This article will compare VistaCreate and Canva, two massively popular graphic design editors in 2024. As our industry moves more towards web based design tools, you may find yourself looking into one of these two solutions. Here, we'll compare the ease of use, UI, features and pricing to help make the decision between VistaCreate (Crello) and Canva a bit easier.

I read a quote that stayed with me - Design is not a philosophy; it is life!

Gone are those days when you would have to spend months (even years) learning graphics design software. In this jet age, things need to move fast. This is especially true for startups and freelancers.

Let’s paint a picture of a plausible situation where you have to deliver a speech with the help of a PowerPoint deck. And you have just a day to prepare everything. The traditional route would involve taking the help of a professional designer and then waiting for multiple iterations before you can say, “Ah! This is it.”

And, of course, the cost associated with this method might not bring a smile to your face.

Modern Graphic Design Tools

How about we change the route that is more suited to the jet age that we live in? Welcome to the world of headless content management systems and DIY graphics designing platforms such as Crello and Canva. These tools allow even the most amateur designer (beginner) to get started. Technology is a blessing indeed.

Both Crello (VistaCreate) and Canva are amazing tools to jump on the designing spree. Both these platforms cater to designers with little to no experience.

However, with more choices comes more confusion. If you are in the market to use a tool for graphics design, both Canva and Crello are right for you. However, I understand we would like to know which is the better one.

And that is why in this post, we will talk about the features, differences, and pricing of both these graphic design tools. By the end of this article, you will be better prepared to understand and decide which tool to go with.

The Space

The growing need for plug-and-play tools and platforms has resulted in the onset of startups jostling for market share in the SaaS space.

The graphic design space is no exception to this competition. I remember, back in the early 2000s, one would have to spend a lot of money to become a designer. That is not the case anymore.

With a tool like VistaCreate (Crello) or Canva, you do not need thousands of dollars to call yourself a designer. 

One of the biggest reasons tools such as VistaCreate and Canva have attracted a massive userbase is that they are incredibly easy to learn, as against software such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. And of course, these DIY tools cost a fraction of what the traditional tools cost.

The Companies: Crello & Canva

Crello is the brainchild of Ukrainian creative Dmitriy Sergeev. The Company was established in 2016. In October last year, Crello was acquired by Vistaprint, and rebranded as VistaCreate.

Put simply, VistaCreate is an easy-to-use graphic design tool that helps you create beautiful designs such as web graphics, animations, images, and animations for marketing and advertising. Its simple drag and drop interface allows even the most novice designers to render awesome designs with ease.

And this tool offers hundreds of templates. And the best thing? You can get started with VistaCreate for free. 

Like VistaCreate, Canva is also a well-known design tool that allows one to create beautiful design assets such as social media posts, advertising assets, videos, and more. It also has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface and a ton of free templates. You can get started with Canva without spending a dime. Even its free version is good enough for generic design-related work.

Features: Crello vs Canva

You will find a lot of features common in Canva and VistaCreate. As I said earlier, both these graphics design tools have been built with the average user in mind. Having said that, both these design platforms differ a bit, albeit the differences might not be noticeable unless you dive into the platforms.

Image & Video Editing: VistaCreate

Whether you want to resize, crop, blur, or flip images, VistaCreate does it all. With VistaCreate, you can add frames, animation, and filters to images. Did you know VistaCreate also lets you add shapes and stickers to images? And yes, you can even add audio to images. Neat, isn’t it!

GIFs are in rage these days. Thanks to VistaCreate, you can create GIFs in a jiffy (that rhymed well). You can even take a video, and use VistaCreate's free GIF converter to create a GIF. Crello has a cool image converter that allows you to convert one image format into another, say PNG to JPEG.

Just as in the case of images, VistaCreate allows you to be creative with videos- adding animation, resizing, adding music, and more.

Image & Video Editing: Canva

I love the way Canva allows photo arrangement through various grid layouts. Just like Crello, Canva lets you apply beautiful filters to photos. I have used Canva to apply filters with different levels of transparency, and these have always surprised me in a good way.

Adding text, icons, stickers, or speech bubbles to images is a child’s play, thanks to the easy drag and drop interface of Canva.

The area where Canva stands out (and might be a tad better than VistaCreate) is color-related features. If you have not used the Color wheel, Color palette generator, or the Color meanings tool in Canva, you are certainly missing a lot on the creative front.

For example, with Canva’s Color wheel, you can create beautiful color combinations. Alternatively, you can use its color palette generator to extract colors from your creative assets, such as images.

Templates: VistaCreate vs Canva

The biggest selling point (or at least one of the biggest) of both these tools is the massive number of readymade templates, including animated ones. It amazes me that these tools allow you to explore these templates without even having to log in.

Seems transparency is the trend here! The dashboard layout of both Canva and VistaCreate is similar.

Canva offers over 250,000 templates across more than 40 template categories.

Talking about VistaCreate, you can explore over 30,000 templates across social media posts, blog content, covers and headers, advertising content, marketing materials, animated designs, and more.

Which one is the better in terms of templates?

I prefer Canva a tad more to VistaCreate in this regard.

VistaCreate vs Canva's pricing

VistaCreate's Pricing

You can choose from the Starter (free plan) and Pro plans from VistaCreate to get started. Both these plans offer monthly and annual subscriptions. You can save 20% if you opt for their annual pricing plan.

VistaCreate's free plan or Starter Plan is geared toward beginners who want to use the platform casually. While this free version offers over 30,000 static and animated templates, over half a million stock images, and over 30,000 HD animations/clips, it only lets you download five designs per month. 

If you want to download more designs or even unlimited downloads, you might want to upgrade from the free version to their Pro plan as it offers unlimited downloads and other premium features. Another benefit of the upgrade is the feature to remove image backgrounds.

The Pro plan also offers quick customer support. Finally, this plan lets you collaborate with up to 10 team members.

The Pro Plan is available for $9.99 per month (monthly billing) and $7.99 per month (annual billing).

I like the fact that VistaCreate has a free plan as well as a free trial for the Pro Plan.

Canva's Pricing

With Canva, you have three plans to choose from- Free plan, Pro, and Enterprise.

An advantage of Canva is that you get 5 GB storage (free) and access to over 250,000 free templates. Also, their free plan allows real-time team collaboration- something Crello does not offer in their free plan.

An upgrade from the free plan to the Pro Plan gets you all the benefits of their free plan with 100 GB storage, and over 75 million premium stock photos, audio, videos, and graphics. If you are working as a professional designer, or as a business employee, the Pro plan is useful since it allows you to create a Brand Kit.

With this, you can upload your custom style assets- logos, fonts, and more. Another thing I enjoy about Canva Pro is that it allows you to schedule content for seven social media platforms. Design and social scheduling are done together!

If you opt for the monthly Canva Pro, you will be paying $12.99 per month. If you want more savings, their annual plan priced at $119.99 per year would be a better choice.

And if you are part of a bigger organization that needs advanced security features, Canva’s enterprise Plan is a good choice. It offers all the features of the Canva Pro plan plus single-sign-on (SSO), 24/7 support, and unlimited storage.

In addition, you get more team management features such as built-in workflows. This plan is available for $30/user/month.

Ease of Use: VistaCreate vs Canva

Canva is all about versatility. Bloggers, students, freelancers, and small business owners from around the world use Canva. Thanks to their three tiers; free plan, Canva Pro, and Canva Enterprise, there is something for everyone to create stunning designs.

I even know some Fortune 1000 and even 500 businesses using Canva for their design needs. Why would such big businesses use Canva when they have the resources and money for Adobe Photoshop?

The answer- Ease of use, simplicity, and turnaround time.

Social media marketing is a breeze with a tool like Canva.

Online graphic design software like Canva makes design fun and saves a lot of time.

What about VistaCreate (Crello)?

Like Canva, VistaCreate has a huge userbase too.

However, I like Canva’s UI a bit more than VistaCreate's.

I think it is also a matter of preference. 

I have found Canva a bit more refreshing with its UI and overall look and feel.

Customer Support: VistaCreate vs Canva

With VistaCreate, you can reach customer support through email. Recently, it has also launched a live chat feature. Canva offers similar email support.

Given these facts, VistaCreate has an upper hand due to its live-chat support even in the free plan.

If you want a dedicated customer support team, both VistaCreate and Canva do not impress much with their starter or free plans.

Advantages and Disadvantages: Canva and VistaCreate

You will love the huge range of free photos, assets, and layouts in Canva. The sheer number of readymade free templates is mind-boggling (in a good way). I like Canva’s resizing tool as it helps with maintaining a consistent theme across designs for all areas- social media platforms, blogs, marketing materials, and others.

Canva offers a high level of customization. You can adjust the text and image size, colors, position, and more with Canva. One slick feature of Canva is duplicating designs.

This is useful when you want to keep the same theme, and just change a few things here and there.

A downside of Canva is the inability to search by free images only. Whenever you use the search bar, the results show both free and paid images.

Quite frustrating at times. Canva can also do better with its folder management. 

Just like Canva, VistaCreate allows you to design using just a browser- no downloads necessary. I like the fact that VistaCreate has a built-in integration with Depositphotos (Vista owns them too) library of 150+ million images, videos, and illustrations.

You can directly publish your designs in VistaCreate to social media platforms- something social media managers love. Another advantage of VistaCreate is that its Pro plan costs less than Canva’s.

On the flip side, VistaCreate lacks interactive elements such as maps, charts, and forms. And lastly, it is a bit more difficult to use than Canva (again a personal preference and experience).

Conclusion

So, which of the two is a better tool?

I would be lying if I said one is better than the other.

As I have mentioned multiple times in this post, personal preference plays a big role in deciding which is a better platform.

Having said that, it is also true that Canva offers more features than VistaCreate. 

And overall, Canva has the upper hand in that regard.

However, this also comes with an additional cost.

Trade-offs exist everywhere, don’t they?

If you are a freelancer, I’d suggest trying both VistaCreate and Canva first.

Since both offer free plans, you have nothing to lose.

If you are an experienced designer, Canva might be more to your liking.

Businesses would also benefit more from Canva’s collaboration features, and especially, the Brand Kit functionality.