Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
GIMP
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
GIMP is a free, open-source graphics software. GIMP, or General Image Manipulation Program was developed in 1996 and has continued to be updated by volunteers since then.N/A
Adobe Express
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Creative Cloud Express (formerly Adobe Spark) is a task-based, web and mobile product used to create and share rich multimedia content – from social media posts and stories to invitations to marketing materials like logos, flyers and banners.
$0
Blender
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite available in under the GNU General Public License. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and 2D animation pipeline. Blender Cloud is a related service accessible via subscription, and is a training and content platform providing access to expertise from the Blender Institute for advancing one's use of Blender.
$11.50
per month
Pricing
GIMPAdobe ExpressBlender
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
$0.00
Premium
$9.99 / $99.99
per month
Teams
$9.99
per month per user
Blender Cloud Membership
$11.50
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GIMPAdobe ExpressBlender
Free Trial
NoYesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsContact Adobe directly for Enterprise pricing plan details.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GIMPAdobe ExpressBlender
Considered Multiple Products
GIMP
Chose GIMP
Online services like Canva are fine for quickly designing brochures and marketing materials, videos, etc. They're user friendly and fast if you have a good connection. But if you're in production mode and need to do a lot of photo manipulation at once, without being connected …
Adobe Express
Chose Adobe Express
Canva is very similar to Adobe Express, but Canva is better because of the whole Adobe suite and because the ability to customize is more intuitive. It's hard to describe why. Perhaps it's the interface.
Blender
Chose Blender
The biggest advantage of Blender over these alternatives was how easy it was to learn, even for team members with no previous experience in 3D modeling, design, or any artistic field. The fact that it allows you to import or export files in most of the existing 3D model …
Best Alternatives
GIMPAdobe ExpressBlender
Small Businesses
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 7.2 out of 10
Pexels
Pexels
Score 8.1 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 7.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Canva
Canva
Score 9.1 out of 10
Pexels
Pexels
Score 8.1 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 7.6 out of 10
Enterprises
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 7.2 out of 10
Pexels
Pexels
Score 8.1 out of 10
Navisworks
Navisworks
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
GIMPAdobe ExpressBlender
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(14 ratings)
8.8
(231 ratings)
9.8
(25 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.0
(1 ratings)
9.5
(15 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.2
(27 ratings)
8.4
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(6 ratings)
4.6
(12 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
4.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
GIMPAdobe ExpressBlender
Likelihood to Recommend
GIMP Development Team
GIMP is great for anyone ranging from personal use to a small business. But, if you are a large business and have a sufficient budget, I would recommend you to opt for an expensive paid software like Photoshop, that would provide not only great features but also public recognition. Its great for beginners wanting to start editing photos, there is a small learning curve that could be gotten used to in no time.
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Adobe
Every team I work with gets the Express welcome and walkthrough and becomes a permanent Adobe Express user. I have my own workflow when creating content for social, and it is great when others I am working with can hop on and follow the same workflow. We can collaborate on projects, schedule posts, and manage brand assets easily from our own devices. As long as we have access to the same files, we can build campaigns faster and more easily, onboard new designers, and scale our impact on social media.
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Open Source
Blender is an excellent tool for everything from simple to complex 3D animations, the creation of 3D images, etc. It performs excellently in all of these areas. In the realm of 3D modelling, animation and rendering, there is very little that Blender is not suited for.
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Pros
GIMP Development Team
  • GIMP has a large number of tools at your disposal for manipulating any type of image and exporting in any necessary format.
  • GIMP does a great job of making everything intuitive so that even a new user can layer images or make an image transparent in little time.
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Adobe
  • I have used Adobe Express to help maintain my creative catalogs and files, brand management by saving my color scheme palettes, to have full access to its free assets and huge template library.
  • The main business issue is brand consistency and accessibility, and Adobe Express helps greatly with both of those by providing an option to create brand libraries for various projects, and it has a huge Adobe font catalog to accommodate basically every brand and project scope.
  • I like how I am able to create a project folder for storing various iterations of a graphic or logo, and being able to view thumbnails of each iteration below the current graphic that I am working on. Plus, it also allows for easy thumbnail rearrangement for exporting selected images in the order of my choice. And it has many editing tools such as a generative AI tool using prompts to help create original art, and both the Effects and Animation tools have many options for colorations and animations. Plus other awesome and easy to use tools such as the Quick Action tool that easily removes backgrounds, and other tools like the Resizing, Quick Replace, Translate, Bulk Create.
  • Another feature of Adobe Express that I like is its ability for video creation and editing which is available via a mobile device or desktop computer. The footage editing process is very easy and allows for only one track for both video and audio.
  • Adobe Express allows for the project assets to be either imported via ones on file systems or straight from the Adobe Royalty-Free assets which includes; videos, audio/music, graphics, photos and even a voice overs capability using a "Text-to-Voice" option. And after the video has been created Adobe offers its very easy "Download" option, where you can select what file type that you want the project to export as.
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Open Source
  • Creating complex polygonal geometries is very easy in Blender.
  • Edit Mode and Sculpt Mode helps in creating non uniform surfaces for objects like rocks, surfaces, terrains etc.
  • Blender can use various external plugins to make it work in more smoother way. For example to import any 3d object one can use sketchfab plugin and easily import the free assets from web after logging in.
  • Blender has a better rendering engine known as Cycles, it is far more better than any other stock rendering engine which can generate realistic lightning, shadows and reflections.
  • The animations can easily be generated with blender animation toolbar and also it incorporate any other animations made in any other software.
  • The bone generation and its behavior of animations can be achieved easily in blender.
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Cons
GIMP Development Team
  • GIMP should make the font tool more intuitive. Make it easier to change fonts during edit process without resetting the typeface selection.
  • Build in selection/move ability within tools like the typeface tool... I.e. don't require toggle between selection tool and typeface tool when wanting to move a line of type within a layer. Likewise with shapes, etc.
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Adobe
  • It could have a search bar which searches through other Adobe products (esp for Stock images, videos, audio) from within Adobe Express.
  • It could make it so switching between Adobe products from within Adobe Express almost like a tab function is smooth.
  • It could partner with other companies to allow for company specific events in exchange for valuable products or programs.
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Open Source
  • It's really a hard question, but it could be: a game engine. Older versions used to have it; I would use it to simulate machines game-like.
  • I'm struggling to find another one; maybe the fact that it is so powerful and has so many features that learning it can be daunting; better documentation WITH examples and/or a map of Blender capabilities would help to know where you are in terms of knowledge and the planning the roadmap to where you want to go.
  • Precision modeling. Coming from CAD and using Blender as part of my design workflow, I'd love to be able to model inside Blender as I model with CAD tools. At this moment, it's simply impossible.
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Likelihood to Renew
GIMP Development Team
Capability, open architecture, compatibility with Photoshop plugins, wide platform coverage; To me, as an open-source, freely available application, it's the nest-in-class.
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Adobe
I foresee Adobe Express becoming the "go-to" platform for everyone except professional, high-level designers. It is a relatively easy-to-use tool that allows users to create a wide variety of visuals quickly. Because it is a template-driven tool, the in-house design team has the ability to make brand kit available to keep visuals on point
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Usability
GIMP Development Team
I interface GIMP with other software--I need to. I generally use the major calculation, CAD, word processing, and photo editing programs. In my office, my use of this software is not limited to computer-aided design. However, I am sure that if I needed this software for other purposes, it would have no interface problems.
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Adobe
The user interface is pretty straightforward to use. It has easy to navigate navigations, and the canvas UX is also pretty good. One thing i would like to add it to use shortcuts to add elements on canvas. Like if I am on canvas and I press 'T' on my keyboard the text box should be added automatically
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Open Source
Because while it's a pretty good piece of software, the default built-in commands, the interface layout, and certain functions aren't as logical in their way of being arranged and executed. This, of course, doesn't diminish its use or effectiveness in your field of work, but it is quite awkward at first. A big advantage is that Blender lets you customize the interface however you want as well as keyboard shortcuts and several general program parameters.
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Support Rating
GIMP Development Team
We have never needed to use the support functions for GIMP. Any queries we have or had about whether GIMP could complete a task we have used Google and YouTube. There is a wealth of information, guides, and forums dedicated to GIMP and how to perform certain tasks with the application.
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Adobe
Overall, the Adobe Creative Cloud Express is worth a try and may be a good fit for many organizations and businesses. At a monthly rate, the cost is not prohibitive, but the tools are somewhat limited and not necessarily worthwhile when compared to standard applications and software that are often available free or through a package of services commonly found on workplace computers.
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
GIMP Development Team
As simple as can be. Download from GIMP website and install.
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Adobe
No answers on this topic
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
GIMP Development Team
Online services like Canva are fine for quickly designing brochures and marketing materials, videos, etc. They're user friendly and fast if you have a good connection. But if you're in production mode and need to do a lot of photo manipulation at once, without being connected to the web at all times and just want to focus, GIMP is the go-to product for you
Read full review
Adobe
I think Adobe Express is a bit behind Canva, but as an Adobe Community Expert, I try to provide as much feedback as I can to help improve Adobe Express. ADobe Express does a better job than InShot and a few other apps, but isn't quite there against Canva, I'm sorry to say!
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Open Source
We've only used the consumer (non-pro) version of SketchUp, which we love, but is very limited in features and output capabilities compared to Blender. While Blender's learning curve is MUCH steeper than SketchUp, it feels like truly complete, professional design software.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
GIMP Development Team
No answers on this topic
Adobe
Adobe Creative Cloud Express is included with an Adobe Creative Cloud account. Our company has a corporate team membership so it is nice to have a professional and powerful tool that anyone on our team can use for free. The pricing structure of giving the tool away for free will be fundamental to users utilizing the tool. Similar tools, such as Canva, cost significantly more but do not offer the same features
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
GIMP Development Team
No answers on this topic
Adobe
The professional services for Adobe Creative Cloud Express is top notch and should be highly commended. I am thoroughly impressed with how far Adobe has come. In the past, I had several issues with how something were handled, but in the past few years things have been better than ever and they get no complaints from me
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
GIMP Development Team
  • GIMP is freeware, which allows organizations that are not graphics-centered to use the powerful toolset without spending money on very expensive alternatives
  • GIMP is fairly easy to learn and does not require extensive user training (especially, if used for basic tasks)
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Adobe
  • Positive: Time and working for a nonprofit with minimal staff this is essential.
  • Negative: There are certain features that I need to find in other Adobe products like layer masking.
  • Positive: It makes content creation less intimidating for our newer staff.
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Open Source
  • As it is a beginner-friendly software with increasing demand in the animation sector again, it positively impacts the business.
  • Except in some specific cases, no one will use Blender on their own at a professional level.
  • When I was a beginner, it took me a lot of time to learn, consequently designing the creation. But if we want to learn to master Blender, we can do it. As long as we have time and a lot of willpower, since, we repeat, it is not a simple program and hides thousands of tools and possibilities.
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ScreenShots

Adobe Express Screenshots

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