If you are designing your own business card, social media posts or website, you will want the best free graphic design software for beginners. Canva is a great tool for creating visual designs and is easily one of the best web design tools available to webmasters and non-designers alike. But there are other options out there and it’s important to know what they are.
There are many more options to choose from that could do the trick. So, here are the best Canva alternatives.
Crello
Crello has a similar interface to Canva, with a quick search bar to locate thousands of templates and preset dimensions for specific designs like Facebook posts. Crello offers a free plan like Canva, but you are limited to five design downloads per month. You can add objects, set color palettes with the branding kit, and drag items like objects and text boxes anywhere you want in the design module.
Features:
- More than 30,000 templates for things like blogging, headers, social media, and marketing.
- A rapid image cropping tool to cut out any section.
- Beautiful photo filters to instantly change the look and feel of a design.
- Image rotation and flipping.
- Instant background removal that’s faster than most editors.
- Interesting effects like frames and speech bubbles.
- Slick design objects like shapes, stickers, and badges.
- Audio editing tools to add music to pictures and audio to video.
Pricing:
- Starter – $0 for over 30,000 templates, over 650,000 beautiful stock images, five design downloads per month, and over 32,000 video clips and animations.
- Pro – $9.99 per month for unlimited downloads, all assets from the free plan, team collaboration, priority support, and tools to remove backgrounds.
The paid plan has options to pay yearly if you want to save a little money.Try Crello
Stencil
This is a simple-to-use, sleek designer that generates high-resolution images without the need to use complicated software like Photoshop.
This is a simple-to-use, sleek designer that generates high-resolution images without the need to use complicated software like Photoshop.
Features:
- Unique design tools like a color picker, live previews, and safe areas.
- An Instagram SMS feature that sends designs right to Instagram.
- Social sharing to all popular platforms.
- Access to millions of photos, thousands of templates, and various other useful assets like quotes, fonts, icons, and graphics.
- Over 100 preset sizes to ensure your photos fit on places like social media and presentations.
- A connection with Buffer to schedule your social media design right from Stencil.
Pricing:
- Free – $0 for up to 10 images, 10 collections, and 10 Instagram shares per month.
- Pro – $15 per month for everything in the previous plan, millions of photos and icons, beautiful templates, logos, watermarks, font uploads, premium support, and increases in limits like images per month and Instagram shares.
- Unlimited – $20 per month for everything in the previous plan, unlimited images and collections, and up to 100 Instagram shares.
The two premium plans get a little cheaper (much closer to Canva pricing) if you pay yearly.Try Stencil
Snappa
Snappa works well for making graphics for social media, blogging, and profile pages. The templates come in handy for getting the perfect dimensions, while the millions of free, high-resolution photos make for a rapid design process. The Snappa pricing is slightly higher than that of Canva, but you do receive a few unique features.
Features:
- A sleek designer with thousands of free templates.
- Access to millions of free photos and graphics.
- Links to social media accounts and Buffer.
- Font uploads.
- Potential for collaboration and multi-user accounts.
- Quick background removal tools.
Pricing:
- Starter – $0 for one user, more than 6,000 templates, millions of photos, and three downloads per month.
- Pro – $15 per month for unlimited downloads per month, all templates and photos, social integrations, font uploads, and image background removals.
- Team – $30 per month for everything in the previous plans, plus support for five users and team collaboration.
The yearly plans cost less per month.Try Snappa
Darktable
Darktable is an open-source image editor that offers the ability to process RAW files, non-destructive editing, tethered shooting, and advanced color management. The software is often marketed as a Lightroom alternative because the interface is so similar.
Darktable boasts that it was created for photographers by photographers. It is limited in functionality compared to Photoshop but does have some basic photo enhancement tools and an interface similar to Lightroom that allows you to apply edits to multiple images at once. Some of its key features include RAW non-destructive editing, the ability to create and save your own presets, and color correction.
Darktable also allows for exporting in a wide variety of file formats from low res JPG and PNG to 16-bit TIFF and high dynamic range EXR images. The program works with Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Where the software lacks, is in up-close detail editing, like spot removal and retouching tools. Users also complain that the program can be slow and “buggy” and often crashes when working on large files.
Notable Darktable Features Include:
- Non-destructive editing
- Ability to edit RAW files
- Tethered shooting support for many camera brands
- Darktable currently available in 21 different languages
- 61 image operation modules for adjusting image color, tone, balance, sharpness, contrast, and artistic effects
| PROS | CONS |
| Simple interface nearly identical to Lightroom | Not enough tools for detail editing or retouching |
| Works on Apple, Windows, and Linux devices | Buggy and crashes |
| Can edit RAW files | |
| Non-destructive editing | |
| Powerful exporting options |
Pixlr
Pixlr is an app available for iOS and Android. It is a free photo editor, replete with all the right tricks: red-eye removal, teeth whitening, not to mention hundreds of overlays, filters, and effects. Plus, it lets you post things right to social media.
It might not be a tool you add to your professional arsenal, but doing a little free-editing on your phone to make sure your social media profiles are looking good isn’t going to hurt you!
Never fear, designers! There is a slew of graphic design software for you to explore, create, and publish for all to see. This was barely scratching the surface when it comes to the different avenues and options you have for whatever you need as a designer.
While these are just a few programs, I believe that these are the kings of graphic design software that will dominate 2021 and possibly even further. What will the year bring in terms of great graphic design capabilities? I am not sure, but I sure am excited to find out. Happy designing!
Adobe Creative Suite
If you’re serious about pursuing graphic design professionally, Adobe Creative Suite contains much of the standard software you’ll use as a graphic designer—including Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. Sure, these applications might take a little extra time to learn, but if they help you land a job, it’ll be worth your investment. You can start with a 30-day free trial and then pay on a monthly basis after your trial ends. Plus if you decide to go all in and study graphic design, Adobe offers all students a 60% discount on their Creative Suite software.
GIMP
GIMP—short for GNU Image Manipulation Program—is one of the most popular free (and open source) alternatives to Photoshop. Compatible with Linux, Mac, and Windows operating systems, GIMP includes a comprehensive set of tools for everything from image editing and retouching to full blown creation of artwork, icons, and other graphic design elements using layers, masks, and more. GIMP supports all popular file formats (and a few rare ones too) and is easy to use, even if it’s your first graphic design software.
Inkscape
A strong alternative to Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape is another free and open source graphic design software program. It’s a vector graphic editor that works for Windows, Mac, and Linux with a relatively simple interface and flexible tools for print, logo, and web design. These tools allow object creation, object manipulation, fill and stroke, text formatting, and operations on paths. (Many designers find cloned objects particularly useful.) Inkscape is primarily for working with SVG, but allows for export to PNG, PDF, EPS, PostScript, and more.
Affinity
Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer are relatively new competitors in the world of graphic design software. As you might expect, Affinity Photo is focused on photo editing, while Affinity Designer is vector graphic design software great for branding work, concept art, print projects, icons, and web mockups. Affinity software is designed to be fast regardless of the size or complexity of your work. It’s also highly customizable, with an intuitive, modern interface, advanced layer controls, the ability to undo up to 8,000 steps, and standard file format compatibility. This software is available on Windows or Mac at the reasonable price of $50 each.
Sketch
While it’s only available for Mac users, the vector editor software Sketch is quickly becoming a favorite for many in the design industry, especially those focused on web, app, user experience, or interface design. Priced at $100, this graphic design software is comparable in many ways to Illustrator and, in some aspects, Photoshop as well. Features include support for multiple pages and artboards, symbols and styles that can be easily repeated and updated across a design, and the ability to edit and merge vectors without destroying their original shapes. Sketch however is not a photo editing tool or ideal for print work, so you’ll have to rely on something else for that.
Conclusion
To help you make an informed decision, we’ve compiled all the free alternative to Canva, including price and various other important factors. We recommend that you pick a few of your favorite options, and explore each one. Try out their mobile apps as well, and see which one works for you most effectively with your specific needs and preferences in mind.