Last Updated on March 7, 2023 by Shane
The Verdict
What differentiates Renderforest from Canva is its ability to create animated videos and mockups easily.
Even though Canva is a powerful software, it doesn’t have the feature of creating animated videos.
Both are very powerful all-in-one, easy-to-use graphic design softwares with their own strengths and weaknesses.
I would recommend Rederforest if you need to create mainly animated videos along with all kinds of graphics and videos.
Canva is great for you if you need the best easy-to-use graphic design software where you can create anything related to graphics except animated videos.
So, long story short, if you love animated videos and want to use them on your projects, go for Renderforest.
And if you don’t care much about animation or animated videos, go for Canva.
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Renderforest Vs Canva, this is going to be a tough battle, so hold tight.
We can all see that the importance of content creation, branding, and digital marketing is rising fast.
So has the popularity of easy-to-use softwares like graphic design and video-making tools.
If you ignore these kinds of new trends, tools, and tech these days, there is a higher chance that you and your business will stay behind.
These kinds of tech, tools, and softwares help you to follow these fast-growing trends and grow faster.
In this comparison between Renderforest and Canva, you will get to about them in more detail.
You will be able to decide which of these two most powerful all-in-one graphic design tools is the right one for you.
Let’s get it on!
Comparison Table – Renderforest Vs Canva
| Renderforest | Canva | |
| Overall rating |  |   |
| Ease of use | Very easy | Very easy |
| Subscription | Monthly & Yearly | Monthly & yearly |
| Free trial | Yes (with limited access and watermark) | Yes (with limited access and no watermark) |
| Refund | No | No |
| 2D Animation | Yes | Yes (basic animations) |
| 3D Animation | Yes | NA |
| Regular Videos | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | Animated videos, regular videos, social media videos, graphic design, website design, logo design, etc. | Regular videos, social media videos, graphic design, website design, logo design, etc. |
| Compatibility | Windows & MAC | Windows & MAC |
| Price | $119.88 to $239.88 per year | $155.88 to $179.88 per year |
| Recommended | Yes if you want animated videos | Yes if you don’t need animated videos |
| Website | www.renderforest.com | www.canva.com |
Renderforest – A Brief Overview
Renderforest is an all-in-one, easy-to-use graphic design software with animation and video creating tools.
This software can create high-quality videos, animations, mockups, logos, presentations, Social Media Management (SMM) graphics, and professional websites.
It was founded in 2013 by Narek Safaryan in Yerevan, Armenia.
There are over 10 million Renderforest users across the world till 2022, with more than 300,000 signups per month.
And it is still kicking and growing fast.
It started as just an easy animated video-making software. They were focusing just on animated videos for a long time.
Now they have evolved into a much more powerful software.
Canva – A Brief Overview
Canva is arguably the best graphic designing software that is easy to use for everyone. It is designed to be used by people without any prior experience in design.
Similar to Renderforest, it is an all-in-one, easy-to-use graphic design software where you can also create videos except animated videos and mockups.
A graphic designer from Australia Melanie Perkins co-founded Canva in 2013 with Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams.
Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, it has grown its users to over 80 million by 2022.
The design quality of Canva is the best among its competitors. That’s because one of its co-founders is a designer.
It helped Canva to keep its design and software quality solid and balanced.
A Brief Comparison
Renderforest and Canva are two very similar softwares with their own strong and weak parts.
Two of the main differentiating features of the two are that Renderforest can also create animated videos and mockups, unlike Canva.
Renderforest used to be just an animated video making software. Now it has upgraded to an all-in-one graphic design and video-making software.
It is clear that Renderforest can create more kinds of designs than Canva. But is its quality as good as Canva?
The quality of the design of Canva’s templates, graphics and other assets is among the best.
The quality of Renderforest’s designs is also excellent. They are all high-quality and professionally designed.
However, it has a lesser number of templates than Canva’s.
It will be hard to beat Canva’s massive library of templates, graphics, images, videos and other assets.
1. Basic Features
Renderforest’s strongest features that make it better than Canva are its animated videos maker and mockups creator.
Besides these, it can create almost all the things and designs Canva can create. Its weakness is that it has fewer templates and other assets than Canva.
You can create high-quality videos, animations, mockups, logos, presentations, graphics for social media management and professional websites.
Since they have added the feature of designing graphics, its templates library is not big as Canva’s.
As we all know, consistency in branding is super important.
One of the things I really like about their graphic design feature is that they bundle up their templates with similar designs.
This will help you maintain consistency in your branding, strengthening your branding game.
On the contrary, Canva’s best strength is its premium and professional quality of designs. And also its gigantic library of templates, images, videos, music and other assets.
Canva’s team collaboration feature is an important feature that Rendeforest doesn’t have. It allows you to collaborate with your team and get or give feedback, suggestions, approval, etc., within the tool itself.
It’s great for users that have more than one team member.
Just like Renderforest, Canva can create everything related to design and branding.
Things like logos, websites, videos, flyers, banners, posters, resumes, invitations, brochures, PDFs, letterheads, social media posts, menus, YouTube thumbnails, graphs, infographics, etc.
Winner
Oh boy! This is a hard one. As more and more people are liking videos more than still images, animated videos are crucial these days for business owners or some content creators.
And Canva doesn’t have this feature. For that reason, I’ll make Renderforest, the winner on this part of the battle.
Plus, it can create high-quality mockups of your designs which Canva can’t.
2. Ease of Use
Renderforest is simple, straightforward and easy to use. Its user interface is clean and minimal. It makes the software look easy to use.
However, some of its features take a few more clicks and time to function than they should.
For example, it will take around 20 seconds to preview the video you make. If the video you’re making is longer in duration, it will take even longer.
Now let’s talk about its user interface in more detail. It consists of 4 main parts – artboard or canvas, toolbar, image and text editor, and timeline.
The artboard or canvas is placed at the larger part of the right center of the interface. This shows the preview of your final design and how it will look.
The toolbar is at the top of the interface. It has only 4 tools which are Edit, Style, Music and Preview.
They are all shown with icons and text and placed horizontally on the bar.
On the left side of the interface, there are image and text editors, where you can edit your image and texts easily.
And at the bottom of the interface, the timeline is placed horizontally. This shows the scenes you have added to create the videos.
This interface is just for creating videos. It has a slightly different user interface for different kinds of designs.
Canva is a little easier and more user-friendly compared to Renderforest. Its user interface is better designed than Renderforest.
It is very straightforward and effortless to use it.
With so many features and the massive library of templates, videos, images, music and other assets, it is not easy to make the user interface of the tools user-friendly.
Canva has nailed it on that.
Its user interface consists of four sections. They are the artboard or canvas, the toolbar, the toolbar preview panel and the timeline.
The artboard or canvas is placed at the center of the interface, occupying its largest space.
It is where you place all the elements and assets you want to see in the final video. On the left side of the interface, there is the toolbar, which is placed vertically.
It has all the crucial tools to create what you want.
When you click on one of the tools on the toolbar, you will see a preview of what that tool does on a vertical panel. This panel is the toolbar preview panel.
You’ll see the timeline at the bottom part of the interface placed horizontally.
This shows you the scenes you have added to your artboard.
Winner
Compared to Renderforest’s user interface design, Canva’s interface is a little easier and more effortless to use.
Both of the softwares are very easy to use and user-friendly. It’s just that Canva’s user interface is a little more straightforward and user-friendly.
For these reasons, the winner of this part of the battle is Canva.
3. Tutorials
You will easily find any kind of tutorials related to Renderforest you can think of on the internet.
You can find all the crucial and common tutorials listed on its website’s page “Help and Support“.
However, they are not videos; they are all written instructions and tutorials.
If you want video tutorials, then you have to go to their YouTube channel.
They share all the possible tutorials, updates, tips and tricks, and more there.
Besides the tutorials on their website and YouTube channel, they also have a large blog where they share articles related to design, branding, business, videos, animation, marketing, and many more.
Nothing can beat Canva in taking care of its customers and helping them.
For tutorials, they have listed all the essential tutorial videos on a dedicated page of their website called “Design School”.
They provide free courses for people who want to master Canva.
In case you can’t find the solutions to your problems or issues, their YouTube channel is an open sea of all the possible tutorials, updates and more.
Their live events are one of the best to learn about things related to Canva, design, branding, marketing, content creation and so on.
Not just that, Canva also have a huge blog where they share useful information about design, marketing, branding, videos, and all.
Winner
As you can see, Canva is doing much more to help its customers than Renderforest. Organizing events, providing free courses, putting up video tutorials on their website, and more.
Which makes Canva the winner on this part.
4. Pricing
Renderforest’s pricing plans consist of four packages – Free, Lite, Pro and Business.
With the free plan, you can create videos, branding, presentations, and graphics.
You’ll get access to 500 MB of cloud storage, 360p videos with their logo watermarked, thousands of templates, scenes, and presets on mobile or the web, a limited amount of stock footage and images and create PNG logos.
The lite plan costs $9.99 a month, which is billed annually. That is $119.88 a year.
If you opt to pay monthly, then it increases to $14.99 per month, which becomes $179.88 a year.
Renderforest’s third plan, called Pro costs $19.99 a month if you pay for a year which is $239.88 a year.
This increases to $29.99 if you pay it monthly, which is $359.88 a year.
And the last one, the Business plan, costs $24.99 a month if you pay for a year which is $299.88 a year.
It goes up to $34.99 a month if you pay monthly, which is $419.88 a year.
On the other hand, Canva has only three pricing plan options. They are the Canva Free plan, the Canva Pro plan, and the Canva for Teams plan.
The Canva Free plan allows access to more than 250,000 free templates, 100+ design types (social media posts, presentations, letters, brochures, flyers, business cards, and more), more than 1 million free photos and graphics, wide range of printable products to design and get delivered to your doorstep, 5GB of cloud storage and more.
The next plan, Canva Pro, costs $12.99 per month, which is $155.88 a year.
If you make the payment at once for a year, you can save 16%.
And the third one, Canva for Teams, is $14.99 a month, which is $179.88 a year.
You can again save 16% if you make the full payment of a year at once.
Winner
As you can see that Renderforest costs more than Canva except for the Lite plan of Renderforest, which is $119.88 a year.
They are charging higher because they have animation videos and mockups maker. I think this is not a fair pricing plan compared to Canva.
Which makes Canva the winner again on this part.
5. Customer Support
Renderforest has listed all the FAQs, common queries, and problems on its website to support its customers on this webpage.
You can contact them through email at [email protected] if you can’t find solutions or answers to your issues.
Their 24/7 email support will get back to your queries and questions within 24 hours.
I have personally tried contacting them with some made-up issues just to check how long they take to get back to the email.
I did it twice, and they replied to my queries within 10-15 hours.
Also, they have shared their customer support phone number to help their customers. Hardly any big companies like this do that.
You can call +37411224000 if you want to talk to their support and get help.
The customer support system of Canva is similar to Renderforest’s, except for the customer support phone number.
Its huge list of FAQs, expected queries and problems help its customers to resolve their issues quickly and easily.
You can reach out to them through their 24/7 email customer support if you can’t find your issues on the list.
They usually reply to their customers’ queries within 24 hours. But sometimes, they might take a week to get back to you, depending on the urgency of your problems.
Winner
Clearly, Renderforest provides more options for its customers to contact its customer support than Canva.
And they make sure that they reply to their customers’ queries within 24 hours in any case, which Canva is not doing. For these reasons, the winner of this part of the battle is Renderforest.
6. Videos and Designs Quality
The quality of videos and designs of Renderforest is great. It looks premium and professional.
The templates, graphics, and other assets look professionally designed.
However, Canva’s design quality looks a little more premium and high quality than Renderforest’s.
The video templates, social media post templates, brochure templates and other assets look slightly better than Renderforest.
Below are some examples of videos made by Renderforest and Canva.
a. Videos created in Renderforest
b. Videos created in Canva
Winner
This part was really tough and took me very long to decide.
There’s not much difference in the quality of designs and video, but Canva’s design quality feels a little bit more premium and high-quality.
So the winner of this part is Canva.
Final Thoughts
Both of the tools are almost similar in terms of quality, features, etc., except for some of the features.
For example, Renderforest can create proper 2D and 3D animated videos and create mockups of your designs, but Canva cannot.
On the other hand, in Canva, you can collaborate with your team member and take feedback, reviews, approval, etc., but Renderforest cannot.
You have to make sure you are clear about what are all the things you really want to create for your project or business before making the final choice.
Suppose you really need a team collaboration feature on the software, but you got Renderforest instead.
That will make you disappointed.
So be clear about what you really need and choose the right one based on your needs.
Use Renderforest if
- You need 2D or 3D animated videos more than just regular videos
- You need mockups for your business or project
- You want a software with features that Canva doesn’t have
- If you don’t mind spending money on some extra features like animation and mockup designs
- If you don’t need the team collaboration feature in the software
Use Canva if
- You want a premium and high-quality all-in-one design software
- You don’t need animated videos and mockups
- You want a reasonable and affordable yet high-quality design tool
- You think the team collaboration feature is crucial for working with your team
- The number of users and the size of the company matter to you. It has over 80 million users
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That’s a wrap of the epic battle Renderforest vs Canva.
It was one of the hardest comparisons I’ve ever done.
If you are interested in animated videos for businesses, then you should check out this long list of the best animated marketing videos I have curated, “79 Best Examples of Animated Marketing Videos“.
You can also check out these comparisons and reviews
Let me know what you think about this comparison in the comment, and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated about new tools and updates.
Happy Creating!