vs
Canva vs Penpot
Canva scores higher overall (8.5 vs 6.8), but the right pick depends on what you need.
Choose Canva if…
Marketers, small businesses and anyone making social, print or presentation graphics fast
8.5/10★★★★★Full review →Choose Penpot if…
Teams that want an open-source, self-hostable Figma alternative and bring their own AI agents
6.8/10★★★★★Full review →Side by side
| Canva | Penpot | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 8.5/10 | 6.8/10 |
| Rank in category | #1 of 10 | #9 of 10 |
| Price | Freemium · from $144/year | Freemium · from $7/month |
| Free version | 1,000+ design types, millions of templates and basic AI tools | Professional plan free: unlimited files and teams, all tools |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, Desktop app | Web, Other |
| Made by | Canva | Kaleidos |
| Design quality | 7.5 | 6 |
| Ease of use | 9.5 | 7 |
| Features | 8 | 5 |
| Value for money | 8.5 | 9.5 |
| Platforms | 10 | 6.5 |
Canva: what the AI does
- Canva AI image generation and design assistant
- Magic Layers (flat design to editable layers)
- Magic Write text generation
- Background removal and image enhancement
- Very easy to learn
- Huge template and asset library
- Excellent apps on every platform
- Brand Kits keep teams on-brand
- Not built for real UI and product design
- Premium AI tools draw from a capped monthly allowance
- Templates can make designs look generic
Penpot: what the AI does
- MCP server so AI agents can design in Penpot
- AI workflows for code-to-design and design-to-code
- Native design tokens
- Code inspection in CSS, HTML, SVG and JSON
- Free and open source with no file limits
- Self-hosting option
- Open standards and design tokens
- No built-in prompt-to-design generator
- AI features need an external agent set up
- Smaller plugin and template ecosystem than Figma