Canva vs Figma: Which App Is Better For You?

What Kind of Tool is Canva?

Canva is a user-friendly graphic design tool. With a library of built-in templates and easy drag-and-drop tools, Canva enables you to create professional-looking designs without needing a dedicated design team. Canva is used for various design projects, from social media posts and ads to presentations and infographics. With its simple and intuitive interface, Canva is great for businesses and individuals that need to create high-quality designs without the hassle or the high cost.

What Kind of Tool is Figma?

Figma is a vector graphics editor and prototyping tool. Being vector-based, you can scale designs infinitely without them losing quality. Additionally, you can easily edit and share Figma files with multiple people simultaneously, making collaboration a breeze. Moreover, Figma has an extensive library of built-in components, which makes it easy to create complex designs with a consistent aesthetic.

Now that we’ve covered the basics let’s check the major differences between Canva and Figma in more detail.

1. Canva vs. Figma: The Type of Design

The most striking difference when comparing Canva vs. Figma is the type of design you can create with them.

Canva makes a great pick if you need to create marketing designs for social media, posters, ads, videos, etc. On the other hand, Figma is the tool to go to if you need UX and wireframing designs, user flows, and website mockups. Don’t  get confused here — you can “only” create website or app prototypes with Figma. You can’t actually build them.

Let’s see what other Canva vs. Figma differences exist.

2. Canva vs. Figma: Features and Templates

Considering that both apps cover quite different things, it’s no surprise that their features, despite some common similarities, also differ. 

Features

In their very core, Canva and Figma are different apps, which of course has an effect on the type of features they offer. 

Canva is more focused on visuals used for marketing purposes. Hence, it pays more attention to photo editing tools such as:

• Automatic resize tool — You don’t have to worry about different size requirements, this tool adjust your visuals automatically

• Brand Kit tool — It helps you to stay on the same brand identity page.

• Content planer — You schedule your posts and marketing material

• Animations and Video designs — It allows you to create more dynamic and captivating visuals

• And more.

Figma, on the other hand, offers more UX-oriented features.You can utilize it to start from scratch and benefit more from “typical” graphic design features. For example, there are drawing tools like pen and curve tools. Furthermore Figma offers a wide range of shapes such as:

• CSS support for elements — It allows you to change the content in terms of style,colors, layout, etc.

• Advanced grid system — It allows you to align objects within a frame, which provides a visual structure to your design and helps you stay consistent across various platforms and devices.  

• Layer exporting option —It enables you to easily export your layers in the desired format like PNG, SVG, JPG, etc.

• And more.

Another nice perk that Figma offers is an endless canvas, great for collaboration and unlimited space to develop your projects. 

Templates

As we’ve mentioned earlier, Canva, in a nutshell, is a marketing graphic design tool. Therefore, Canva’s distinctive features offer a great number of templates (more than 400 000) and photo editing tools. That includes stock images, vector graphics, fonts, layouts, animations, etc. However, the number of templates you can use in the free Canva version is limited ( it’s 250 000).

Conversely, Figma doesn’t offer a large number of templates, which is totally understandable taking into account Figma’s main purpose. This is because Figma is more focused on creating prototypes and mockups.

3. Canva vs. Figma: Collaboration

Both apps offer some sort of collaboration and offer it in real-time. However, the first place should go to Figma regarding collaboration. Let’s see why.

Figma really pays close attention to collaboration. It is integrated into every phase of your design. Just how much Figma cares about collaboration becomes apparent the moment you land on its website. The first thing that will greet you is their dynamic message: “Nothing great is done alone.”

With Figma, you can create libraries for the whole team and create templates to be used for later projects. A great addition to Figma’s collaboration efforts is the FigJam, an infinite whiteboard where you and your team can brainstorm, add sticky notes, comments, etc.

And how can you collaborate on Canva? You can invite team members via a link or email. You can also tag them, add comments, etc. 

4. Canva vs. Figma: Plugins and Integrations

Both Canva and Figma offer plugins and integrations. Nonetheless, Canva doesn’t separate them into two categories, whereas Figma does. 

It is safe to say that plugins are one of the trademarks of Figma. There is a community page with a vast plugin library. You can find various plugins for mockups and prototypes, chart creators,wireframes, etc. Anyone with a Figma account use a plugin, but you don’t need to have an account to create one.

In terms of Figma’s integrations, their number is poor compared to thousands plugins Figma offers..

What’s the situation like with Canva? Compared to Figma, Canva has much less plugins and the ones it does are mainly related to social media platforms, photo editing tools, email marketing tools, etc. in total, there are more than 90 plugins and integrations that Canva offers.

5. Canva vs. Figma: Learning Curve

In a head-to-head matchup between Canva and Figma, Canva would definitely come out on top in terms of learning curve.

Canva is perfect for beginners and non-designers, thanks to its intuitive and user-friendly interface. In addition, you can find even more about it in Canva’s Learn Tab.

Figma, on the other hand, has a steep learning curve if you aren’t a designer or you have never used graphic design tools. You will probably need some time to figure out what each element means and how you can use it. Furthermore, if you need to design something more complex, you would need a tutorial or to do some prior research. 

Before we wrap up the story of Canva vs. Figma and show you another versatile graphic design tool, let’s summarize “the battle” between Canva and Figma by looking at their pros and cons.

6. Canva vs. Figma: Pros and Cons

Each app displays features that are more than useful and practical when it comes to graphic design. The difference in their nature and the core purpose is actually where their pros and cons lie. 

In other words, their strengths and weaknesses depend on what you use them for.

Here they are:

Canva’s Pros

✅User-friendly app, great for non-designers

✅Great amount of templates and stock images

✅Great for marketing campaigns and materials

Canva’s Cons

⛔You can’t create more complex designs

⛔A limited number of free templates

⛔You can’t create wireframes and mockups

Figma’s Pros

✅Great for complex graphic designs

✅Great for UX designs, prototypes and mockups

✅Great collaboration options

✅Impressive number of plugins

Figma’s Cons

⛔Has a steep learning curve

⛔Doesn’t offer photo editing tools

⛔Doesn’t have a huge template gallery

The last thing to check is the price of these two apps.

7.Canva vs. Figma: Pricing

Canva has 2 paid and one free pricing plan.

When it comes to Figma, apart from the Free plan, there are also three paid plans.

What is common for both apps is that they both work on a subscription model.

And now, as promised, the time has come to show you a graphic design tool that fills the gap between Canva and Figma. That tool is Glorify.

Glorify — The Best Alternative to Canva and Figma

Glorify is a graphic design tool. You might think it is yet another tool in the already crowded place of tools and apps, but what makes Glorify so distinct is that it also caters to eCommerce store owners. What does it mean? 

It is one of the rare graphic design apps that combines the best of two worlds: great photo editing features and tools and mockup designs. Usually, the apps are either former or the latter.

However, with Glorify, tools for both photo editing and mockups are rather advanced and have a wide range.

Let’s see some of Glorify’s features and perks:

• Infinite Canvas enable you to brainstorm and collaborate with your team members, prepare marketing materials and organize assets, work on your brand identity, etc.

• Mockups so you can showcase your products in 3D and get a clearer picture of how the final design will look like

• Brand It Kit to make sure you are aligned with your brand identity across all the channels

• Photo editing tools like BG remover, automatic resizing, shadows, reflections, etc.

• Annotation tool to highlight the product’s features

• Template Bundles to stay consistent across all the platforms

• Sharing and Exporting your files

Just by taking a glance at some of Glorify’s features, you can already see that it covers both Canva and Figma’s features, making it a super versatile tool. In addition, it has advanced tools tailored for non-designers and beginners. 

Like every app, Glorify isn’t flawless, and its biggest, but a temporary disadvantage is that its template number isn’t as huge as in Canva. In addition, Glorify still doesn’t offer video tools, but that is about to change soon because a new, updated version is about to see the daylight any minute now, literally.

So why don’t give it a try? 

‍Sign up for free and explore all the possibilities Glorify has to offer so you can create both visuals and prototypes in a matter of minutes.