The internet is a visual place, and if you want stunning designs, someone’s got to create them.
There’s a vast array of online graphic design software options that can provide the tools to make just about anyone a visual content creator. But which one is the right one for you?
It all depends on what you’re trying to create, the tools you’ll need, and your budget. Knowing these three things before entering the search for the right design software will save you loads of time and possibly a headache.
Below, we’ve rounded up a list of our top picks.
1. Canva
Canva is the most popular online design software, and for good reason. It has the tools and templates to create just about anything.
It’s also incredibly easy and intuitive to use, allowing you to create quality design assets in no time at all and with no prior design experience needed.
With Canva you can create designs from a blank canvas or utilize a huge library of pre-designed templates in a variety of categories including social media, blog banners, logos, printables, videos, and so much more.
Canva allows you to create a lot of incredible designs for free using their sizable library of free templates and design elements that are open for all users to use.
If you want even more from Canva it’s well worth investing in a Canva Pro account. This gives you access to many additional tools and features including their social scheduling feature – perfect for bloggers.
What makes Canva stand out from other online design software is how simple it makes creating designs and the vast array of templates and features which keep up with the latest graphic design trends. It also has some unique and powerful third party integrations.
Pricing:
You can access much of what Canva has for free including 250,000+ templates, 100,000+ photos, and 5GB cloud storage.
Canva Pro costs $12.99 per month or $119.99 per year. They also offer Enterprise plans.
2. Visme
If you’re looking to create incredible designs for a project or your blog, then Visme could be a great option for you.
It’s an online graphic design software that’s been around for quite some time and has developed a reputation for being a quality tool for novices and designers alike.
The product is particularly strong when it comes to its templates and tools for creating visualizations including presentations, charts, and infographics. They also have a vast array of templates for videos, social media graphics, animations, and much more.
If you’re looking for a free online design tool, we’d recommend using Canva, as the free offering on Visme is good but it doesn’t quite match up in terms of the number of templates and design elements you can access at no cost.
Like Canva, Visme have provided users with tutorials and guides to make it easy to get up and running with their design software. There’s plenty of tips on how to create incredible visualizations too.
Pricing:
Visme has a free plan, which allows you to create up to 5 projects, get 100 MB of storage, and utilize a limited number of templates.
Visme has several paid plans including the Standard Plan ($15 per month) and Business Plan ($29 per month) each offering more storage, templates, and project limits. Like Canva they have an Enterprise Plan too.
3. Placeit
Whilst Canva and Visme give you a plethora of options and tools to create designs which is great, it can potentially make it overwhelming for some users. Thankfully, Placeit keeps things very simple.
All you have to do is go to a category with relevant designs, choose a template you like, and modify it to get the look you’re after. It’s so quick and easy as most of the templates are well designed and require very little customization.
Placeit has a huge library of templates with designs in various categories including logos, social media, video, and more. Where they really stand out is with their mockup generator, which has the biggest mockup template library online.
They also have plenty to offer gamers and streamers looking for quality designs. This includes tools and templates to create Twitch emotes, banners, panels, and many other stream designs.
If you’re a blogger on a tight budget, they also offer plenty of high-quality templates that are 100% free to customize and download!
Pricing:
Free if you download some of their free templates (there’s over 4000).
If you want unlimited downloads of all their templates, then you’ll need to get a premium subscription which costs $14.95 per month or $89.69 per year.
4. Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark comes as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud but it is not as versatile as some of Adobe’s other Professional level products such as Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign.
However, if you’re a blogger (and not a professional designer) looking to create high quality designs, Spark should more than suffice. It can help you create incredible visuals for your site and social media which can help drive more traffic to your blog.
The tools’ smooth and easy user interface allows you to create designs with ease, whether you’re creating a design from scratch or using one of their many premade templates.
Adobe Spark is split into three main areas – Spark Post for creating social media posts, Spark Video for creating videos, and Spark Page for creating one-page websites or landing pages. The page builder is a feature that isn’t available on most other online design tools.
Like most other tools in this list, you can create some designs for free, and Adobe Spark has a solid range of free templates for you to utilize as well.
Pricing:
Adobe’s Starter plan is free and allows you to use any available free templates and design elements.
The Individual plan is free for the first 30 days, and then it’s $9.99 per month. You can also get a Team plan that is $19.99 per month and allows for multiple users under a single account.
5. Snappa
As its name suggests, Snappa is an online design software aimed at people who want to make quality designs quickly and easily.
The product essentially bills itself a simpler, and “less clunky’ alternative to Canva. This is true to a certain extent as many of the features that you can find on Canva are available on Snappa too but are delivered in a slightly cleaner way.
We still feel Canva offers more value overall but Snappa is still a great tool. If you’re a blogger, marketer or someone who just wants to create designs without any friction it’s a fantastic option.
When it comes to pre-designed templates Snappa is particularly strong in the social media graphics category. They have templates for all the major platforms and all of them can be customized in no time.
Snappa even has an integration with Buffer so you can easily schedule any designs you make on the platform to be posted out on your social profiles.
Pricing:
Snappa’s Free plan lets you access their full library, but you only have 3 downloads per month.
The premium plans are the Pro plan ($15 per month or $120 per year) or the Team plan ($30 per month or $240 per year) and give you unlimited access.
6. Crello
Crello is a good alternative to Canva. They offer many of the same features and template types.
Bloggers who are looking to create a lot of social media content will get a lot of value from Crello as they have a huge range of social templates to utilize including short video templates for specific platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and more.
Photography bloggers can also utilize the varied range of Instagram templates the platform offers which can help you create engaging content using your own photography.
If you’re looking to try Crello out, you can create up to 5 free designs each month with the Free plan.
However, if you can afford it, a paid Crello subscription is worth it considering it’s one the more affordable options at $9.99 per month. You’ll get access to unlimited downloads and a few premium features such as the background remover.
Pricing:
Crello’s Starter plan is free – but you only get 5 downloads each month.
The Pro plan is $9.99 per month or $95.88 per year. Unlimited downloads and a whole bunch of premium features.
7. Stencil
When it comes to creating social media content as quickly and easily as possible Stencil is one of the best tools around.
Stencil’s range of templates isn’t as strong as some of the other tools in this list such as Canva or Placeit but there are some good templates and it’s also incredibly easy to create designs from a blank canvas.
One really unique feature that Stencil offers is their Google chrome plugin which allows you to highlight and right click on some text on the web and click “Create image with Stencil” and that automatically create a design in Stencil with that quote for you to modify.
You can also connect most of your social accounts to Stencil such as Pinterest, Facebook, or even Buffer which is a social scheduling app. Stencil allows you to post your design directly to these platforms. Which is a huge time saver.
What sets Stencil apart from other online graphic design tools is its image resizer. Canva has a similar feature that lets you change a design to a new format (e.g. from a Facebook banner to a YouTube banner) but Stencil’s tool works the best at the moment.
Pricing:
Stencil’s free plan does lets you download 10 assets per month, but it does have limitations.
The Pro Plan is $15/month or $108/year. With the Pro plan, access hundreds of thousands of images, graphics, and templates, plus upload your own fonts and logos.
The Unlimited option is $20/month or $144/year, and all of the tools, content, and features are unsurprising unlimited.
8. PicMonkey
Last up we have PicMonkey, another fantastic online graphic design software that can help you create great looking graphics for your blog and social media profiles too.
It’s an especially useful tool for people who like to use their own photography in their designs and content, as PicMonkey is somewhat of a lighter and simpler alternative to Photoshop when it comes to photo editing and manipulation.
You can easily adjust the exposure, color balance, and much more of photos. PicMonkey’s clean and simple editor makes it a cinch to make all the adjustments you want.
Picmonkey has recently added many more valuable templates and tools to offer more value to their users including pre-designed templates for all the major social media platforms, blog graphics, and much more.
A great additional feature is their third integrations that allow you to export your designs directly to YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Pricing:
PicMonkey doesn’t really offer a free plan as you can create designs for free but you can’t download them until you pay.
Their premium plans include their Basic plan ($7.99 per month or $72 per year) which has limited storage and download options, and the Pro Plan ($12.99 per month and $120 per year) which comes with unlimited access. They have a Business plan too.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best online graphic design software?
At the moment we’d say Canva is the best online graphic design software as it offers so much in terms of what you can create and how easy it is to use.
However, if you’re looking to create designs as quickly as possible and don’t want to create designs from scratch or heavily customize pre-designed templates then a tool like Placeit is perfect for you as you can create designs in seconds.
What is the best free graphic design software?
Again we’d have to say Canva as you can do so much for free on the platform. They have a huge library of free templates and design elements that you can use so you can create a lot without having to spend anything at all.
Other tools including Placeit and Visme also allow you to create plenty for free too.
What online graphic design software is best for beginners?
The best online graphic design software for beginners is probably a tie between Placeit and Canva. Placeit keeps things so simple, literally anyone can jump on to their tool and create something.
Canva is also extremely beginner friendly, there isn’t much of a learning curve and their interface is very intuitive. They also have a huge range of tutorials to help users get started.
What is the best graphic design app?
If you’re looking to create designs from your mobile device there are quite a few of the design tools from this list that have a mobile app version.
The best at the moment is Canva’s, closely followed by Adobe Spark’s app. Both of which offer a fantastic mobile experience.
Conclusion
The good news is there’s a lot of great graphic design software out there that can help you create incredible designs and content. The bad news? It’s hard to know which one to choose!
We recommend trying out some of the tools from this list. Focus on your current design needs, the tools and interface of the software, and your budget.
Before you know it, you’ll be calling yourself a graphic designer, as well as a blogger.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means we may make a small commission if you make a purchase.
