Canva was once seen as struggling to keep pace with Adobe a few months back. However, it swiftly dispelled those doubts. Canva has upped its ante. On its tenth anniversary, the Australian design company launched Magic Studio, a powerful suite of AI tools designed to simplify design creation for businesses. 

Magic Studio significantly enhances Canva’s AI capabilities, introducing innovative tools like Magic Switch, Magic Grab, Magic Expand, Magic Morph, Magic Alt Text, and Magic Animate. These tools leverage Canva’s in-house AI technology along with partnerships with industry leaders like Google and OpenAI, offering users a seamless and advanced design experience.

This development came just a week after Adobe launched its latest FireFly web application. Following a six-month beta phase, Firefly’s advanced features are now integrated into Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Express, and Adobe Experience Cloud and are now accessible for commercial purposes.

Canva Vs Adobe FireFly 

Magic Studio marks Canva’s bold stance against rivals such as Adobe Express and Microsoft Designer. While Adobe Firefly appeared promising in recent months, Canva’s innovative AI tools have positioned it as a strong contender, ready to give its competitors a run for their money. 

Under the Magic Studio, Canva introduced Magic Media where users can seamlessly create images and videos from text. Unlike Adobe Firefly which was dependent on its in-house capabilities, Canva has outsourced image generation processes to OpenAI’s DALL·E and Google’s Imagen. 

Moreover, Canva partnered with Runway bringing Runway’s cutting-edge Gen-2 AI technology directly into Canva’s ecosystem to create videos from text. Notably, as of now Adobe Express does not have the capability to create videos. A user of X said “This is an awesome power play between the two companies. Canva already is an amazing tool. I’ll be curious to see how Adobe will respond to this collaboration.Who knows maybe they will absorb PIKA”. 

Canva’s move to merge DALL·E and Imagen into one platform is a smart choice, eliminating the hassle of switching between various image generation tools. Presently, DALL·E 3 stands as one of the top image generation tools in the market, rivaling competitors like Midjourney.

Meanwhile, Adobe FireFly which is integrated into Adobe’s Creative Cloud flagship products like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Adobe After Effect is developed with the help of NVIDIA Picasso cloud service. 

Adobe’s FireFly was trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content, and public domain content where copyright has expired. However, it seems this approach has not only handicapped Firefly’s image generation capabilities, but resulted in an inferior product. Recently, many users have expressed dissatisfaction with the image quality produced by Adobe FireFly when compared to Midjourney and Dall·E.

According to recent reports, Adobe is planning to introduce a new photo editing tool dubbed Project Stardust. The tool automatically identifies individual objects in regular photographs, allowing them to be easily moved around and changed. Surprisingly, it is pretty much similar to Canva’s Magic Grab. Magic Grab lets users pick and separate the main part of a photo. They can then edit, move, or change the size of this part, and add text, stickers, or other things to the picture. 

It appears that Canva and Adobe are having a stiff competition over the features they have. FireFly’s AI models for images and text effects now support prompts in over 100 languages. In contrast, Canva’s Magic Switch translates designs into 100+ languages seamlessly within the page interface.

Which is users’ favourite 

Canva currently boasts of about 150 million active users all around the world according to the company’s blog. This shows that Canva’s user base has surged to nearly four times that of Adobe’s estimated 26 million Creative Cloud subscribers. Interestingly, Adobe doesn’t disclose exact user numbers, only the value of its subscription business, making the comparison approximate. Apart from the features, pricing plans also play a key role in deciding which platform users opt for. 

Canva’s Magic Studio tools are accessible to Canva Pro and Canva for Teams users at a monthly fee of $14.99, providing unlimited usage. Free users can access select features with limitations, including 500 monthly usages of Magic Edit per user, along with Magic Alt Text, Beat Sync, and Canva Assistant. 

Meanwhile, Adobe Express offers two plans: free and premium. The premium plan for individuals costs $9.99 per month. However, for users or organizations that have an Adobe ‘Creative Cloud All Apps’ license, Adobe Express comes included with your subscription, which costs $54.99 to $84.99 per month. However, it is important to note that starting November 1, 2023, the price of the Adobe Creative Cloud single apps and All Apps plans will increase in select countries. 

Interestingly, Adobe recently introduced a new credit-based model for generative AI across Creative Cloud. After the plan-specific number of “fast” Generative Credits is consumed, subscribers can continue to generate content at slower speeds, or buy additional “fast” Generative Credits through a Firefly paid subscription plan.

It will be intriguing to see what Adobe unveils at Adobe Max next week, starting on October 10th to challlenge Canva.