In the left corner, coming all the way from Australia with 100 million users, launched in 2013, we have Canva! And in the right corner, coming all the way from Germany with an undisclosed number of users, launched in 2020, we have Kittle!
This image is AI generated which the premium versions of both the software have
| Features | Canva | Kittl |
| Launch Year | 2013 | 2020 |
| User Base | 100 million+ | Undisclosed |
| Free Option Usability | Highly usable with access to 250,000+ templates | Limited, no commercial licensing or high-res exports |
| Pricing | More expensive | More economical, good for beginners |
| Font Library | Extensive, over 100 million fonts and graphics | Limited but high-quality, nuanced fonts |
| Font Manipulation | Basic, traditional editing features | Advanced, professional text effects |
| Graphics and Elements | Vast library with over 100 million assets | Smaller, but high standard, focused on print designs |
| Photo Editing | Advanced, includes AI tools like Magic Erase and Edit | Basic, limited to color changes |
| Commercial Licensing | Requires significant modifications for commercial use | Flexible, allows direct use for commercial purposes |
| Mobile-Friendly | Yes, with an easy-to-use mobile app | No mobile app, web-based only |
| Mock-Ups | Available through Smart Mockups integration | No built-in mock-up feature |
Round One: Pricing
Both of them are free option, but Kittl’s free option is pretty irrelevant, you don’t get commercial licensing, and you can’t export any of its content in high resolution. Canva’s free option on the other hand is very usable. You still get over 250,000 templates and can still export in good quality.
As you can see kittl is obviously the more economical option. If you have just started learning about design and need good software to practice and improve your craft then kittl could be a better option.
Round Two: Fonts and Usability
In both of them, you can upload your own fonts. And its really handy cause sometimes a particular brand or you even as an individual creator have a specific font that you want to use in a project, and if the platform doesn’t have it which is very unlikely then you can just buy that font family and insert it in any of the platforms and use it.
In terms of sheer volume, Canva owns kittl. Since it has been around for longer it’s library of fonts and all the semi options that it provides are way bigger than kittl, you name the font and it’ll have it.
On the other hand, the library of fonts that Kittle has isn’t that big but all the fonts it has are all excellent, detailed, and nuanced for specific purposes. They seem to be perfect for graphic designs, t-shirt painting, or to put up on anything tangible. However, they might also be on Canva but it has so many fonts that it’s hard to narrow down and find what you are looking for or what could suit your project the best.
Now, when it comes to font customization, kittl really is far ahead. You can transform a piece of text in so many different ways and add some really cool elements to make it look much more professional. Basically, with Kittle, you get fewer fonts, but they feel far more premium, and the effects you can apply are far more premium and make your text standout with impressive customization options.
With Canva, you get a lot of fonts, and by all means, many of them are good and amazing, but when it comes to editing, their features feel very childish and basic. It’s everything that we’ve been doing in basic font editing for the past many years, it needs to be relatively refreshed.
So, even though Canva has way more fonts, I’m going to give the win here to Kittle because they seem to have perfected the right amount of fonts and the right amount of effects with what you can do with those fonts.
Round Three: Graphics and Elements
Both the software have a lot of graphics, however, with Canva, you will literally never run out with over 100 million graphics and stock photos. Their library is pretty much unmatched by anyone else. Similar to the text, I’d say Kittl’s graphic library is of a very high standard. I feel like they have print-on-demand sellers in mind. However, due to the sheer size of Canva’s graphic library and the fact that the quality is still excellent, they need to get the win here because it’s just immense how big their library is.
A downside of kittl is their elements, they have element and so does canva but it’s library of elements is just massive at this point, its been growing for a while vs kittl is growing now, just a few months ago there wasn’t anything on kittl but now there are a lot more options added and it s growing so I’m sure it’s gonna catchup with canva someday but at the moment it has got a very good lead.
But for both platforms, you can use Creative Fabrica if you are missing on some elements that you wanna use, it is a library with a bunch of different full designs or single elements. It’s easy to use it with both.
Round Four: Editing
With Kittle, a lot of the graphics are vector files, meaning you can actually change the colors and size without worrying about pixelation or anything like that. With Canva, it seems like there are fewer vector files, or at least the density is less.
In terms of actual editing options for graphics and images, Canva is going to take the win here because, with Kittle, you can pretty much just change the colors, size, crop the image and couple other basic things. With Canva, they have a whole bunch of different effects that you can add and a whole bunch of add-on effects that you can add to your account. It’s almost like a photo editor app only because you can adjust the temperature of the image, the brightness of the image, the contrast of the image and whatnot which you’ll generally find in a photo editing software.
On top of that it has AI editing functionalities. Imagine if you don’t like something in the photo then they have a tool called magic erase and another called magic edit. Magic erase just gets rid of something and fills it in so it doesn’t look like it has been just cut out of the photo vs magic edit can put anything that you want, on the area that you want by just selecting that tool and typing in what you want and selecting that area.
There are also video editing options in Canva although it is not as good as it’s photo editor is, there are a lot of features in that too but their working isn’t smooth. It is kind of frustrating to use after you have used Adobe Premiere Pro, Final cut or other dedicated video editing software and I don’t think it can reach their level ever, that does seem uncalled for anyways.
Round Five: Commercial Licensing
This is a big one, especially for print-on-demand sellers. With Kittle, you have commercial licensing with any paid account. This means you’re allowed to use designs for commercial or commissioned projects.
With Canva you are not allowed to just use 1 element in the design, u have to use multiple elements or texts to create something that you can call your own, on their templates you need to change them up again to declare them your own. With Canva, you’re allowed to sell your designs on merchandise like t-shirts and stickers, and you can design and sell templates, and create designs for clients. What you can’t do is resell the stock imagery as it is.
Meanwhile, on kittl, you don’t need to change a lot of stuff, you are allowed to create one-offs, you’re allowed to use their templates as they are and just put them on print on demand or directly put just an element or graphic on your project and marketize it.
Round six: Mobile-Friendly
This is a really easy win for Canva because Kittle doesn’t have a mobile app. To use Kittle, you pretty much have to own a computer or a laptop to use their web-based application. And although it’s very good, it’s fantastic for a web-based app, but it’s just not mobile-friendly. Canva, on the other hand, is brilliant. You have an incredible, user-friendly, very easy-to-use Canva mobile app. It’s super simple and well laid out, so you have this powerful graphics tool sitting in your pocket at all times.
Round seven: Mock-Ups
Specifically in print-on-demand, mock-ups are really important to showcase your designs. While I’ll always recommend a mock-up-specific website like Placeit, sometimes you just want to get a bit of extra value if you’re already paying for something. In this case, it would be nice if they offered mock-ups so that you’re getting even more value for your money.
With Canva, you can connect to Smart Mockups, which has over 2,700 free mock-ups that you can use. Once you sign up for a free Smart Mockups account, you’ll see it on the left-hand side of your dashboard. With Kittle, you don’t get any mock-ups. Hopefully, one day they add that, although it’s surprising that it isn’t there considering they are often called the tshirt designing place.
also checkout – Top 10 Canva Alternatives: A Comprehensive Guide
And checkout – kittl: Unlock Your Creativity Guide to it’s Features and Benefits
