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Adobe Illustrator CC is a industry-standard software in vector drawing tools and applications for digital graphics in print,...
Graphic design and video editing tool for creating and publishing marketing material, presentations, social media content,...
JV
Jeannie V. chose Adobe Illustrator
Karee S. chose Canva
Starting from
31.49
Per month
Starting from
12.99
/user
Per month
Pros
Pros
Cons
Cons
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User reviews that mention these apps
Rachel G.
Food & Beverages, 11-50 employees
Used monthly for 2+ years
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It's a good product that lets you complete what you need
It's expensive for graphic design purposes. Using Canva or other free systems is much better for money.
Tiffany R.
Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Easy to collaborate and solve design thinking issues
Industry standard but offers flexibility and was well for designers. Also helps with getting graphic designers for hire
Easily compared to canva if something quick is needed. Glitches without updates but still does the job
Verified reviewer
Hospitality, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for 6-12 months
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All in all it's worth the price if you're a professional.
There's so many features you'll never fully use the software. Whatever you want to design, it's possible with Illustrator.
It's quite difficult to work with in the beginning. It's also pretty pricey if you compare it to more basic tools as Canva.
Kate C.
Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Used monthly for 1-2 years
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Useful tool to have had to up-skill in, use across marketing role.
I like the breadth of tools this software includes for designing and artworking creative assets.
I think a little more preformulated elements could be helpful for novice users, e.g. simpler template guide (example of online style is Canva)
Madeline J.
Apparel & Fashion, 11-50 employees
Used monthly for 2+ years
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My experience with Adobe Illustrator has been frustrating and difficult. I prefer other platforms and products like Canva.
I like how high performing and detailed the Adobe Illustrator software is.
I don't like how difficult the Adobe Illustrator software is to use. I don't understand why Adobe products have such a big learning curve.
Brianna L.
Security and Investigations, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Overall I have had a great experience, I switched over from Canva and it has been great since.
I like that I am able to become creative as I want to be by designing flyers and brochures for the company and our visitors.
I dislike that you have to pay a fee monthly in order to receive the full functionality of the software.
Lucia H.
Hospital & Health Care, 51-200 employees
Used monthly for 2+ years
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Illustrator is the "professional" version of Canva. It has allowed us to transform our design ideas into reality.
Illustrator remains the gold standard for design tools. It takes some time to learn how to use the software, but I can't imagine my job without it.
Some aspects are not intuitive, especially for a beginner. It took a few weeks to get comfortable with the technology.
Quentin D.
Marketing and Advertising, self-employed
Used daily for 2+ years
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I use this tool daily for my customers: it provides me all i need with Canva in order to deliver great visuals or infographies
It s hard to get in illustrator and it s a very costly software. Some efforts please Adobe !
Facundo A.
Graphic Design, 11-50 employees
Used monthly for 2+ years
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Me sirvió durante muchos años, hasta 1ye conocà Canva. Siempre fue un buen caballo de batallas, pero se quedó en el pasado.
Considero un producto interesante a la hora de introducirse en el mundo del diseño gráfico.
Su uso se vuelve engorroso, y es medio anticuado para las herramientas que se manejan en la actualidad.
Showing original review in Spanish. See translation
Tobi A.
Construction, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for 6-12 months
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Despite working as a quantity surveyor, I have a passion for graphic design and website development. With Illustrator I have been able to take my services a little bit higher, moving from canva and corel draw. I have been able to make some money on the side.
The ability to create vector designs for anything I desire, from business cards to logos to letterheads. I had previously been using canva online design tool.
The learning curve was a little difficult, though I had no prior expertise with adobe photoshop. It took me about 3 months to get really familiar with Illustrator.
ROMARIO G.
Retail, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used other for less than 6 months
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My overral experience with Adobe Illustrator has been great. I use it when Powerpoint, Google Draw or Canva is not sufficient.
What I like the most about Adobe Illustrator is its deep design capabilities. You can create anything you wish (if you know how to do it), no matter if it's complicated. I can create from simple logos to beautiful infographics
What I like the least about Adobe Illustrator is that I needed to take multiple courses (with costs) in order to be in a beginner level of the tool.
Rose O.
Entertainment, 11-50 employees
Used monthly for 1-2 years
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Very helpful in maintaining about two-three documents I use yearly - otherwise I use alternate products to get what I want. I haven't received enough training or have enough projects that benefit from it enough to take those deep dives.
There are a lot of features and editing capabilities sure, however it's not terribly intuitive so I've never gotten why it's preferable to other programs. The best use for it is probably creating detailed forms/brochures that don't need regularly updated.
Harder to navigate and create consistent work. I know there are a lot of great uses for this, but for my purposes I've found Google Docs, Visme, and Canva work better.
Julian O.
Professional Training & Coaching, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for 1-2 years
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Overall it is a great extension of our design projects. In which we prefer Canva for fast and easy designs we still use Adobe Illustrator for our custom and more advanced designs
Adobe Illustrator is an extensive program for graphic design, You can do a lot of things that have my favor over Canva for example as Adobe has no limitations.
It has a big learning curve due to the endless possibilities. Although you can really create what you have in mind it will take time to understand everything
Verified reviewer
Sports, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for 6-12 months
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We use illustrator to design our most important assets and templates and then pass them along to other team members to add things to in Canva.
Adobe Illustrator is the king when it comes to graphic design, and always will be. They continue to add crazy features and improve workflow to help you get more done in less time.
There is quite a steep learning curve at times depending on the amount of experience you have with Adobe or similar products.
Verified reviewer
Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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Adobe Illustrator is exceptionally feature rich, and the possibilities are endless in terms of what you can accomplish with it from a graphical point of view!
Compared to the likes of Canva and other similar design applications targeted towards beginners, Adobe Illustrator is reasonably difficult to use. However, this is more than outweighed by the pros outlined above!
Verified reviewer
Used other for 2+ years
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While newcomers like Canva and Stencil are making it very simple for nonprofessionals to design and create basic illustrations, nothing compares to what Illustrator can do if you put in the effort to learn.
Quite simply, the subscription plan sucks for consumers. While I understand the profitability advantages for Adobe as well as their argument that subscribers will always have the latest version, as a user of Illustrator for over 10 years, I long for the days when I could own the software outright.
Nicole C.
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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I run a nonprofit that has a wide range of design needs, so we decided early on to invest in this (instead of offloading design, or using one-off platforms like Canva).
I like the versatility of this platform. I use it for a variety of things, including: – Creating web graphic assets, including email headers, social media mockups, etc. – Designing retail product and packaging – Vectorizing hand-drawn illustrations into digital files for printing at scale – Enhancing personal sketches – Creating a variety print assets, including flyers, postcards, banners and OOO ads
The only thing I find clumsy, which is true of all Creative Suite products, is syncing to Creative Cloud. I think the cloud-based file saving and sharing could be helpful, but it never seems to work, and version control becomes difficult. However, we use Google Drive for all file sharing and storage, which solves the issue nicely. I don't find it a negative for this product, but I'm aware we're also not using it to its fullest.
Gary C.
Health, Wellness and Fitness, 11-50 employees
Used monthly for 1-2 years
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I like the different artboards that make it easy to open several graphics at once and edit on different virtual "screens".
User tutorials not so good for beginners. You will need to get education for using the software. If They invested in a little free education for their users, most would not fall back on free options out there like Canva.
Jeff B.
Health, Wellness and Fitness, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Great. Freed up value time in design and over quality of designs. Versatility helps customize and properly formant digital files for printing, website, ad display and more.
The software is robust and provides all the different varieties of marketing asset editing we need. The help section is great, but the internet is full of additional knowledge bases to help with your learning curve and knowledge gap. The other great feature is the seamless hand-offs and collaboration with your design team. Great for a small business that needs to do some lower level design work and pass off to designer when needed.
The price is more than cookie cutter planforms like Canva, but you are not suck in their sandbox design. The other challenge is the learn curve. The robustness of the software takes time and patience to learn how to use.
Kristin L.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used other for less than 6 months
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I ended up switching to Canva and was much happier with features and then ease of use. It felt like the Adobe Illustrator is for an elite group of people who have attended courses or training on use.
It is a well known product but that is the only plus about it. I enjoyed nothing about the software.
If you are not a graphic designer, this product will be hard to use without extensive training. This is not software for beginners or intermediate experience
Olivia C.
Internet, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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We do in-house graphics so this solves that issue.
This is not an easy, Canva-esque editing software. This is a DIY everything software. Not for the faint of heart. But once you learn it, it is VERY easy to use (so much education on YouTube these days you do not need formal training).
I do not like that in recent years it has switched from a disk or hard-drive centered platform to a subscription based software. It seems dumb but I guess everything else has switched to that too.
Verified reviewer
Construction, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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I prefer illustrator over photoshop in what my job entails. It is easier for me to navigate and edit graphics for website/ print use. I find it easier to create templates for marketing collateral in illustrator than to use another website like Canva.
In the graphic design marketing role, I use illustrator pretty often. I like the freedom of being able to create and design anything I can think of. I can bring my vision to life!
It could be my computer, but occasionally, this software takes a long time to open on my computer. Most of the time it is fine.
Christina W.
Design, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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I use Illustrator for a variety of things. I create logos for clients and use it to manipulate text when create graphics in Canva or Photoshop. It's done it's job for me so far. I would say it definitely has its learning curve.
To be honest, I am not sure there is another software like this one to be able to compare what it does better, however, for what I've needed it to do, it sure does an amazing job for the jobs I do for clients in logos and font manipulations.
The price is just so much. What happened to the days when you could purchase this license for full price and keep it until you decided you needed a new one? I got mine with school and it was such a deal and was able to use it as long as I needed to. I am not sure the updates were worth it just yet.
Sumeet M.
Media Production, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 6-12 months
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As we're also running a digital media vertical so graphics and designs are what we're into 24x7. We've tested many light tools like Canva, Crello, and others but none of them is feature rich as Adobe Illustrator. It even helped us in creating the mock-ups of the new website design.
Seriously all our graphic and video needs are fulfilled by Adobe Illustrator. It's full of features, features which can think and it's already there in it. So much of every aspect from graphics to pamphlet and video can be done through Adobe Illustrator.
Steep learning curve which has made damn complex to learn and understand. Any newbie will take at least 2-3 months to learn and create.
Nicole P.
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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Excellent. Videos provided by Adobe are extremely useful for those who would like to pick up the use of this software on their own.
I love the range of things you can do with Illustrator. I work in a school, and I can help teachers and staff create the exactly what they need, instead of searching for pre-designed products that don't quite fit the curriculum or learning objective. We can make clean templates for class projects, visual aids for understanding abstract concepts, and professional-looking programs and labels for events.
It's a little complicated. It takes more time than most would be willing to spend in order to become proficient, so many teachers opt for a more user-friendly tool like Canva. Both have their merits, and Illustrator is absolutely the better tool for creating a design that works in exactly the way you want it to.
Md Rabiul I.
Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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Actually, I'm not a designer but I can manage my design needs using it. and truly says the most beautiful and charming design of life is done with the help of Canva.
This is very user-friendly. The site provides a large number of templates to use. It has an enriched image library.
Nothing is noticed now but some functions need adobe illustrator. for the advanced design.
Verified reviewer
Design, self-employed
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Amazing! I would highly recommend to my friends who don't know much about graphic design and need to create something simple for their social media!
I downloaded the app for my phone and was really surprised at how simple and easy to use this app was. I tried it out to create something quick while I was out of the house and away from my computer and was happy to find that there were some templates that I could work with.
This definitely does not have advanced capabilities like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator but that’s ok.
Daniel W.
Health, Wellness and Fitness, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used monthly for 1-2 years
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I use the adobe suite for most of my more time intensive projects, but for quick social media posts and designs you really can't beat Canva. It's free.
I can't think of much. Maybe could use some more of the features found in Adobe Illustrator.
Usman R.
Apparel & Fashion, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Aside from its unmatched price (millions of users pay nothing at all), Canva's main advantage over tech giants like Adobe was its ease of use.
Canva is not a vector-based program (such as Adobe Illustrator) and is not ideal for logo design.
Verified reviewer
Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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We use Canva as an alternative to both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. It's not only more cost-effective, but it doesn't take hours of training videos to understand like most Adobe products do.
Canva is the easiest graphic design software I have ever had the pleasure of using. It become more and more functional all the time, and new features are constantly being added. We use it for our own graphic design work, as well as client logos, banners, social media posts, and even medical brochures.
While the offline version of Canva still has a few bugs here and there, I really could not be happier with Canva as a whole. Since their team seems to be updating things all the time, I'm confident that these bugs will be squashed in the next month or so.
Samantha V.
Hospitality, 501-1,000 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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I don't use it as my number one but it's a good way to get something done fast and free.
It's nice that it's web focused and you don't loose your work when reopening on a different computer.
It'll never replace Adobe programs like photoshop and illustrator but if you don't have those skills this is a great option.
Verified reviewer
Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, 51-200 employees
Used monthly for 2+ years
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Functionality is great, templates are easy to use, I always get compliments when I design something on Canva. Also like that I can immediately save as PDF. Love that it's free, too!
Unable to transfer to Adobe software (photoshop, illustrator, etc) for editing purposes - everyone working on it must have a Canva account.
Jamie P.
Financial Services, 11-50 employees
Used monthly for 6-12 months
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I've mostly used Canva to produce attractive flyers or announcements. It has worked well for this purpose.
I like the simplicity of using Canva. It allows you produced well-designed flyers, books, or other types of mediums with relative ease. There are a lot out-of-the-box tools at your disposal.
Canva can feel somewhat limiting if you're used to something like Adobe InDesign or Illustrator. There are not as many options for full customization as there is with something like Adobe products.
McKenna M.
Apparel & Fashion, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Amazing. I have used the product at almost every company I have worked for.
The BEST alternative to Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. I can create 95% of my digital assets using Canva alone.
The features that Canva lacks in comparison to Adobe products are made up for by how user-friendly the platform is!
Verified reviewer
Marketing and Advertising, self-employed
Used monthly for 2+ years
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I think Canva has some great templates and functionality.
Canva give you a lot of options and helps you get "unstuck" from lacking inspiration. I like that vector artwork can be downloaded. I send clients to Canva if they cannot afford our Graphic Design services.
If you are used to designing in Adobe Illustrator, or another professional design program, it can feel restrictive, slow, and frustrating.
Josh C.
Writing and Editing, self-employed
Used weekly for 6-12 months
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Editing photos and creating graphics for social media is quick and simple compared to something like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.
It took a little while to get used to Canva's sidebar menus and search functions. They come with ease now, but it took a couple weeks to feel like I had a handle on everything.
Raleigh V.
Media Production, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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