Images are an extremely powerful way to present information either for showing a new product or service or to explain any typical concept. Around 3.2 billion images are uploaded on the internet on a daily basis which makes it a huge opportunity for graphic companies to produce image editing, creation, and manipulation software. A large number of softwares are available in the market which helps in different tasks like creating, drawing, exporting, converting, and editing images. People often find it difficult to choose the correct software as an individual and for company purposes so we will compare the functionalities of the two most famous software Canva and Gimp to find out the best one.
Canva is a graphic designing tool that is used to create different types of visual content like posters, logos, social media advertisement templates, presentations, etc. It was founded by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams. Initially, it was launched in 2013. It supports different platforms like Web, Android, Mac, Windows, etc. It is available in multiple languages.
Advantages of Canva
- It has a simple and straightforward interface which is very easy for beginners.
- It provides free templates for users.
- It is a web app so no need to download anything and hence no disk storage is required.
- It supports most image formats.
- It comes with an automatic background removal tool which helps in removing backgrounds easily.
Disadvantages of Canva
- Internet connection is a must to use Canva.
- It does not have masking and layering features.
GIMP is an open-source graphic editor which is used to edit and manipulate images and free-form drawings. It was developed by the GIMP development team. Initially, it was released in 1998 and its stable version came in 2021. It supports various operating systems like Windows, Solaris, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. It is developed using C programming languages. Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis is their original author.
Advantages of GIMP
- It is free and open-source software so no money is required to use it.
- It comes with a simple interface that is easy to use so novice users can also learn it easily.
- Images of different formats can be easily imported and edited in this.
- It does not require any graphic card and runs on minimum specifications.
Limitations of GIMP
- Photoshop and Illustrator files need conversion before opening in GIMP.
- It does not allow opening RAW files.
- The cropping feature of GIMP hangs many times.
Following is a table of differences between Canva and Gimp :
|
Canva |
GIMP |
|
| 1. | It can be understood as a graphic designing platform to create visual content for different purposes. | It can be understood as an image editor which is used for editing free form and raster images. |
| 2. | It was developed by Canva Incorporation. | It was developed by the GIMP development team. |
| 3. | Its subscription starts at $12.99 per month. | It is available for free. |
| 4. | It is not open-source software. | It is open-source software. |
| 5. | It is available in nearly 100 languages. | It is available in 82 languages. |
| 6. | It uses PNGs and SVGs file format to save files. | It uses XCF file format as default to save files. |
| 7. | It is a web app so it does not require much memory. | It requires less memory nearly 1 GB RAM. |
| 8. | It provides better customer support as compared to Gimp. | It provides good customer support. |