Comparing Canva and Adobe Express on Mobile

Top design companies Canva and Adobe Express also have mobile options for creativity on the go. 

1. Platform Availability and Pricing

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Canva Mobile is the mobile app version of the creative design tool Canva, accessible from your browser, desktop app, and mobile and tablet apps. Canva Mobile offers all the same great features as the browser version, including the ability to save images directly to your mobile device for direct upload to social media channels.

Adobe Express Mobile is the mobile app version of the Adobe Express content creation tool. It's available to anyone with an Adobe account and a phone or tablet. Owned by Adobe, you'll find powerful editing tools, terminology and layouts that match other Adobe apps, and connectivity to Creative Cloud, with a subscription.

You can download both apps from the Google Play Store for use on Android devices, and they're also available on the Apple Store for iPhone and iPad owners. Both the Canva and Adobe Express mobile apps are free to download, with many of the tools free users can access, but each app also offers a premium plan.

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Canva has a great free plan, with many tools available for free. You need a Canva account to use the free plan, and you can upgrade to Canva Pro at any time. While the free plan has a lot to offer, there are still many reasons to upgrade to Canva Pro.

Canva Pro pricing starts at $15/month for a monthly plan or $120/year. Most of Canva's AI tools are only available through a Canva Pro subscription, but Canva often offers a free Pro trial.

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While Adobe Express is one of the few free Adobe software, its premium version allows you to do much more. The free version requires an Adobe account to use, but it is not a subscription.

Adobe Express Premium is available as an individual subscription starting at $9.99/month. It's also included in the All Apps Creative Cloud subscription as well as many other Adobe plans, like Photoshop and Premiere Pro, so you don't have to pay extra if you're already subscribed.

2. AI Tools

Both Canva and Adobe Express have great AI tools for a variety of purposes. Both options have a number of free AI tools, as well as more for Premium or Pro users.

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Canva's free AI tools include Magic Edit, Text-to-Image, Text-to-Video, and Magic Design for templates, presentations, and videos.

Canva Pro's AI tools have more features, including Magic Expand, Magic Grab, Magic Morph, Magic Animate, Resize & Magic Switch, Magic Write, and more new tools from both in-house and third-party developers. Magic Grab and Magic Morph are two of our favorite AI tools across all software.

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Adobe Express also offers some AI tools for free to non-Premium users. You can use Text-to-Image and Text-to-Template generators, Remove Objects, Text Effects, Background Remover, Animate From Audio, and Caption Video. Sometimes, free users are limited in how many times they can use these tools.

Premium AI tools include Resize tool and Remove Background from Video tool. Premium users are allowed 250 credits generated per month.

3. Template

Both Canva and Adobe Express started out by offering pre-designed templates for a variety of uses, but primarily for social media. Adobe Express offers pre-designed templates and an AI Text-to-Template tool to save you the effort of creating a template from scratch.

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Canva is often the go-to choice for template design, with an ever-expanding library of thousands of free and premium templates available. You should be able to find any template you think you'll need. Popular categories include Instagram Stories and Posts, websites, business cards, posters and flyers, videos, book covers, and more.

Canva templates are available as static designs, as well as animated templates and videos. You'll find many templates in the free options, but some are locked to Canva Pro users or require a one-time payment.

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Adobe Express offers similar templates, though fewer than Canva. The template library is harder to navigate because all the template options are listed horizontally and not in selectable category tabs.

While Express does offer video templates, they aren't as attractive as Canva's templates. You can tell by the little icons if an Express template is animated, video, or for Premium users only. There's also an icon to favorite any template you see as you scroll.

4. Animation and Video

As mentioned, both Canva and Adobe Express offer animation and video templates. You can edit any template in both apps by replacing the video with your own and adding or editing animated elements.

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The Canva and Adobe Express mobile apps offer similar video editing tools, including basic timeline editing like trimming and splitting. Both offer animation tools, with editing options for animations behind the premium subscriptions, such as rotation, flicker, twirl, and fade. However, the animation tools can be applied to any element in the free version of both apps.

Both Canva and Adobe Express feature extensive stock video libraries and access to animated graphics and elements for your projects.

5. Application and integration

Most of the tools and features in Adobe Express are Adobe tools, some of which can be found in many other Adobe software. While the desktop version of Adobe Express has Add-Ons – third-party integrations – they are not available for Express Mobile. There are a few Quick Actions, which provide similar results.

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While not available for mobile at the time of writing, Adobe Express has an exclusive integration with TikTok, allowing you to create templates and find trending sounds directly from TikTok. You can also schedule posts directly from Express.

Adobe Express' TikTok Symphony assistant is trained exclusively on TikTok's algorithm, meaning your quick requests use real-world trend data from the social media app to give your creations the best chance of going viral.

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Canva has over 150 apps, including native and third-party apps, all of which can be found on its mobile app. Canva's apps include a variety of AI tools and generators, a social content scheduling app, audio transcription, music integration, an animation maker, and hundreds more.

The Canva apps available on Canva Mobile make it feel like you have hundreds of tools at your disposal, instead of just Canva Mobile.

Is Canva Mobile or Adobe Express Mobile better?

While Adobe's powerful Firefly system works in Adobe Express Mobile, Canva remains the top choice when it comes to mobile image editing and creation. Not only does it offer more attractive templates than Express, but the Canva apps themselves are like having Mary Poppins' toolbox in your hands.

If you're already an Adobe subscriber and don't want to pay for Canva Pro, Adobe Express Mobile Premium is still great to use, and it's nice to have a similar user interface to other Adobe products. Many people prefer Canva because it feels more comfortable as an editing tool, while turning to Adobe for their serious work.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 04 September 2024