Canva alternatives: where to go and how to take your designs with you

Why switch to Adobe Express. It's the tool that feels most like Canva: ready-made templates for Instagram, LinkedIn or a poster, a drag-and-drop editor, AI tools to generate images or remove backgrounds. You'll find your way around in an hour. The difference is the team bill: the Teams plan runs $7.99 per license per month ($4.99 for the first year), with a two-license minimum. For three people, that's about $24 a month.

Who it's for. Freelancers, shop owners and small marketing teams who mostly make social graphics and simple documents.

Who it's not for. A designer preparing complex print files, or a team that wants shared components like in Figma.

Its limit. The free plan is solid but capped: 5 GB, 10 days of version history, 30-minute videos, 10 PDF actions a month. Premium costs $9.99 a month with no annual commitment and includes 250 AI credits a month. If you generate a lot of images, they go fast.

How to migrate. There's no Canva file import. Rebuild your brand kit first (logos, colors, fonts), then redo your five or six most-used templates from your PDF and PNG exports. Use the 30-day trial to do this before you pay. Everything else you can redo as it comes up.

Why switch to Affinity. Affinity now packs Designer (vector), Photo (editing) and Publisher (layout) into a single app that's free for individuals, on Mac and Windows, with an iPad version announced. You move from a template tool to real designer software: CMYK, vectors, long-document layout. Plenty of solo designers already use it for print work and logos.

Who it's for. Anyone who prints (flyers, cards, catalogs), draws a logo they want to register, or wants to learn a pro tool without paying.

Who it's not for. Someone who wants an Instagram post in five minutes from a template. Affinity starts from a blank page.

Its limit. Affinity belongs to Canva. You need a Canva account to use it, and its AI tools are reserved for Canva premium accounts. If you're running from the company rather than the tool, this isn't your exit. Expect a real learning curve too.

How to migrate. Start from your Canva PDFs, exported from Pro in CMYK for anything you print. For your logo, don't reuse a Canva template file: redraw it in Affinity. That's what makes it registrable.

Why switch to Figma. If your designers already live in Figma, making marketing assets next to them saves you a second tool and a second brand kit. Figma Buzz, still in beta, is built for spinning marketing visuals out of templates, and it's available on all seats. Shared components make sure everyone uses the same logo and colors.

Who it's for. Startups and product teams with a designer, and marketers who want to work inside the design team's files.

Who it's not for. A solo shop owner who wants ready-made templates. Figma is an interface design tool and more technical than Canva.

Its limit. The Starter plan is free, with 150 AI credits a day (500 a month). Professional costs $16 a month for a full seat, or $3 for a Collab seat that can comment but not edit. Buzz is in beta, so don't build your whole production on it yet.

How to migrate. Export your Canva designs as PDF Standard, the recommended format, then import them with a plugin like pdf.to.design. For a single element, SVG export keeps the vectors. Check fonts after import: Canva's own fonts often get swapped out.

Why switch to Penpot. Penpot is free and open source (MPL-2.0 license), and you can run it on your own server. Nobody can triple your price or lock your account. One user who left Canva for Penpot put it simply: no subscription fees, no vendor lock-in. If your company has data-residency rules, self-hosting settles where the files live.

Who it's for. Teams that want control over their files, nonprofits, public bodies, and anyone coming from UI design.

Who it's not for. Someone who lives on Canva's ready-made templates and AI tools.

Its limit. Far fewer templates than Canva, and no AI background removal. The free hosted version is enough to start; Unlimited costs $7 per editor per month, capped at $175 a month whatever the team size, and Enterprise $25.

How to migrate. Export the elements you'll rework (logos, icons, shapes) as SVG, and full layouts as PDF for reference. Then rebuild your brand components once and for all.

Why switch to Gamma. If Canva was mostly your slide tool, Gamma flips the job around: you hand it your text or outline, the AI lays out the slides, and you adjust. For a sales deck or an internal update, you skip most of the layout time.

Who it's for. Sales reps, consultants and trainers who produce lots of decks and few other visuals.

Who it's not for. Anything that isn't a presentation or a simple web page: no posters, no Instagram posts, no print.

Its limit. The output still looks like Gamma, and fine-tuning a single slide takes more effort than in Canva. Plus costs €8 per seat per month, Pro €18.

How to migrate. Don't try to convert old decks. Paste the text of your best presentation and let Gamma rebuild it, then set your colors and logo in the theme. Our Gamma review covers its limits, and Gamma pricing breaks down the plans.

Why switch to Visme. Visme is built for content that carries numbers: infographics, reports, presentations full of charts. Canva thinks in single visuals; Visme thinks in data and multi-page documents.

Who it's for. B2B marketing teams, trainers and comms teams that publish reports and infographics.

Who it's not for. An Instagram account posting every day. Canva or Adobe Express will be faster.

Its limit. The free Basic plan is capped at 500 MB, 50 pages per project, JPG, PNG and PDF exports, and Visme branding on anything you publish online. Starter costs $12.25 a month billed yearly ($147), Business $24.75 a month ($297 a year).

How to migrate. Keep your Canva PDF and PPTX exports as reference, and rebuild your key templates in Visme: a standard report, a standard infographic, a standard deck. Three good templates cover most of the work.

Why switch to Freepik Spaces. If what you really paid Canva for was AI image generation, Freepik Spaces makes that its core job, at a low entry price: Essential costs €5 a month billed yearly, Premium €10 a month.

Who it's for. Creators and marketing teams that need lots of original images (campaign visuals, illustrations, product variations).

Who it's not for. Laying out a document, a text-heavy poster or a deck. It isn't a layout editor.

Its limit. It replaces part of Canva, not all of it: you'll still need another tool to put text and images together. Pro climbs to €143.75 a month, aimed at heavy volume.

How to migrate. Nothing to migrate. Keep your favorite Canva images and prompts as style references, then pair Freepik Spaces with Adobe Express or Affinity for layout. Our Freepik Spaces review goes deeper, and our ranking of AI image generators compares it with the rest.

Why switch to Photopea. Photopea is a free photo editor that runs in your browser, nothing to install, with layers, masks and an interface close to Photoshop. If you mainly used Canva Pro to edit photos, it's the most direct saving.

Who it's for. People who edit product shots, portraits or composites, and know a bit of Photoshop.

Who it's not for. Anyone looking for post or presentation templates. Photopea has none.

Its limit. No template library, no brand kit, and a dense interface for a beginner. It's an editing tool, to pair with something else for layout.

How to migrate. Export your Canva visuals as high-resolution PNGs and open them in Photopea for edits. For anything that must stay sharp, like a logo, use SVG export.

Go through your folders and list the designs you reuse: post templates, decks, print documents, your logo. Add your Brand Kit (color codes, fonts, logos), your team members and anything connected to Canva (Make, Zapier, your website).

Out of hundreds of designs, maybe thirty really matter. Those are the ones to export carefully; the rest can go out in bulk.

The Brand Kit locks when you leave a paid plan. Write down your hex color codes, the exact names of your fonts, and download every version of your logo as SVG and PNG.

If a font comes from Canva's library, check its license before installing it elsewhere. Some are only available inside Canva.

On a computer, go to Projects, select several designs and click Download: up to 200 at a time as PDF, JPG or PNG, 25 as MP4 or GIF. The feature is limited to paid plans (Pro, Business, Education, Nonprofits).

The catch: everything lands in one flat ZIP, without your folders. Rename designs first with a folder prefix ("Insta_", "Print_") so you can find them later.

Also request your data export: Canva emails you a ZIP with your uploaded images, videos, uploaded fonts and designs. It's your backup of everything you put into Canva, not just what you made there.

You request it from your account settings. Store that ZIP outside Canva, on your drive and in shared storage. On a Business team, shared designs belong to the team: check with your team admin what you can take before you leave it.

One format per destination: PDF Standard for Figma, SVG for a logo or icon, CMYK PDF for anything printed (Pro only), PPTX for presentations, PNG for finished images.

PPTX stays editable, but expect to redo fonts and animations. Export one deck first to see how much work it takes.

A logo built from a Canva template can't be registered as a trademark. If you want to protect it, redraw it in your new tool (Affinity, Figma or Penpot) from a shape that's yours.

It's also the right time to get a clean vector version, which is what print shops ask for.

Start with the three to six templates your team uses every week. Rebuild them from your exports with your brand kit, and share them. One-off designs don't need rebuilding: their PDF works as an archive.

For two weeks, have the team work in the new tool and note what's missing.

Turn off any Make or Zapier scenarios that create Canva designs automatically, and replace them. Our Canva on Make and Canva on Zapier pages list what's usually connected.

Then cancel, keeping the account open on the free plan: your designs stay viewable, and Pro access lasts until the end of the period you paid for.