Canva vs Adobe InDesign

Adobe Photoshop

CorelDRAW

Adobe Express

PicMonkey

QuarkXPress

Affinity Publisher

Compare Canva and Adobe InDesign based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

Adobe Photoshop is an image editing and graphic designing software that helps businesses streamline photo editing and compositing processes and create digital paintings and animations. The artificial-intelligence (AI)-enabled platform lets designers invite external stakeholders to edit documents and share projects via live streaming functionality.

Adobe Express is the quick and easy app that empowers every team to self-serve on-brand content, amplify audience engagement, and get to market faster — all integrated with the world’s leading creative and marketing solutions.

Elevate your visual presence everywhere you tell your story with eye-catching images made in PicMonkey. Photo editing and design tools go from simple, one-click magic to sophisticated high-end capabilities that let you create unique looks that stand out from the crowd.

Graphic design and video editing tool for creating and publishing marketing material, presentations, social media content, and a range of printed products, using a drag-and-drop editor and a library of customizable templates.

Access Controls/Permissions

Animation

Approval Process Control

Artwork Management

Asset Categorization

Asset Library

Asset Sharing

Audio File Management

Autosave

Brainstorming

Brand Guidelines

CAD Tools

Change Management

CMS Integration

Collaboration Tools

Content Import/Export

Content Library

Content Management

Content Sharing

Custom Fonts

Customizable Branding

Customizable Templates

Customization

Data Import/Export

Data Visualization

Design Management

Design Templates

Digital Asset Management

Digital Signage

Drag & Drop

Email Distribution

Employee Photos

File Management

File Sharing

Image Editing

Image Library

Media Library

Media Management

Mind Maps

Mobile App

Multi-Channel Marketing

Offline Editing

Offline Presenting

Org Chart Creation

Pattern, Color & Art Storage

Pre-built Templates

Presentation Tools

Preview Functionality

Print Management

Printing Services Integration

Publishing/Sharing

Real Time Editing

Search/Filter

Smart Chart Legend

Social Media Integration

Step-by-Step Wizard

Template Management

Templates

Text Editing

Version Control

Video Editing

Video Support

Visual Discovery

Watermarking

Website Publishing Options

Workflow Management

Canva

Android

Web-based

Windows

iPad

iPhone

marketing specialist

There is a problem with Arabic text when exporting the photo. It makes the design has a bad look and there is a problem with the pixels.

Technology/STEAM Teacher

And, best of all if you are an educator you can apply for an education license giving you all the benefits of a pro version of Canva. Finally, Canva has amazing customer support.

Owner, Freelance Writer

Sometimes it will crash or slow down without warning while I am working on a more graphically-intense project, such as an animated image.

Self

I hate the fact that we have to pay for certain fonts... thats very annoying and having to pay in general.

Owner

Super easy to use and learn, and the pro version adds a lot of extra features. Background remover is easily the best feature and worth the price if you do your own product photos.

Chiropractor/Owner

You are able to change the text, colors, and layouts. It has been such a wonderful experience that I highly recommend this to anyone who owns a business and needs help with social media posts.

Honours Student

But styling is so important to make a good impression and engage your viewer, so it's great that CANVA does the work for you and you can focus on content.

Assistant Director of Auxiliary Programs

I love this program and how easy it is to make professional looking graphics. I love all the options you can use, the functionality and ease of putting together flyers, booklets, etc.

Business Manager

I absolutely love everything about Canva. It is so easy to use and there are thousands of templates for creating great advertising and marketing material.

Director 

This is an amazing software that enables you to create and design off an already amazing template. I highly recommend this to anyone.

Programme Content Producer 

The software is super easy to use and helps anyone to create beautifully designed posters, leaflets etc. without any graphic design knowledge.

Owner, Expressly Written

I'm not particularly talented with computers and design apps so I was thrilled with how easy it was to learn and use. The quality of the product is amazing and it's free.

Beauty Advisor

I love Canva for making graphics and now they have added animation on there. They keep improving and I might try the paid version since the free version is so good.

Clinical research coordinator 

There is nothing that I can say bad about this product. I have yet to have a problem with anything as of yet.

Teacher

Fonts are pretty good as well. Definitely worth the price if you are creating ads for Facebook, Instagram or any kind of desktop publishing.

Groomer/Owner

Very happy with everything. The price is affordable the software works well in the customer service is great.

Chief Financial Officer 

I love this software because it integrates well a lot of the software we use at our firm. Very easy to use and actually fun to compose.

Associate Manager, Instructional Development

Canva is a great "swiss army knife" tool for designers and can help rapidly develop beautiful designs.

Canva screenshot: Get access to more than hundreds of professional templates via iPad and tweak them to suit any need

Canva screenshot

Canva screenshot: Share directly to social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+

Freelancers

Large Enterprises

Mid Size Business

Non Profit

Public Administrations

Small Business

QuarkXPress is content design and desktop publishing software.

Unmatched page layout and digital publishing capabilities are complemented by tools for refining graphics and illustrations and non-destructive photo editing. 

Brilliant content begins with QuarkXPress.


Affinity Publisher is a graphic designing software that helps creative professionals and publishers combine images, texts, and graphics to create personalized layouts for books, website mock-ups, and marketing materials. Administrators can unify text style across multiple pages, add lines or borders, and manage the baseline grid.

CoreIDRAW is a graphic design software which enables users to create professional designs with vector illustration, layout, photo editing, typography, template tools, and more. CoreIDRAW allows users to create, access and store artwork, web graphics and prints in the cloud, via the web app.

Adobe InDesign is a layout design and desktop publishing software designed to help businesses and creative individuals create graphic designs with typography from various foundries and imagery from Adobe Stock. The platform lets teams create and publish digital magazines, books, eBooks, interactive PDFs, posters, and more.

3D Digital Asset Management

Commenting/Notes

Custom Brushes

Data Storage Management

Drag & Drop Editor

Interactive Content

Layout & Design

Magazines

Multi-Language

Newsletters

Secure Data Storage

Third-Party Integrations

Adobe InDesign

Designer

We love creating simple, clean, and engaging templates that our team can use for quality control. The links features makes sure every placed image is up to date and allows us to have better workflow.

Head of Technology

Also we have issues with users who are on different versions - this usually corrupts the file. In addition to this users do find they get locked out of the file and this means work has been lost.

Associate Pastor

The functionality for creating small booklets and brochures is the best part about this software. There are plenty of design tutorials if you need a creative spark.

These inconsistencies irritate me because I have to continuously halt and consider which program I'm using.

Marketing 

I have been using InDesign regularly since 2009 and I have come to love the intuitive and evolving user interface and the seamless integration with all other Adobe Suite programs.

Production Manager

I love that's it is so easy to use. Even a 40 year old like myself can use it.

Layout magazines & books

But as I worked on many tasks, I finally got used to it and there are so many amazing features of this software. My layout work is faster and easier because it is assisted by Adobe InDesign software.

student

The best of Adobe InDesign are: Ease of use, very similar user interface with others Adobe apps.

When it comes to layouts, InDesign is far superior to Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. The amount of guidelines and item snapping are two of Adobe InDesign's biggest strengths.

Director of Marketing

We use InDesign for almost all of our layout in the company and we love it.

But since switching to InDesign it started to feel better. Because of the pressure factor for the need to serve layout jobs that take up a lot of pages, this software is very suitable for use.

Architect

And at the beginning you lose a lot of time and you can get annoyed because you don't know how to undo some mistake you made.

Artist

Very good experience until I canceled monthly subscription to Adobe Creative Suite.

The tools stayed ONE day, and then disappeared again.

Robust tools, connected to cloud font library, integrated into the adobe creative cloud ecosystem.

Overall pleased with this but cost and low levels of support hamper the overall experience.

Canva vs Adobe InDesign Comparison (2026)

Canva

Adobe InDesign

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives