Top 10 Graphic Design Software (2026)

Canva has the highest score on this page, 96. It covers 20 of the 21 capabilities in full. It is built on templates: the free plan alone holds more than 1.6 million, according to Moda. It runs in a browser, as a desktop app for Windows and Mac, and on phones and tablets. Several people can edit the same design at once.

Canva's site answered every request with a bot check on 12 November 2026, so its facts come from other sites and from Canva's own app store listings. Each price was confirmed on a second site. Pro costs $18 a month for one person, as read on Moda and SocialRails. A Pro account serves one person only. A team pays for Business, at $25 per person a month.

The free plan serves one person, with 5GB of storage and 1 brand kit, the saved colours, fonts and logos of a brand, limited to 3 colours. Font upload, one-click resize, SVG export and print PDF in CMYK need Pro. The one gap is precise vector drawing: the sources read describe no pen tool, the tool that draws curves point by point, in Canva itself. For that work they point to Affinity, a separate free app from the same company.

Adobe Photoshop is a photo editor at its core, and it covers 19 of the 21 capabilities in full. It retouches, removes backgrounds and fills part of an image from a text prompt, a tool Adobe calls Generative Fill. It works in layers, stacked sheets that each hold one part of the image and change on their own. Its pen tool draws vector paths. It exports SVG, print PDF in PDF/X (a standard that print shops accept) and video from a timeline.

Adobe's plan pages refused the browser used by this site, so the prices come from other sites. Photoshop alone costs $22.99 a month on an annual plan paid monthly, as read on Dupple and confirmed by Joseph Nilo. That price is a one-year commitment paid in twelve instalments. Dupple notes that Adobe's Photoshop page lists no month-to-month option. The Photography plan, at $19.99 a month, adds Lightroom. A team licence costs $37.99 a month.

Photoshop runs as a desktop app, in Chrome, Edge and Firefox, and on phones. The web version is included in every plan. Real-time co-editing exists only as a public beta. No one-click resize to other formats was found in Adobe's help pages. The desktop app has a free trial, not a free plan, and the phone app is free with paid premium features.

Figma scores 93, just behind Canva and Photoshop. Of the 21 capabilities checked, it has 18 in full and 2 in part. It runs in a browser and as a desktop app for macOS and Windows. Its drawing tools, called Figma Draw, add brushes and textures inside a design file. Its templates and stock photos come through Figma Buzz, a part of Figma still in beta.

Only the Full seat can edit design files. A seat is one paid user account. On the Professional plan the Full seat is $20 a month on monthly billing, or $16 a month on annual billing. The Collab seat, at $5, works fully in FigJam boards and Figma Slides but can only view and comment in design files. People who only view and comment need no paid seat at all.

The free Starter plan holds 3 design files and keeps 30 days of version history. That is enough to try Figma, not to run a project. Figma does not open Photoshop files. Its PDF export has no documented print settings, so a print shop may ask for a different file.

Kittl is a browser design tool built around print products: its templates start from shirts, posters, social posts and packaging. It pairs a pen tool for vector paths with AI image and video tools. It exports PDF and JPEG in CMYK, the colour mode print shops ask for. Kittl scores 89, with only 3 of the capabilities missing.

Pro costs $19 a month, or $14 a month when paid for a year. It includes 2,000 AI tokens a month, the units that each AI image or video spends. Each extra editor pays the same plan price, and viewers are free.

The free plan is narrow. It holds 5 projects and exports PNG or JPG at 800 pixels and 72 dpi, too small for print. It is for personal use only. Kittl has no app to install and no mobile editor, and it does not open Photoshop files: uploads are SVG, PNG and JPEG.

Visme is made for documents more than illustrations: presentations, infographics and reports built from templates. It has animation, version history and live co-editing, and misses only 2 of the 21 capabilities outright. Its drawing covers shapes, lines and freehand strokes; no pen tool for precise curves is documented. It does not export SVG, and it does not open Photoshop files.

Starter is priced at $29 a month per person when paid monthly. Billed annually, the same plan costs $12.25 a month, or $147 a year. Starter downloads JPG, PNG and PDF only. Video, GIF and PowerPoint downloads start with Business, at $59 a month per person.

The free Basic plan has 500MB of storage, 50 pages per project and 10 AI credits a month. Its card lists no download format: downloads start with Starter. Visme runs in a browser and as a desktop app for Mac and Windows. Its phone app is on iOS only.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is a desktop suite for Windows and Mac aimed at print work. It pairs vector drawing with Corel PHOTO-PAINT for photos. Its print export sets crop marks, the lines that show where to cut the paper. It opens Photoshop files, although some layer effects do not survive the import. Of the 21 capabilities checked, 15 are fully there.

The Monthly Plan costs $39 a month. The Annual Plan has a list price of $269 a year, the standard price before offers. On 12 November 2026 the page showed 30% off its first year. That offer brings the first year to $185. The one-time licence, paid once and kept, was offered at $379 instead of $549. There is no free plan, only a 15-day trial without a card.

Subscribers also get CorelDRAW Web, a browser version, and 2,000 AI credits a month. No brand kit, one-click resize, animation or live co-editing was found on Corel's site. No phone app is listed.

Picsart is a photo editor first, with AI tools for removing backgrounds, generating images and making short videos. It runs on the web, on iOS and Android, and as a free Windows app. It opens Photoshop files, which six of the ten tools here do. Its score of 80 mixes 13 capabilities in full with 7 in part.

Pro costs $15 a month on monthly billing. The page shows a saving of $54 with yearly billing. Ultra costs $75 a month and is the only plan that adds team seats. Picsart does not publish a price per extra seat.

The partial points matter for design work. Vector tools are described only for the Windows app. The editor exports PNG and PDF, with no print settings listed. Real-time co-editing in the editor is announced as coming soon. No version history was found on Picsart's site.

Adobe Illustrator is a vector drawing app: shapes are drawn from curves, so a logo stays sharp at any size. It draws with a pen tool, opens Photoshop files with their layers and exports SVG. Its print PDF sets printer's marks and bleed, the margin printed past the cut line. Its AI tool Text to Vector Graphic turns a text prompt into editable vector art. It covers 14 of the 21 capabilities in full and 5 in part.

Adobe's plan pages refused the browser used by this site, so the prices come from other sites. Illustrator costs $22.99 a month on an annual plan paid monthly, as read on ThePricer and confirmed by Photutorial. A team licence costs $37.99 a month on an annual contract. The plan includes 25 generative credits a month, according to Photutorial. There is no free plan, only a 7-day trial.

The partial points show where Illustrator stops. It crops photos but has no retouching tools. Its browser version is a beta with fewer tools, and artboards, the pages of a design, are resized by hand. It exports no animation, and only one person at a time can edit a shared file.

Sketch is a design app for the Mac that works offline or in real time with a team. It has a pen tool, real-time co-editing and comments. Its templates cover presentations, social posts and business cards. No built-in AI image tools were found on its site. Its score is 79.

Designing needs a Mac running macOS 15 or newer. On Windows or Linux, people can only view, inspect and comment in the web app. Photoshop files open as one flattened image, without their layers.

Standard costs $14 per editor a month billed monthly, or $144 a year. An editor is a person who can change designs, and viewers are free. Sketch also sells a Mac-only licence at $120 per seat, paid once, with one year of updates. That licence leaves out collaboration and the web app.

Pixlr is a set of photo editors that run in a browser, with desktop apps for Windows and Mac and phone apps. Its paid plans start at the lowest price on this page. It opens layered Photoshop files and removes backgrounds in one click. Its score is 74: it exports no SVG, has no live co-editing, and no comments or brand kit were found on its site.

Plus is $2.49 per month on the monthly plan. It removes ads, lifts the daily save limit and adds 80 AI credits a month. Premium, at $9.99 a month, adds 1,000 AI credits and the library of fonts, templates and animations. The free version has ads and a daily limit on saves, whose number Pixlr does not publish.

The limits are on output. Pixlr exports JPEG, PNG and WebP, not SVG. Its help centre says the web editors compress images to 72 dpi, which is too low for most print. Pixlr does not offer real-time co-editing, and no comment feature was found on its site. Pixlr refunds no subscription once paid, so the free version is the place to test it first.