Here’s the thing, Canva and Figma aren’t usually used for the same designs. Canva is primarily used by non-professional designers for simple graphic design.
Figma on the other hand is primarily used by User Interface designers to create digital interfaces such as mobile apps, websites, wireframes, user flow, and more.
Yes, Canva and Figma are not used by the same people, but with recent updates, Canva is becoming a versatile design tool that allows you to create decent UI designs.
Canva vs Figma: Features
Editing Tools
Canva has more editing features than Figma because it is primarily used to create graphic designs and edit photos. Contrary to popular belief, Figma is far more user-friendly than Canva.
Figma is used to create prototypes, wireframes, and interfaces for websites and apps. So it’s more about bringing your idea to life than manipulating objects or images to create designs.
You’re creating designs from scratch rather than making numerous changes to the graphics or photo with Figma. So, naturally, it isn’t heavy on editing features and is better suited to creating designs from scratch.
Related: Canva vs AdobeSpark: Which Designs Better?
Canva Editing Features:
Add text, Animate Text, Crop and Resize Images, Page Animation, Design dimensions, Design Elements e.g Icons, Color palettes, Font Types and Sizes, Background, and Photo Editing.
Figma Editing Features:
Shapes such as rectangle, arrow, line, polygon, etc. It also has a pen and pencil tool that allows you to draw icons, wireframes, and more.
Figma allows you to duplicate layers, export specific design layers, add images, and resize them. You can also incorporate CSS frameworks into your web and mobile designs.
Design Presentation
Both platforms allow you to create design presentations, although presenting with Figma is a bit more difficult than presenting with Canva.
When presenting with Canva, there is already a presentation format that allows you to input your design and displays it on full screen for your audience to see.
However, regardless of how you prototype designs in Figma, your audience will only see your designs in mobile view.
Canva vs Figma: Collaboration
Figma and Canva both allow you to collaborate in real-time. Members of a team can comment on designs, edit the same design, and track each other’s progress in real-time.
This increases productivity because you don’t have to send an email to your team members and wait for them to see the design.
In cases where you need to modify a design, your team members can easily point out errors in designs by providing feedback on the design elements. They could also make the changes themselves.
Plugins
You can integrate multiple platforms with these design tools to increase your pon the same platform. Although Canva has more integrations than Figma, Figma’s single integration (Dribble) is sufficient to help you achieve your goals.
Canva’s plugins include photo editing tools, stock images, social media platforms, design elements, and more.
Although Canva has a wide range of plugins, you’d need a premium subscription to access them. For example, not all stock images and design elements are free.
Dribble is Figma’s single integration, but with it, you can add several plugins such as color palettes, remove BG, Vectary 3D Elements, and more.
Accessibility and Sync
Canva and Figma are flexible and accessible on all devices; both mobile and desktop. If you’re low on storage space or just prefer the flexibility of switching from different tabs, they both have web versions.
When you design on a specific device, whether you’re using Canva or Figma, it automatically saves on your account and allows you to pick up where you left off when you log in with another device.
Design Templates: Canva vs Figma
Designing can be intimidating, especially if you’re just starting; design templates relieve this pressure by providing you with designs to draw inspiration from.
Canva offers a wide range of templates for everything from social media posts to banners, print ads, videos, and more. These templates are also available in a variety of sizes.
Figma provides prototype templates that allow you to visualize what your interface should look like and make minor changes to customize it. There are also numerous dribble designs where you can view different artists’ work to get ideas on how your design should look or how to do things differently in your design.
You can change the dimension of your prototype to fit the desired template by using the frame mode. The frame mode on Figma allows you to switch between mobile, desktop, and social media posts.
Exporting Media
When exporting media with Figma, you can only export it as an image either JPEG or PNG. However, Canva allows you to export media in a variety of formats, including video, PDF, image, and video.
The exportation option in Figma is limited because it is used for designing interfaces; the UI designer shows how the app or website should look. However, it is the front-end engineer who will build the website or app from these designs.
Canva, on the other hand, has various exportation options due to the various purposes for which designers created the designs.
For instance, after designing slides on Canva, it’s only natural to export them as PDFs. But if you made a video, it’s only natural to export it as an MP4.
Storage: Figma vs Canva
Even on the free plan, you have unlimited storage on Figma, so as long as you have access to your Figma account, your designs are safe. However, if you want to store your designs somewhere else, such as Google Drive, you’ll need to use a third-party API to integrate it.
You can also save your designs to your Canva account, although free plan users have limited storage space of 5GB. Canva also lets you automatically sync your files to your cloud storage, Google Drive Dropbox, and more.
Canva vs Figma: Pricing
Both Figma and Canva have free plans that allow you to use basic features for free. Canva and Figma also provide their professional plan free for educators.
Figma’s professional plan is free for students and educators, while Canva’s professional plans are free for educators and non-profit organizations.
Figma’s free plan allows you to create three Figma Files (whiteboards), unlimited personal files, and collaborate with as many people as you want. It also gives you access to plugins, widgets, and design templates.
Canva’s free plan does not have as many features as Figma’s. It allows you to create designs, as well as access over 250,000 free templates and stock images. It also lets you collaborate with your team and export your designs in a variety of formats.
Figma’s professional plan costs between $12 and $15 per month. If you pay month to month, it will be $15, but if you pay for a year outright, it will be $12 per month.
The professional plan has everything in the basic plan plus a few extras such as unlimited Figma files, unlimited version history, file share permissions, shared and private projects, audio conversations, and team libraries.
Also, if you’re an enterprise, Figma charges $45 per user monthly. This plan includes everything in the professional plan as well as advanced security options, admin features, centralized file management, an organization library, analytics, and other features.
Canva Paid Plans
Canva’s pro plan starts at $9.99 per month when paid annually. If you pay monthly, the price increases to $12.99 per month. This plan gives you access to more storage space, more design templates, stock images, and elements.
It also gives you access to a brand kit, which allows you to create a sophisticated brand image for your design by using carefully chosen logos, colors, and fonts.
You can also auto-resize designs into different dimensions, remove image backgrounds, and save designs as templates for your team.
Also, Canva Pro allows you to create a content calendar that will automatically post your designs to social media at the scheduled time.
Canva’s enterprise plan starts at $30 per month and includes unlimited cloud storage, advanced security, workflows, admin control, and round-the-clock customer support.
Conclusion: Do I Need Canva or Figma?
Canva and Figma have their niche; they are not competitors. If you’re a non-professional graphic designer or photo editor, Canva makes your work easy.
Figma is a user-friendly and flexible tool for UI/UX designers. It also provides many of its features for free, so you don’t have to break the bank to use it.
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