Silhouette Studio and Canva are popular design tools that have taken over the creative industry. However, it seems like they are created for different purposes and have unique features.
While Silhouette Studio works best for people who enjoy hands-on crafting, Canva is more of an online design tool for creating any kind of project including logos, social media graphics, presentations, posters, and more.
As much as these tools embody unique features, you can’t help but wonder which of them is better. Well, I have taken my time to explore and review my findings in this article.
I’m going to review their features, how they function, their audience preference, ease of use, and pricing – including their similarities and differences.
The goal at the end is to have enough information to decide on which design tool to go for. Now, without much ado, let’s dive right in!
Silhouette Studio vs Canva – Introduction
What is Silhouette Studio?
Silhouette Studio is one of the design software created under Silhouette America. The company has been around since 2009 and was founded by Greg Sundberg.
The primary aim is to serve as a digital workshop for both beginner and experienced crafters and designers.
With this tool, you can dream up, design, and bring your projects to life. Whether you’re making personalized greeting cards or social media graphics, Silhouette Studio will help you make something that’s uniquely yours.
As an experienced designer, it’s good that the tool gives you a lot of creative control to make projects that meet your needs. There are over 60 design features including tracing, welding, and warping that you can conveniently employ to design anything you can imagine.
If you’re not so masterful in creating a design from scratch, you don’t have to fret. Silhouette Studio already comes with more than 200,000 pre-made designs waiting for you in the store.
You simply need to download them, then pick one and customize it to your taste. It’s that easy!
The most interesting part is that the software is easily integrated with Silhouette cutting machines, allowing you more creative freedom to explore and turn your imagination into reality.
What is Canva?
Founded in 2013, Canva is like an easy and fun playground for beginner designers to create amazing graphics for their businesses. The platform is highly popular and comes with thousands of ready-made templates for you to explore.
All you need to do is pick a template, drag, drop, and customize the needed elements, add your words, throw in some pictures, and boom – you’ve got something that looks like it was designed by a professional!
Afterward, you can download it in whatever format you want or share it with your friends across all social media platforms. That’s how easy and user-friendly this platform is.
Also, if you’re a pro-designer, you’re free to start your design from scratch. The only difference here is that you now have all the elements you’ll need at your fingertips.
The Canva collaboration feature favors users who are working with a team. You can always work with your colleagues and share your projects in real time.
You can access this tool either online or by downloading the mobile version from either the Play Store or Apple Store. Once downloaded, you need to create an account online and subscribe to any of the plans. There’s already a free plan to get you started.
Silhouette Studio vs Canva – Features
Silhouette Studio
1.Create unique designs from scratch
Silhouette Studio is known for giving users full creative control over their projects. There are a lot of design tools that will enable you to create your unique designs from the ground up.
2. Import and trace
Another thing to note about this software is that you’re free to import external images and trace them to create cut lines. This feature will come in handy if you want to turn raster images into vector designs suitable for cutting. You can import them in formats like JPG, BMP, and PNG.
3. Rich design library
For beginner designers, Silhouette Studio Library has you covered! There are lots of pre-made templates for you to download and customize to your taste. The library is also where you store and organize your designs.
4. Access to fonts on your computer
Most design tools usually limit you to the fonts they have pre-installed in their platform. But that’s not the case with Silhouette Studio.
Here, you can also use fonts that are already installed on your computer. This way, you have a variety of options to choose from when working.
5. Wide range of image effects
One of the most interesting features of Silhouette Studio is that you have different image effects like black and white, tint, and color saturation to play with when working on your imported images.
6. Print and Cut
Because this software works hand in hand with the Silhouette cutting machine, it allows you to print your design when it’s ready and then subsequently cut it with the machine. This feature is useful when you’re creating detailed and intricate designs.
7. PixScan Technology
If you have physical images or hand-drawn sketches that you’d love to digitalize, this software has you covered. You only need the PixScan cutting mat, a camera, or a scanner.
8. User interactive interface
Silhouette Studio presents a simple interface to work with. That’s why the software is accessible to both beginners and experienced crafters and designers.
9. Manipulation tools
You can manipulate images as you want. The manipulation tools allow you to either move, rotate, scale, align, or replicate your images until you achieve your desired layout.
10. Modification tools
If you’re not satisfied with the shapes or images you’re working with, you can always modify them. For example, you can weld multiple shapes together, divide, crop, and even subtract them from one another.
Also Read: Can You Use Canva Images For Commercial Use?
Canva
1. Design with different templates
Because Canva is primarily built for beginner designers, there are a lot of pre-installed templates you can easily customize to your taste. Aside from that, you’ll get free images, illustrations, and text fonts to work with.
2. Collaboration and sharing
Canva is known as the most collaborative online design tool. That is to say, multiple users can work on the same project simultaneously. You can also share your work with your team members or even external collaborators.
3. Mobile Accessibility
It’s fascinating how Canva is easily accessible on mobile devices. This means that you can create and edit your designs on the go.
Whether on your way to work or simply relaxing after the day’s job, you can easily swipe your phone and get to work. As long as you have a steady internet connection, you’re good to go.
4. Brand Kit
As a small business owner, you can create a Brand Kit where you store and organize all your brand assets such as logos, colors, and fonts. This way, you can easily stay consistent when designing projects for your business.
5. Animation and GIF creation
If you want to make your social media content stand out, you can generate animated designs and GIFs.
6. Video Editing
Canva goes beyond designing graphics and also incorporates video editing features that allow you to create and customize videos for your social media or presentations.
7. Print and download options
When you’re done working on your designs or videos, you can easily download them in different formats including PDF, JPG, or PNG. You can also share your work across your social media handles.
8. Social media scheduling
For easier social media management, Canva enables you to plan and schedule your work directly from the platform. This feature is only available on the paid plan.
9. Education and Tutorials
New Canva users can always rely on rich educational resources and tutorials to learn how to navigate and make the most of the platform.
10. Color Edit for Photos
This feature was recently introduced to Canva. Rather than adjust the whole image, you can easily work on the hue, saturation, and brightness of specific colors within any photo you’re using for your design.
Silhouette Studio vs Canva – Ease of Use
Silhouette Studio
As much as Silhouette Studio is designed for both beginners and experienced designers, newbies might need more time to familiarize themselves with the software.
First, you need to integrate it with your Silhouette cutting machine. This integration is an extra learning curve for beginners.
You’re not only learning how to use the studio but also the cutting machine. It’s not exactly a straightforward process but thankfully, there’s a library of tutorials and instructions on how to navigate the platform.
Overall, since your designs can be accessed at any time even when you’re offline, you have more flexibility when working.
Check Out: Why My Canva Images Are Blurry?
Canva
Canva is highly known for its user-friendly interface and most users, regardless of their experience level can easily find their way.
Unlike Silhouette Studio, there’s no integration required when using this platform, making the learning curve shorter especially for beginner designers.
Canva’s drag-and-drop design feature also adds to its ease of use. You simply need to customize existing templates by replacing them with your desired design elements already present in the library.
Overall, Canva has a more intuitive interface and also caters to a diverse range of design projects.
Silhouette Studio vs Canva – Functionality
While Silhouette Studio and Canva are both design tools, they are created to cater to different needs and audiences. I’ll explain below:
Silhouette Studio
Silhouette Studio is primarily designed to work hand in hand with the Silhouette cutting machines, making it an ideal fit for crafters and DIY enthusiasts.
You can create designs for cutting different materials like paper, fabric, and vinyl. The tracing feature enables you to import and convert raster images into vector designs and then cut them with the Silhouette machine.
Also, Silhouette Studio works only on computers. It can be a Windows or a Mac and must be downloaded from the official website. Overall, it’s a standalone software and doesn’t need internet connectivity to function.
Also Read: Side Hustles Using Canva
Canva
Canva on the other hand is a versatile graphic design tool and caters to a broader audience.
Whether you’re designing a graphic for your social media page, creating a PowerPoint presentation, designing a logo, or greeting card, or simply editing a video, this tool has you covered.
There’s more flexibility with Canva as it comes with templates for easy customization. Its robust collaboration feature is also something to consider.
Unlike Silhouette Studio where you need to download and install the software to your computer, Canva is a web-based tool. There’s no software installation needed plus you can also get the mobile app to help with on-the-go design.
Silhouette Studio vs Canva – Pricing
Silhouette Studio
Silhouette Studio has different plans that cater to different users. As a newbie, the free basic plan is enough to get you started. It allows you to create designs and send them to your Silhouette machine.
If you need more features like importing SVG and PDF files and aligning your designs with rules and crosshairs, then you should upgrade to the Basic to Designer Edition which costs $49.99.
There’s also the Basic to Designer Edition Plus which goes for $74.99 and lets you work with embroidery files and other design tools.
Also Read: Ways To Superscript In Canva
Canva
Canva has a free plan that’s perfect for beginners! If you want to try out the platform and see what it is like, the plan will get you started.
This free plan gives you access to over 250 templates, more than 100 kinds of designs, and over a million stock photos for your designs. Aside from that, you can always team up and still have 5GB of space in the cloud.
If you need more features, templates, and photos to work with, there’s the Pro plan that goes for $14.99 a month. With this plan, you can schedule your designs on the go and even remove backgrounds from both your pictures and videos.
Finally, for users working with a team, the Team plan of $29.99 is the best bet.
Explore: Best Canva Fonts For T-shirts
Silhouette Studio vs Canva – Pros and Cons
Silhouette Studio
Pros
- You can easily integrate it with Silhouette cutting machines.
- It’s the best design software for crafters and DIY enthusiasts.
- Offers powerful vector-based editing
- Offers full creative control
- Has more than 60 design tools
- Comes with more than 200,000 pre-made designs
- Works on both Mac and Windows operating systems
- Can be accessed offline
Cons
- Doesn’t cover a lot of design projects
- Is only best utilized if you have Silhouette machines
- There are no mobile versions
Check Out: Can You Sell Canva Designs On Etsy?
Pros and Cons of Canva
Pros
- You can use it to design any kind of design project.
- The interface is easy to navigate.
- You can share your work with your team.
- There’s a free plan to start with.
- Allows for video editing
- There are different templates to explore.
- Works on mobile devices
- Business owners will benefit from the Brand Kit to make their business branding seamless.
Cons
- Some design elements on the free plan come with a watermark.
- Can’t be accessed offline
- Can’t handle vector editing
Also Read: Identifying Fonts From Image In Canva
Silhouette Studio vs Canva – Similarities and Differences
Similarities
- Both Silhouette Studio and Canva come with ready-made templates for users to customize to their taste, saving time and effort.
- They both have design tools to create stunning visual content.
- Both of them are designed to be user-friendly and can be used by beginners and professional designers.
- They also have a free plan for newbies to start with.
Differences
- Silhouette is an offline desktop application, while Canva is an online design tool.
- While Silhouette Studio requires users to also have cutting machines, Canva doesn’t need one.
- Unlike Silhouette Studio, Canva doesn’t have the print and cut functionality.
- While Canva is a general design tool, Silhouette Studio is more suitable for crafters and DIY enthusiasts.
- Canva is much more affordable than Silhouette Studio.
- Unlike Silhouette Studio, Canva users can download or share their works directly from the platform to their social media handles.
Check Out: Canva Cartoon Effect
Silhouette Studio vs Canva – Conclusion
If you’re interested in creating or customizing designs that can seamlessly be translated into physical creations, then go for Silhouette Studio. It’s the go-to choice for those who enjoy hands-on crafting.
Whereas Canva is more versatile and covers a wide range of design projects. You can even craft and get on with your DIY designs on the same platform. It is also user-friendly and cheaper compared to Silhouette Studio.
There’s a mobile version too, meaning that it can be accessed from anywhere.
That said, pick the one that suits your needs.
