can take up to a week if you’re on the free plan.
If you do upgrade to a paid plan, you can expect responses within 24 hours, but that still feels a little slow when you’re dealing with a serious design issue.
Canva vs Adobe Express: Pricing
Last but not least, let’s look at the pricing.
Both Adobe and Canva offer free plans (which was great for me when conducting this comparison). Adobe’s free plan offers 25 generative AI credits per month, video and photo editing, 10 quick actions, thousands of design elements, animation effects and a background remover tool.
Canva’s free plan includes the drag-and-drop editing tool, 250,000 free templates, 100+ design types, 1 million free assets, and AI powered tools like Magic Design. You can also use Canva Print for print on demand purposes.
Adobe Express Paid Plans
- Premium: $9.99 monthly: All the free plan features, 250 AI credits, 195 million royalty-free assets, and brand kits.
- Teams: $12.99 monthly: All the Premium features, 1TB of storage per user, 180-day version history, admin controls, and sharing restrictions.
You can also get Adobe Express with a Creative Cloud subscription, which costs between $54.99 and $84.99 per month.
Canva Paid Plans
- Canva Pro: $14.99 monthly: All the free plan features, 100 million premium assets, 100 brand kits, background remover, 1TB of cloud storage and Magic Studio.
- Canva for Teams: $29.99 monthly: All the Pro plan features, centralized brand assets, brand controls, design approval workflows, collaboration tools, 1TB of storage per user, priority customer support, and SSO support.
Discount plans are also available for Nonprofits and Educational companies.
Canva vs Adobe Express: The Verdict
Overall, Canva and Adobe Express are both excellent web-based design tools. However, after testing both, I still think Canva is the better option, particularly for small teams. It offers more templates, more unique AI features, and better value for money.
However, if you’re looking for a simple solution for a single user, you want unflattened PDFs, or you need exceptional customer support, Adobe Express may be the better pick for you.
