Canva not working? Check out these 5 apps you can use meanwhile

It’s a designer’s worst nightmare — you’re racing against a deadline, and your go-to design platform suddenly stops working. That’s exactly what happened on June 21, 2025, when Canva faced a sudden outage, leaving users around the world stranded mid-project. According to Downdetector, over 400 outage reports had been logged by Saturday evening, and frustrated users wasted no time heading to X (formerly Twitter) to voice their concerns — and, of course, drop some memes.

One user expressed their frustration over being unable to meet deadlines due to Canva’s outage.

me right now bcs apparently canva is down and i’m behind my work pic.twitter.com/gnioWF8wBO

— si eneng (@nengninii) June 21, 2025

While another complained that the downtime interrupted their attempt to update fan-made photo cards.

IS CANVA DOWN. PLS NOT WHEN I'M TRYNA UPDATE THE RUNSEOKJIN MINI PCs pic.twitter.com/9BwfXgdFYF

— ( j )⁷ (@912daze) June 21, 2025

Others pointed out the irony that Canva’s official status page reported no issues, despite the platform clearly being down for many users.

Canva seems to be down but their status page shows everything’s working fine?? @canva what’s going on?? I’m trying to do my work!!! pic.twitter.com/yes2C9IwG6

— Olivia of UK Beauty Room (@UKBeautyRoom) June 21, 2025

While the app is working fine again, here are 5 apps you can try when Canva is down.

1. Adobe Express
Adobe Express is a powerful web and mobile-based design tool that integrates seamlessly with the Adobe ecosystem. It offers a wide range of design assets, fonts, and templates, allowing users to create standout content. Its drag-and-drop interface is beginner-friendly, and tools like background removal and AI-generated recommendations are impressive. However, it has fewer templates than Canva, and some features require an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

2. Snappa
Snappa is a user-friendly, web-based graphic design tool ideal for beginners and small businesses. It gives access to all templates, graphics, and design features—even on the free plan. The interface is clean and intuitive, making it easy to create marketing visuals quickly. However, the free plan allows only three downloads per month, which can be limiting for frequent users or larger-scale content creators.

3. Pixlr
Pixlr offers a suite of creative tools, including Pixlr X and Pixlr E for quick or advanced editing. Pixlr Designer provides Canva-style templates that users can customise for social media, ads, and more. It's free to use, with basic AI features and a user-friendly interface. However, its tools are divided across different apps and the free version limits users to three saves per day, which may be restrictive.

4. Visme
Visme is an all-in-one visual content creation tool tailored for businesses, educators, and professionals. It goes beyond basic graphics, offering interactive elements, infographics, presentations, and over 30 data widgets. Its intuitive drag-and-drop editor is bolstered by over 10 AI tools. While feature-rich, Visme is more enterprise-focused, and its best features are behind a paywall, making it less ideal for casual users seeking simple templates.

5. Stencil
Stencil is a lightweight, browser-based design tool designed for the quick creation of social media and blog graphics. It features over 1,350 ready-made templates and a large library of stock photos and icons. Users can easily resize projects and export designs in seconds. While its simple interface is a plus, it lacks the depth and variety of templates seen in Canva, and some users find the workspace too small.