Posted Jan 24, 2023

Design

Create beautiful marketing graphics at scale.

Design & Inspiration

We’ve Tried 5 Stencil Alternatives - Here’s Our Feedback

Design & Inspiration

Design & Inspiration

We’ve Tried 5 Stencil Alternatives - Here’s Our Feedback

What Is Stencil?

Stencil homepage

This user-friendly graphic design tool is aimed at bloggers, small business owners, and marketers who need to produce content daily while being time effective.

Its easy-to-use UI is perfect for those not skilled enough.

With just a few taps, you can quickly create eye-catching ads, great blog headlines, social media graphics, lovely invitations, and much more.

Stencil's key benefits include:

  • A simple interface.

  • Wide selection of royalty-free images.

  • Numerous possibilities for editing visual content.

  • Support for increased productivity across multiple channels.

Stencil Features

Let's look at the most prominent features that Stencil offers:

  • Over 5,000,000 high-quality royalty-free photos.

  • Instant resizing with 140+ presets and the possibility for custom sizes.

  • Live previews for previewing and easy sharing of images to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Buffer, and Bitly.

  • Creating and scheduling photos with Buffer.

  • 3,100,000+ icons from Noun Project, Those icons, and RoundIcons.com.

  • 1350+ templates for social media, ebooks, business, promotional, fitness, etc.

  • Uploading and storing logos.

  • 5,350+ Google Fonts and an option for uploading your own fonts. 

  • Chrome and Firefox browser extensions.

  • WordPress plugin.

  • Facebook Ad grid.

  • Instagram SMS for sharing images directly to your device.

  • Color picker tool to choose colors from anywhere on the canvas.

  • Image beautifying filters.

Stencil is a nice tool for quickly creating and sharing images on any social media. 

The most significant advantage is that you don't need to leave the browser to preview or share your image, which contributes to the time-saving of any marketer.

Pricing

Stencil has free and two pricing plans – Pro and Unlimited.

Stencil pricing

Why Look For A Stencil Alternative

While Stencil has a huge library of stock images, they become repetitive in style and generic. The other downside is the limited options for image editing and customization.

Also, suppose you need to create more than 10 images per month. In that case, consider subscribing to either of the two available pricing plans.

Top 5 Stencil Alternatives

Now let's see some of the best Stencil alternatives, their features, and, of course, pricing. 

1. Glorify

Glorify homepage

Glorify is an online graphic design tool that combines professional tools and features with a beginner-friendly interface.

It doesn't require a learning curve since its drag-and-drop UI is quite intuitive.

This powerful tool is an excellent choice for hobbyists, bloggers, and social media creators. Additionally, eCommerce store owners will find it beneficial to create and share any e-com images without leaving the dashboard.

Glorify has an extensive library of templates to choose from – suitable for social media, advertising, eCommerce, etc. You can create and fully customize any template with icons, shapes, illustrations, stock images, fonts, text templates, backgrounds, etc.

This Stencil alternative tool will satisfy even the most demanding users with its photo editing options.

Glorify Features

Glorify offers quite a range of tools and features:

  • Infinite canvas – Easily organize all your marketing assets in one place. Brainstorm with your team members, collaborate and share ideas using one limitless canvas.

  • Photo editing features – Background remover, Smart resize feature, Shadows and reflections, filters, effects, etc., and other editing tools.

  • Annotation tool for highlighting the most prominent features of the image.

  • The brand kit feature allows you to create multiple kits with different logos, custom fonts, and color palettes.

  • Template bundles let you use your design consistently across platforms.

  • Mockups – Create realistic, 3D mockup scenes and bring your designs to life.

  • Exclusive library with 7M icons, 12 M photos, 1M models, 200+ infographics, 290+ logos, and many more.

Glorify is great for collaboration -- even the free plan comes with 3 users and unlimited guests. With the various file formats supported, it's easy to save and share them via links or email.

Pricing

Glorify comes with one Free and two Premium plans.

Glorify pricing

2. PicMaker

PicMaker homepage

Picmaker is another Stencil alternative dedicated to creating social media posts.

This graphic design tool creates anything from YouTube banners to thumbnails, visuals for all social media posts, advertising, banners, posters, and even stickers. 

Its extensive collection of templates will help you to find one that suits your demands. 

With Picmaker, you can design anything you need, whether a festival design card, certificates of appreciation, YouTube thumbnail, invoice, event invites or marketing ideas. 

It is best for content creators, especially YouTubers, and enables anyone to make beautiful designs quickly.

Picmaker's Features

Here are the key features of Picmaker:

  • Image editor– AI-enabled features like the Background remover and the Mad button.

  • Library of templates for marketing, sales, social media, etc.

  • 100 million stock images and icons.

  • Brand kit

  • Stikerify tool for converting images into stickers.

  • Transparent background tool.

  • Thousands of free and custom fonts.

  • Share and collaborate tools.

Picmaker makes a great Stencil alternative for fun-looking designs, especially YT thumbnails.

But, some users find the editing features basic, and the overall tool options are not worth the price.

Pricing

Picmaker has three subscription plans – Starter, Pro, and Enterprise.

PicMaker pricing

3. Fotor

Fotor homepage

Fotor provides a comprehensive selection of editing and design features for its users, making it an excellent photo editing software.

It comes in an online version, a desktop version that can be downloaded, and a mobile app for editing while on the go.

The three primary functions of Fotor are Edit, Collage, and Design. With this tool, you can quickly and easily make stunning collages in various styles and edit individual photographs. Additionally, you can explore the Design aspects and create some outstanding graphic design projects.

Fotor Features

Fotor is mainly focused on image editing, so let's see what features it has to offer:

  • Photo editing – Experiment with various Scenes, filters, borders, and textures as well as correct colors, crop, modify, and retouch your images.

  • Portrait retouching tools.

  • Photo collage.

  • Batch processing feature

  • Brand kit, background remover, and object remover tools.

  • Design templates for social media, marketing, and lifestyle.

Fotor is a great option if you need various image editing options. But, compared to other Stencil alternatives, it lacks stock images, backgrounds, etc.

Pricing

Fotor comes with free and two subscription plans – Pro and Pro+.

Fotor picing

4. Snappa

Snappa dashboard

Snappa is a creative graphic designing platform that assists businesses in creating eye-catching visuals for social media, blogs, ads, and other related objectives.

It is equipped with numerous pre-made templates that boast a professional look and the attention-grabbing design.

Furthermore, users can use over 5 million premium-quality stock photos to design stunning content. Additionally, you can use 200+ fonts, 100 000+ vectors, and shapes with alluring photo effects to create stand-out designs quickly and effortlessly.

Snappa Features

Some key-features Snappa has are:

  • Templates library (Social media, Blogging and infographics, Headers, Advertising).

  • The background remover.

  • Photo editing tools – Add text to photo, Speech bubbles, Image resizer, etc.

  • Integration with Buffer for posting images.

Overall, Snappa is a user-friendly, inexpensive tool with an uneasy-to-use, straightforward UI. But, the free plan is quite limited with options. If you want to upload custom fonts or remove image backgrounds, you should subscribe to a Pro plan.

Pricing

Snappa offers free and two premium plans – Pro and Team.

snappa pricing

5. PicMonkey

PicMonkey dashboard

PicMonkey is another great Stencil alternative, known for its user-friendliness and simplicity.

It is an ideal tool for photo editing and graphic design, as users are able to adjust their pictures, apply filters, and add graphics and text effects to create a professional-looking design. Furthermore, PicMonkey has a diverse selection of templates that can be utilized to explore your artistic potential.

This tool is available on desktop and also as a mobile app for Android and iOs.

PicMonkey Features

There are several intriguing features PicMonkey offers:

  • Photo editor – Canvas, Basic, and Advanced edit sections with various editing tools.

  • Design templates for social media, branding, printables, ads, presentations, etc.

  • Real-time collaboration tools.

  • Built-in storage.

PicMonkey is a fun and creative tool for everyday needs, mainly for social media creators.

Still, the biggest downside is that the free plan doesn't include the instant resizer, background remover, brand kits, or custom fonts.

And it is limited to JPG or PNG file formats only.

Pricing

PicMonkey comes with a Basic, Pro, and Business plan.

PicMonkey Pricing

Conclusion

Finding an ideal graphic design tool can be a challenging and time-consuming task. And we want an all-in-one tool we can use for different purposes, from finding the perfect template, customizing and branding it to collaborating and exporting the final design. 

So the question is – which tool is the best Stencil alternative?

Picmaker is a good choice for creating YT thumbnails, while Fotor offers numerous photo-enhancing tools. Additionally, inexperienced users will prefer Snappa.

Picmonkey, at the same time, is a good Stencil alternative, but only if you go with the subscription plan.

So, why not go with the tool that combines all the best features from the Stencil alternatives mentioned above?

Glorify is a perfect combination of a graphic design tool with a robust photo editor, suitable for all your creative needs.

So, sign up today and check out the powerful features Glorify offers!

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