Adobe After Effects vs. Adobe InDesign

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe After Effects
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Adobe After Effects allows users to create cinematic movie titles, intros, and transitions, remove an object from a clip, start a fire or make it rain, or animate a logo or character. The vendor states that with After Effects, users can apply motion-graphics and animation to any digital object.
$20.99
Per User Per Month
Adobe InDesign
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Adobe InDesign supports creating digital and print documents such as flyers, stationary, posters, and other types of media, with rich graphics, images, and more. Adobe InDesign is available standalone or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite collection of media management and creation products.
$31.49
per month
Pricing
Adobe After EffectsAdobe InDesign
Editions & Modules
Annual Plan (Paid Monthly)
$20.99
Per User Per Month
Monthly Plan
$31.49
Per User Per Month
Annual Plan (Prepaid)
$239.88
Per User Per Year
Monthly Plan
$31.49
per month
Annual Plan, Prepaid
$239.88 ($19.99)
per year (per month)
Annual Plan, Paid Monthly
$251.88 ($20.99)
per year (per month)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe After EffectsAdobe InDesign
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe After EffectsAdobe InDesign
Considered Both Products
Adobe After Effects
Chose Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro are quite similar in the sense of their functionalities as far as I'm aware and the interfaces are more or less similar. But Adobe After Effects is preferred over Final Cut Pro mostly because of the fact that it is part of the Adobe …
Adobe InDesign
Chose Adobe InDesign
I have previously used Quark Xpress, but as Adobe InDesign became the leader for professional designers, I transitioned to [Adobe] InDesign. I find Adobe InDesign a lot easier to work with. I have tried Affinity Publisher, but I have not [gotten] very far with trying it out. I …
Best Alternatives
Adobe After EffectsAdobe InDesign
Small Businesses
Autodesk Maya
Autodesk Maya
Score 8.4 out of 10
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 7.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Blender
Blender
Score 9.2 out of 10
Canva
Canva
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Animate
Adobe Animate
Score 8.4 out of 10
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 7.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe After EffectsAdobe InDesign
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(39 ratings)
9.0
(101 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(2 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(8 ratings)
7.5
(11 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.9
(7 ratings)
5.0
(64 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe After EffectsAdobe InDesign
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
I would recommend Adobe After Effects to a colleague above all other comparable software that I have used, however, with the caveat that it can be time-consuming to learn to use and can be frustrating if you are not familiar with the software. Difficulty aside, once you begin to understand how to use Adobe After Effects, it is the only software for the job.
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Adobe
Adobe InDesign is very well-suited to creating professional-looking page designs. If you want a newspaper or magazine to have attractive pages that go beyond simple templates, InDesign is the best option out there, to my knowledge. It's less suited to scenarios where people without page design skills are responsible for creating pages, as it requires some training and skills to use effectively.
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Pros
Adobe
  • Adobe After Effects allows you to exercise a great level of control over how to animate just about every aspect of an object. You can control animation speed of entry and exit, the direction of rotation, scale, position, and so many more attributes.
  • Adobe After Effects is so popular that you can find so many paid and free third-party plug-ins and scripts to incorporate into your project.
  • There is such a breadth and depth of features available in Adobe After Effects, you will never get tired of exploring the program and using its many features to take your projects to new heights
  • Adobe After Effects works well with other products in the Adobe Creative Suites including, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Media Encoder
  • Adobe After Effects allows you to customize the setup of your workspace and panels
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Adobe
  • Customization - With Adobe InDesign, as well as many other applications in the Adobe Creative Suite, I can fully customize my workspaces and save different workspaces. This makes it easy to navigate through my project and have the panels and tools I need easily accessible and configured based on my project needs.
  • Styles - Adobe InDesign has character styles, object styles, and tables styles. This speeds up my workflows and allows me to easily apply the same format across multiple elements. This is super helpful, especially when working with length documents.
  • File compatibility - I can easily export my files into so many different file types.
  • The Book feature - This feature is really helpful when creating books or very long documents with multiple sections.
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Cons
Adobe
  • I would like the Re-Link file structure to mimic Premiere.
  • I would like to see native .obj importing and manipulation.
  • I would like to see better audio editing available within Adobe After Effects. if it could be given a separate layer/panel.
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Adobe
  • Not naturally a WYSIWYG display (this is an option, and doesn't always work as intended)
  • Moving images and photos around while holding an additional key
  • Layers or objects are not easily clickable behind other objects.
  • Adobe InDesign does require some fair system resources to work smoothly
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
I will renew my use of After Effects since it's affordable and always has been reliable. They also always continue to update new features and add new things to compete with other software out there. I also like all the 3rd party plugins out there that keep my interest for the future and new toolsets and creative solutions.
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Adobe
I've had great experiences with the product and plan to continue to use it. It has been my go-to product for designing and creating materials. I have had great luck with it and have been able to create all of the needed marketing materials that have been requested for our company.
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Usability
Adobe
There's a lot of features and functionality that Adobe After Effects offers that can be hard to navigate at times. Depending on the depth you plan to use the software for, that can take some time to learn. The built-in templates and tutorials really help soften that learning curve. Once you get past some of the basics, it's fairly simple to use.
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Adobe
If you know what you are doing it is an amazingly granular and powerful application. You can control pretty much any aspect of the design and layout of your documents and make changes globally and rapidly. But, if you don't know what you are doing...you will be staring at your screen in bewilderment for a long time. You can learn it, but be ready for a hefty time investment.
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Reliability and Availability
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Adobe
I've needed Adobe InDesign team very little which is a bonus in and of itself.
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Performance
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Adobe
One of the advantages of Adobe InDesign is it is faster and less glitchy than Microsoft Word.
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Support Rating
Adobe
Adobe customer support is wonderful. They genuinely care about their product and the end user experience. The products they create have always been innovative and continue to improve. They have a huge chunk of the user market in their field and still strive to improve. This is such a big deal for me and other small business/organizations that need their products and don't have a large voice on our own.
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Adobe
Adobe support is ok but not great. Chat support often doesn't initially understand the question at-hand and it takes awhile to get to the right agent. Phone support has long wait times, and though I've had more luck there, it does take quite a time investment if you are looking for help. However, Adobe does have some online learning solutions available as well as a knowledgebase for frequently asked questions. If you're looking to learn how to use the platform, there are lots of resources which can typically be found in a few Google searches. If you have a technical issue with the system, that's going to be a bit more of a time investment as far as getting a tech's assistance to resolve the problem.
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In-Person Training
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Adobe
Attending Adobe MAX each year is extremely valuable.
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Online Training
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Adobe
The online training works well and is not wholly necessary as it is user-friendly and you can learn by doing.
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Implementation Rating
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Adobe
Implementation was smooth and easy.
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Alternatives Considered
Adobe
I find Adobe After Effects to be superior to iMovie and Final Cut Pro in that I am able to do much more with the software. It isn't as limiting as the other two. I also like that it isn't an Apple product. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Apple. There is a bigger learning curve with After Effects, but once you get the hang of it, there's really no comparison.
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Adobe
Microsoft products do not match the aesthetic tools that [Adobe] InDesign offers, cannot support the customizable options available for export, and do not produce documents with as high a degree of accessibility. That said, they do have their place in collaboration in a team- I'd consider Office to be the first step and [Adobe] InDesign to be the final product.
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Scalability
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Adobe
Working in a cloud environment makes it easy to scale and share resources.
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Return on Investment
Adobe
  • Adobe After Effects has a great impact on business as maximum work can be done in one software
  • To run this software you need to have good configuration system
  • Motion Graphics, 2d Animation and video editing can be done in one software
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Adobe
  • A great ROI for time in my small architectural practice, [especially] when a design has been updated and a report needs to be submitted. We can be submitting many reports that all look similar, clean and beautiful. We just save as the file and replace the images with more updated images. This way the client finds it easy to navigate updated reports, as many as they can be.
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ScreenShots