Likelihood to Recommend I would say that Canva is best suited for beginner and Novice level applications. If you're an experienced designer, there's definitely no point in using Canva as it's developed for designers entering the field. OR, if you want to experience that flexibility while you designing and let the creativity flow, You shouldn't consider Canva as your Choice. If you feel like delivering quick and not spend your time on deciding on 'How to Design', then you should go for Canva.
Read full review Kapost has potential to be a great asset in small and large orgs. If you're not producing a great deal of content, or coordinating across a large team, there's still tremendous value, but it scales as your org scales because it makes it easier to coordinate and manage large teams and large content archives.
Read full review Pros Provides readily accessible approved fonts and colors for our university publications. A great selection of templates to select from. Lots of resources for design, like photos, clip art, backgrounds, and other design elements. The ability to share your design with others at the university. The ability to download your design as a png, pdf, jpg, svg, even MP4 video or gif. Easy to edit and alter the design and not lose what you had by creating clones of previous designs and then make the changes. Read full review Filtering: If you make the most out of your custom details and custom fields, you can gain newfound access to materials that may have long been lost in the ether. It's really easy for us, for instance, to see all of our videos at once. Or everything targeting a certain buying stage. Or you can keyword search to see everything on one topic. Workflows: It's really nice to lay out "who sees what when" in a digital way, because everyone involved on an asset can easily see what stage things are at. You can also set deadlines to tasks, which seems a bit more firm than a casual email, because you can visually see how meeting your deadline fits within the whole timeline. Calendars: The calendar feature is nice for us because we have a blog, so we can see when everything is (supposed) to go live. It's easy to see when I, as a copy editor, should be expecting work, so I can align my day accordingly. Way better than the old-fashioned "mental note" system. Read full review Cons Some pretty basic fonts are missing from the database, which proves to be annoying when trying to stay on brand Pre-grouping sections of templates can be a hassle to figure out Creating your own template from scratch can have it's hiccups, but that could be my lack of design experience. Read full review Social media distribution needs improvement. Specifically a calendar for planned Tweets and a better way to schedule multiple shares of the same content. System performance is somewhat slow. Should be an easier way to make changes, like adding custom fields or publication destinations, to all content types, rather than one at a time. Read full review Likelihood to Renew The ease of use makes Canva a powerful tool for manipulating images, creating original content, and testing ideas without requiring the involvement of graphic design or more time-intensive image editing software such as Photoshop. While it doesn't have the full functionality of a mature software, such as Photoshop, The speed and simplicity of Canva makes it a necessity in a business of any size
Read full review We are using some other systems that might have replaced Kapost, but none of them had the workflow functionality we were looking for. So, we're sticking with Kapost for now.
Read full review Usability It is super easy to use, but it could be limiting if you're on a small device. It is easier on a bigger device because you can resize graphics and text easier than with your fingers on a small device. I do think it's perfect and easy for non-designers who don't have any training. As long as you have a good eye for visuals, Canva is a wonderful substitute for graphics programs on-the-go.
Read full review The calendar view is a great feature and so are the custom views. It is relatively easy to see a clear view of what content the user is responsible for and then the due dates associated to it. The ability to create and update workflows for the team is easy to navigate and keeps us on track.
Read full review Reliability and Availability I have yet to encounter Canva being offline in at least 6 years of using it regularly. They also announce well in advance if there may be upgrades to the code and the hours during which there may be issues accessing the service.
Read full review Performance I haven't ever had issues with a slow-loading site and there haven't been any lag issues within the software. There have been maybe a handful of times over the past six years where I have tried to upload a large image and it will slow down as it loads the last megabyte, but I have yet to have the system time out or require any interference by me
Read full review Support Rating Overall, Canva is easy to use, easy to train others to use, allows for creativity with a professional look without enormous associated costs. The mobile apps works almost as easily, but at a minimum allows for easy review and downloading in a pinch. Really, anyone can learn to use Canva quickly and will immediately benefit from the results.
Read full review The reputation of the product matches up to its reputation as one of the leaders in the space. I love that you can share and access content at your fingertips from anywhere. The downside is that it does not have the prettiest interface but you can get over this with its functionality.
Read full review Implementation Rating Remember to download the mobile app onto your phone for easy image manipulation on the go. Adding company colors, logos, and typefaces to your company account is an easy process. When images are uploaded, these can also be shared between accounts within a company, as can canvases you've created for easy editing among teams.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Canva is faster and easy to use. There aren't complex menus like Adobe products and everything is generally intuitive. Menus are mostly open and visible or relatively small. Small changes to the program add to it's usability rather than detract. I also appreciate that Canva helps the user become more creative through use. By giving you editable examples through templates you can choose to re-design something ir create something from scratch w/ a similar concept or feel. Canva often gives me ideas that I can implement into my design or into the entire project even. I also like how Canva is intuitive in it's approach. The program gives you suggestions when it comes to graphics, etc. without getting in your way if you know what you already want
Read full review Workfront has a lot of great features, but Kapost was the right tool for what we needed at the time. With a team of our size, we had to make sure we weren't biting off more than we could chew and the project never got off the ground. We had to be thoughtful with how we rolled it out.
Read full review Scalability Very easy to add accounts and share content between them. Collaboration is also easy to manage and can be done on a project-by-project basis. The cloud-based software means it is incredibly fast to add a coworker and have them editing images within minutes. A live internet connection is required to access Canva so this is something to consider if expecting to use the software while on journeys without access to wifi etc
Read full review It's easy to expand across an organization and the software is continuously being improved with new features rolled out to all users
Read full review Return on Investment As far as ROI is concerned, Canva has proven itself time and time again as having a positive impact for business. Just yesterday, I had to prepare an hour-long presentation on the fly; the great reviews of the presentation and the materials (all made in Canva) only served to advertise for Canva and it proves that Canva is a smart investment. I don't think in the time that I have been a Canva pro user that I can say that my ROI has been negatively impacted. Highest recommendation. The software more the casually pays for itself time and time again. Read full review It allows us all to compare other email campaigns to each other. We are also able to get almost instant results. By having a working one system - we all can expect the same quality newsletters versus using an outside designer. Read full review ScreenShots