IMG.LY vs. Canva

For full customization, automation, and data ownership, there’s only one choice—see why IMG.LY CreativeEditor SDK is the best alternative to Canva Connect API.

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500M+

video and photo creations are powered by IMG.LY every month

Your partner in crime

What makes IMG.LY the best Canva Connect alternative?

Full Customization & White-Labeling

A fully customizable, white-label solution where you control the UI, branding, and functionality

Extensibility & Plugin System

Supports custom plugins and extensibility, allowing businesses to tailor the editor to specific use cases.

Openness & Interoperability

Import Photoshop (PSD), Illustrator (AI), and InDesign (INDD) files and export scene files for work-in-progress editing.

Creative Automation & Headless Mode

Offers headless mode for programmatic design generation, batch processing, and automation.

What Our Clients Say About Us

IMG.LY’s solution engineers did a deep dive on our business case and helped us implement a custom print kiosk UI.

André Albrecht

Digital Solution Manager

Brother

Our customers create over a million personalized postcards each year choosing from over hundreds of templates with IMG.LY’s SDK. It’s the only solution that allows us to build our own specialized, on-brand UI that integrates seamlessly with our platform.

Jeanine Zaalberg

Product Manager

Swiss Post

Our app has photo-editing at the very core of its experience and the editor has been invaluable in making that vision happen. There are no other tools on the market up to the quality of PE.SDK.

Toby Green

Lead Developer

Elbi

IMG.LY vs. Canva at a Glance

Customizability

Fully modular, white-label solution with plugin support for tailored workflows.

Limited customization; primarily integrates Canva's existing features into external platforms

White-labeling

Completely white-label, allowing seamless integration with your branding.

Canva branding is mandatory, limiting white-labeling

Templating & Dynamic Editing

Versatile API to modify templates programmatically, allowing dynamic text, image replacement, resizing.

No programmatic template modification, templates are static.

Custom Workflows

Fully customizable workflows; integrate with any CMS, DAM, PIM, e-commerce platforms

Fixed workflows tied to Canva’s ecosystem; no ability to modify the editing process or integrate deeply with external systems.

Creative Automation

Supports dynamic content insertion, batch processing, and generative AI for automation

Limited support via Autofill API which populates templates with form data.

Extensibility

Fully extendable via a plugin system to add unique features.

Limited / no support for custom plugin outside of Canva’s platform

Platform Support

Cross-platform support for Web, iOS, Android, and server-side; includes offline capabilities.

Web-based, online-only, no offline support.

Privacy

Client side processing and offline support ensures data control and privacy compliance

Requires hosting data on Canva’s servers, no on-premise option.

Openness & File Compatibility

Can import Photoshop (PSD), InDesign (INDD), and Illustrator (AI) files, and export scene files for saving work-in-progress.

No ability to import external design files (e.g., PSD, AI, INDD). Only exports finished designs as PDFs, PNGs, etc.

Storage & Data Ownership

Full control over design storage, can be hosted on your servers or infrastructure, ensuring data privacy and ownership.

User designs are stored on Canva’s servers; users must have a Canva account to create or edit designs.

Everything you need

Key Capabilities

Learn more about some of the functionalities of IMG.LY’s SDK

Editing

Transform

Crop, flip, and rotate with ease. Preset crop ratios to common formats.

Filters

Over 60 state-of-the-art filters allow users to control the style and mood of their creations.

Adjustments

Fine-tune designs with an exhaustive set of adjustment operations such as brightness and contrast.

Effect & Blur

Add a unique mood to designs with effects & blur.

Element Snapping

Snap stickers and text to control points for more precise placements.

Blend Modes & Grouping

Define the blending behavior and grouping.

Undo & Redo

Allow users to undo and redo all editing operations.

Printing

Cutout Lines

Create and customize cutout shapes for web-to-print.

CMYK/ Spot color support

Integrate CMYK and Pantone color spaces, customized color libraries, including your brand's colors.

Templating

Design Templates

Create role based design templates to jumpstart users’ creativity.

Text Variables

Enable mass personalization and creative automation by embedding variables.

Placeholders & Lockable Designs

Constrain templates to guide your users’ design and ensure brand consistency.

Configurable Presets

Enforce a consistent aesthetic across all creations by using preset filters, adjustments, fonts, and crop ratios.

Customizability

Build Custom UIs

Use the headless API powering all creative operations to implement an entirely custom UI.

Theming

Change the editor theme to fit seamlessly with your app.

Media Libraries

Set up custom libraries that are easily sortable.

Toolbar Customization

Reposition toolbar elements, change icons, or rename tools to fit your use case.

Internationalization

Add support for additional languages, and customize any button label.

Export Options

Export designs in JPG, PNG, or PDF with custom quality, page ranges, and dimensions.

And there’s more

Check Out Other Use Cases

Learn more about related social media solutions.

Web2Print Designer

Elevate your Web2Print application with best-in-class Design Editor.

Learn More Open Showcase

Creative Automation

Automate & scale content creation with ease.

Learn More Open Showcase

Variable Data Printing

Enable mass-personalization in your design & print workflows.

Learn More Open Showcase

Photo Prints

Provide seamless design experience and inspire users with easily personalized templates.

Learn More Open Showcase

Print Personalization

Streamline personalization for your print products.

Learn More Open Showcase

Apparel Designer

Whether t-shirts, hoodies or caps, build for any use case, deploy on any platform.

Learn More Open Showcase

Explore Our Demos

See how IMG.LY looks and feels.

Check out our

demos

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Reach out to our sales team or start a free trial.

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IMG.LY vs. Canva

500M+

What makes IMG.LY the best Canva Connect alternative?

Full Customization & White-Labeling

Extensibility & Plugin System

Openness & Interoperability

Creative Automation & Headless Mode

What Our Clients Say About Us

IMG.LY vs. Canva at a Glance

Features

IMG.LY

Canva

Customizability

White-labeling

Templating & Dynamic Editing

Custom Workflows

Creative Automation

Extensibility

Platform Support

Privacy

Openness & File Compatibility

Storage & Data Ownership

Everything you need

Key Capabilities

Editing

Transform

Filters

Adjustments

Effect & Blur

Element Snapping

Blend Modes & Grouping

Undo & Redo

Printing

Cutout Lines

CMYK/ Spot color support

Templating

Design Templates

Text Variables

Placeholders & Lockable Designs

Configurable Presets

Customizability

Build Custom UIs

Theming

Media Libraries

Toolbar Customization

Internationalization

Export Options

Check Out Other Use Cases

Web2Print Designer

Creative Automation

Variable Data Printing

Photo Prints

Print Personalization

Apparel Designer

More from IMG.LY

IMG.LY for Brands & Agencies

IMG.LY for Marketing Tech

Camera SDK

Photo Editor SDK

Creative Editor SDK

IMG.LY for Social Media

IMG.LY for DAM

Video Editor SDK

More to discover

Explore Our Demos

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