Adobe or Canva, Which is the Better Design Platform?

February 24, 2023, | By Erika Glysz

Adobe Creative Suite has been around for a long time and it's what I used in all of my previous courses. I remember going into the program thinking that Photoshop was the bee's knees, and graduated giving my heart and soul to InDesign. We didn't ever touch Canva until I started using it for projects in my current program and so thus began the question of which is the better design platform.

In this blog, I'm going to briefly talk about the similarities and differences between both Adobe and Canva to see if there is in fact a preferred platform for design. Let's take a deeper dive into both options, shall we?

Both Canva and Adobe Operate on Paid Services

Canva is known for being very user-friendly for those who are newer to beginners and for those who want to specialize in social media. In Canva you have around 250,000 templates to choose from which means it'll be pretty impossible to not find what you're looking for. Canva has two models; a free version and a paid version. Not going to lie you get way more out of Canva as a designer when you buy the pro account compared to the free one. With the pro account, you are able to resize your image quality, use all locked templates, graphics, photos, and more, and essentially the possibilities are endless. With the free account, you are limited to the templates and designs you can use, but the free version is a great way to see if you enjoy Canva first before committing to the purchase.

Adobe is a little different than Canva as they don't have a free service as they do, but if you're part of post-secondary you can often get a subscription for free depending on the program. Another cool thing that Adobe offers is its student pricing which gives you access to all of their top-quality programs at a huge discount as long as you are in school. Unlike Canva where all the editing happens in one app, Adobe offers a bunch of different and more specialized apps such as Photoshop and Lightroom for photo editing, Illustrator and InDesign for graphics, and PremierePro for Video editing.

How Do I know which one is right for me?

There really isn't an easy answer for that as personally, I think both platforms are good but one thing that I like to consider is what you need out of design software. If you are looking to get into social media marketing and you are just designing graphics for Instagram and Facebook then Canva will be a lot easier to use and more user-friendly compared to Adobe. The whole creative suite can take some practice getting used to it and it's a lot more complicated than Canva and is more used for creating graphics, logos, advertisements for print, or editing quality videos.

The way I like to think of it is Canva is great for all things social media and Adobe is great for all things design. They are both powerhouses in their own fields and I think any well-rounded freelancer will have knowledge in both as it is more appealing to clients to have experience in more than one software. If you are in a boat where you aren't sure what you want to do or what platform you want to use I find that looking at jobs and checking out their requirements sections. This will give you some insight into what a 'marketing manager' *should* have experience in. Now, this doesn't work for everything but it's a good start to seeing what the industry is looking for. I've found some jobs prefer Canva, and others prefer Adobe.

So, which one is better?

The question you've read all this way to find out and the answer you're dying to know, right? Well, the truth is I am a complete Switzerland when it comes to both of these. I learned for 2 years the in's and out's of Adobe so to me I will always choose Adobe first. However, Canva is great because it's quick, easy to use, and great for social media. In truth, I have clients for whom I use both platforms quite regularly. I think that technology is also always evolving and a good designer and freelancer need to be well-versed in all types of design apps to stay on trend and relevant in the industry.

I mean when was the last time someone got hired for their skills in Corel Paint in this day and age?

If you are to take away one piece of helpful advice from this post I'd want you to explore all the apps out there and find what suits you best. When you feel confident in the platforms you use, it shows and that's how you'll gain more clients.

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