Cartoon Animator vs. Venngage

This is a difficult question to answer. This software can be used for a hobbyist or professionals alike. On one hand, you can make fun, simple animations for things like YouTube or Facebook. However, on the other hand, you can use this tool for professional looking animations that can be used in marketing, presentations, etc. I am someone who uses the program for both - as a hobbyist and also professionally. The first time I took it upon myself to make an animation for something job-related, it impressed my colleagues so much that they bought the company their own copy of the software and encouraged me to make more. There have been numerous times where I have used the program to entice new clients. I would even take it a step further by using a potential client's logo or CEO as a character in the animation. In 2015, CrazyTalk Animator (CTA) has even helped me land a new job. I had been laid off and was out of work for a few months. I saw a job opening I was interested but had learned that the position had literally hundreds of potential applicants. Basically, I created a video using CTA of me performing the job as if I already had been offered it. I even included the company logo. In the video, I made an animation explaining why it was a good idea to hire the company. Once I finished the video I included it along with my resume. To make a long story short, I got the job.

If you are a small business or even a small team within a larger firm, Venngage is extremely useful. Larger enterprises, with in-house designers or multiple design stakeholders, may not find the offering appropriate as it's THAT easy to use that it could lead to folks going outside the lines of official, corporate-mandated brand guidelines. That said, for small businesses, this is absolutely the best tool I have come across (after trying many from Adobe Spark to Canva and others), and for the monthly price of $49, you cannot beat the amount of original graphics and materials you are able to produce, without having any prior "design" experience to boot

Incentivized

• The main pro of the entire program is that it makes animation incredibly simple. You are not required to even know how to draw. Once you grasp the gist of the software it is extremely simple to use.
• Another great aspect of CTA is the online community. There are a vast amount of online tutorials and an online forum for anyone who has questions. They even provide a content store in which users can sell their own content to other users.
• A recent update has allowed Photoshop integration. This allows even more customization of aspects of the animation you are working with.
• A characters mouth movements are automatically synced with voiceover audio. I felt this gave me one less thing to animate and has saved me time on more than one occasion.

• Venngage comes with a good suite of templates for starting projects from. For anyone working with infographics, getting started is usually 3/4 of the battle and having a good set of templates to choose from is a nice feature to save you time searching the internet.
• Venngage makes it easy to change colors on most of their shapes, lines, backgrounds, etc.. ie., it is simple to customize in Venngage, which is incredibly important if you have a large team of users and not a great deal of time to train them in working with these types of tools.
• Venngage's auto-save feature is not only one of it's best assets, but it has saved our team many times! Not all competitors have this feature and when you're working with precision as intricate as you typically are with an Infographic, auto-save is imperative!

Incentivized

• Other products made by this company (Namely their 3D animation software) have a character creator. I would love to see something like this with CTA.
• I would like to see a bigger integration with social media. Having the ability to live broadcast a CTA character in real-time (like mo-cap) would be amazing. If this were a possibility you could live stream a video chat or Facebook live portrayed as your CTA character.
• Allow more in-depth settings for exporting media.

• On closer inspection, many templates were the same.
• I also found it a little difficult to edit for my purposes, which included being able to show more detailed analysis, for example, placing excel data in the file.
• If you want to download in an editable manner, such as into Powerpoint, which is currently offered in beta production, you had to upgrade beyond the $19 charge to a more costly business plan.
• There were constant email bots asking me to upgrade. I then went to cancel the subscription and the refund has been refused, after three emails explaining my situation.
• I understand Venngage wishes to grow its business, but refusing refunds is not the way to do it. They should be trying to develop fans, not frustrated business people exploring this new product. I believe the Customer Service personnel should be empowered to do the right thing. If this poor customer service had not happened, I would have tapped this product from time to time for catch graphics. Now instead, I am steering clear and using products such as Canva

I use Venngage for a new project 1-2 times per week... I could not see using another program at this point.

Incentivized

I think that the attention that I get as a small business owner from Venngage is excellent. They quickly respond to questions and provide information that helps to resolve the issue that I am having.

Incentivized

CTA was a program that got me interested in 2D animation. After about a year of using the software, I began looking for other similar products. I had come across a program called Toon Boom. This was another 2D software somewhat similar to CTA. Toon Boom is a fantastic program however the price was higher than CTA. Aside from that, learning how to use Toon Boom had a much higher learning curve. Eventually, I purchased Toon Boom and learned the program. It is definitely a powerful 2D animation platform however I always seemed to bring myself back to CTA. I felt CTA was much more simple to use. It was also easy enough for other people to contribute to my animation projects. Having to reteach my coworkers another program was not going to work for us. Not being solely responsible for animations is a huge relief.

We prefer Canva but feel Venngage is easier for us. In comparison to Adobe, we prefer Venngage because of the ability to have everything in one system and not have to jump around.

Incentivized

• Since my company discovered that I was an animator, they are constantly wanting me to make videos. If the company were to outsource someone to create animations like the ones I am creating, they would be extremely pricey. CTA was only a one-time purchase. I have even trained several other employees of the company how to use the software. That way, if I ever exit the company they can continue to create marketing animations without me.

• We used this basic platform for some our lower paying clients v/s using a more expensive tool.
• We eventually had to take another platform to supplement Venngage, impacting our overall marketing investment.
• Positively helped employee onboarding in terms of time commitment

Incentivized