Both Sketch and Canva are essential tools for businesses and designers. Sketch excels in design, collaboration, and prototyping, while Canva offers an intuitive platform for creating professional websites and marketing materials. We'll compare Sketch and Canva to determine which one best meets the needs of designers and businesses.

A Quick Overview of Sketch and Canva

What is Sketch?

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Sketch is a design platform that provides tools for creating, collaborating, prototyping, and handing off designs. It offers a Mac app for designers to create and a web app for team collaboration, feedback, and developer handoff.

One unique feature of Sketch is its powerful vector editing, which allows users to control every point in their designs. Additionally, the integration of Mac and web apps offers a seamless experience between design creation and team collaboration, setting it apart from competitors.

What is Canva?

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Canva is a platform trusted by over 75 million customers worldwide. It provides a range of design tools and solutions, including a website builder, video editor, and photo editor, enabling users to create professional designs quickly and easily.

Drag-and-drop tools and customizable templates simplify the website creation process. Canva's integration of various design tools within a single platform, along with features like real-time collaboration and AI-powered tools, sets it apart from competitors.

Features of Sketch and Canva

Similarities

Sketch and Canva share several key features that make them both powerful tools for designers and businesses. Both platforms offer comprehensive design capabilities, collaboration tools, and user-friendly interfaces.

  • Both provide a wide range of design tools and templates, making it easy to create professional visuals.
  • They support real-time collaboration, allowing multiple users to work on the same project simultaneously.
  • Both platforms offer web-based tools for sharing and feedback, enhancing team communication.
  • They include features for creating various types of visual content, such as websites, presentations, and social media graphics.
  • Both Sketch and Canva support the use of design systems and reusable templates, ensuring consistency across projects.

Differences

Sketch and Canva cater to different user needs with distinct features. Sketch is tailored for professional designers, while Canva is more accessible for non-designers. Here are the key differences:

  • Vector Editing: Sketch offers powerful vector editing tools, allowing precise control over every design point, which Canva lacks.
  • Prototyping: Sketch includes intuitive prototyping tools to create interactive designs, a feature not available in Canva.
  • AI Tools: Canva provides AI-powered tools like Magic Write™ and an AI photo editor, which are not part of Sketch's offerings.
  • Plug-ins: Sketch supports a wide range of plug-ins to extend its functionality, whereas Canva integrates with tools like Bitmojis and Giphy.
  • Website Building: Canva includes a website builder with customizable templates and real-time collaboration, a feature absent in Sketch.

User Interface and Usability

Sketch's user interface is tailored for professional designers, featuring customizable toolbars and optimized performance for Apple devices. The web app offers browser-based tools for easy viewing and commenting. The user experience is enhanced by powerful vector editing and seamless collaboration features. Overall, Sketch's usability is high, with offline support and extensive resources for both beginners and experienced users.

Canva's interface is designed for simplicity, with drag-and-drop tools and customizable templates. The platform supports real-time collaboration and AI-powered design elements, making it accessible even for non-designers. Canva's usability is bolstered by its intuitive design and extensive library of templates, accessible across multiple devices. Both platforms offer strong usability, but Sketch's professional-grade tools may provide a slight edge for experienced designers.

Collaboration

Sketch offers a robust platform for collaboration with its Mac and web apps, enabling real-time teamwork and seamless feedback management. The web app allows for easy sharing and handoff, reducing the need for extensive back-and-forth communication. Features like shared libraries and document permissions ensure that team members can work together efficiently, maintaining consistency across projects.

Canva simplifies collaboration with its real-time features and drag-and-drop tools, making it accessible for users of all skill levels. Teams can easily invite collaborators and share designs directly from the dashboard, facilitating simultaneous contributions. The platform's intuitive interface and easy sharing options streamline the collaborative process, making it straightforward for multiple users to work together.

Overall, both platforms offer strong collaboration tools, but neither stands out as definitively better for teamwork.

Sketch and Canva Pricing

Sketch offers three pricing plans: Standard Subscription at $10 per month per editor billed yearly, Mac-only License at $120 per seat with one year of updates, and Business Subscription at $22 per month per editor billed yearly. A 30-day free trial is available for the Standard subscription, and discounts are offered for nonprofits.

Canva provides four pricing plans: Free, Pro at $120 per year, Teams at $100 per year per person (minimum 3 people), and Enterprise with custom pricing. Canva also offers a 30-day free trial for Pro and Teams plans, and significant discounts for nonprofits and educational institutions.

Overall, Canva's pricing is more flexible with a free option and discounts for larger groups, making it potentially more cost-effective for diverse user needs.

Comparing Sketch and Canva to Piktochart

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Piktochart transforms complex ideas into captivating visuals that inform and engage your audience. With Piktochart AI, you can create stunning infographics, reports, and presentations in seconds, perfectly aligned with your brand. No design experience required.

Pros of Piktochart

  • Ease of Use: Piktochart's intuitive drag-and-drop functionality makes it accessible for users of all skill levels, allowing anyone to create professional visuals effortlessly.
  • Wide Range of Templates: The platform offers a vast selection of beautifully designed templates for infographics, presentations, flyers, posters, and reports, catering to diverse design needs.
  • Video Editing Capabilities: Piktochart includes an online video editing tool that allows users to create customized bite-sized clips from long videos, webinars, virtual events, Zoom, or webcam recordings, complete with automatic subtitle addition.
  • Content Customization: Users can easily customize their designs and videos for social media, ensuring their content is perfectly tailored for different platforms.
  • Comprehensive Visual Communication: Piktochart provides a robust set of features for creating high-quality, visually pleasing, and professional-looking infographics, presentations, and social media posts without the need for formal graphic design training.

Piktochart's Pricing

  • Free: $0 (Free forever)
  • Pro: $29 per member/month (billed monthly) or $14 per member/month (billed annually, save 52%)
  • Business: $49 per member/month (billed monthly) or $24 per member/month (billed annually, save 52%)
  • Enterprise: Custom Pricing (Contact for details)
  • Campus: Custom Pricing (Minimum 3000 seats, contact for details)

What Are Others Saying?

Sketch Reviews

Overall, users have given Sketch a rating of 4.5 out of 5. While many appreciate its ease of use and powerful vector editor, frustrations include platform exclusivity and performance issues with large projects.

"The app is only available for macOS, which limits its accessibility." - Verified User (Small-Business), 2.5/5

"Sketch can be slow when handling large files, which is frustrating." - John D., 3/5

"The cost is high for what it offers compared to other tools." - Jane S., 3.5/5

Find more of Sketch reviews on G2!

Canva Reviews

Canva has an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars. Users appreciate its ease of use and variety of templates but find the free version limited and customer support occasionally slow.

"Sometimes customer support is a little slow to respond." - Jasmine M., 3/5

"The free version of Canva doesn’t have all the features I sometimes want." - Jayson Mavrick A., 3/5

"Some of the 'magic' tools have a little way to go." - Frank C., 3/5

Find more of Canva reviews on G2!

Piktochart Reviews

Our users have given Piktochart an overall rating of 4.4 out of 5. They appreciate its ease of use and the wide range of templates available. Here are some of their thoughts:

  • "Tiene herramientas nuevas muy útiles" - Andrea V.
  • "Piktochart is Easy, online Graphic tool Application tool." - Ganesh P.
  • "Piktochart is a Web-based Magic Graphic Design Tool everyone" - POOJA N.

Find more of our reviews on G2!

Why choose one over the other?

Why a consumer might want to use Sketch over Canva:

  • Sketch is ideal for professional designers who need advanced vector editing and prototyping tools. It is perfect for those who work on macOS and require precise control over their design elements.

Why a consumer might want to use Canva over Sketch:

  • Canva is perfect for users who need an easy-to-use platform with drag-and-drop tools and customizable templates. It is ideal for entrepreneurs, content creators, and anyone without formal design training.

Why a consumer might want to use Piktochart over Canva and Sketch:

  • Piktochart is great for users who need to create a wide range of visual content, including infographics, presentations, and videos, without any design experience. It is especially useful for communications professionals, educators, and marketers.

Sketch, Canva, or Piktochart: Which is the best platform for you?

Whether you're a professional designer, a non-designer, or someone in between, Sketch, Canva, and Piktochart each offer unique strengths to meet your needs. While all three platforms are excellent choices, we believe Piktochart stands out for its ease of use, comprehensive visual communication tools, and versatility. Give Piktochart a try and see how effortlessly you can transform complex ideas into captivating visuals.