Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Canva VS Discourse

Compare Canva VS Discourse and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Canva logo Canva

Canva is a graphic-design platform with a drag-and-drop interface to create print or visual content while providing templates, images, and fonts. Canva makes graphic design more straightforward and accessible regardless of skill level.

Discourse logo Discourse

Discourse is an open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.
  • Canva Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-10

Canva is a web-based design platform allowing users to quickly and easily create stunning visuals. With various templates and tools, businesses can create professional designs for social media posts, presentations, flyers, and more. Canva also allows users to save templates and collaborate with other designers, making it great for teams working together on projects. Not only is Canva easy to use, but it is also affordable, making it an excellent option for businesses on a budget. Use Canva Teams to connect with your team members and work on a project from different locations, making tracking progress and managing deadlines easy. You can also upload and store files, assign tasks, and communicate with each other in one centralized place. With Canva Teams, you can quickly and easily create stunning visually pleasing visuals that effectively communicate the project's message.

  • Discourse Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-13

Canva

Website
canva.com
$ Details
freemium $12.99 / Monthly (Pro)
Release Date
2013 August
Startup details
Country
Australia
City
Sydney
Founder(s)
Mel Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, Cameron Adams
Employees
2,000 - 4,999

Canva features and specs

  • Document Creation
    Writing AI
  • Custom Prints
    Over 30 products to pick from
  • Presentations
    magic shortcuts, animations, recording
  • Websites
    Performance Tracking
  • Video Editor
    One-click video background remover, animations
  • Social Media Content Creation
    Resizing options, content planner
  • Whiteboards
    Flowcharts, planning, and brainstorming
  • HEIC to JPG Converter
    Convert HEIC to JPG to easily share images on any platform or device using Canva's HEIC to JPG converter
  • PDF to JPG Converter
    Convert PDF to JPG to easily share images on any platform or device using Canva's PDF to JPG Converter

Discourse features and specs

  • Modern Interface
    Discourse provides a clean, intuitive, and responsive user interface that works well on both desktops and mobile devices.
  • Open Source
    Discourse is open source software, allowing for customization, self-hosting, and community contributions, which can reduce costs and increase flexibility.
  • Rich Features
    The platform includes a variety of built-in features such as threaded replies, real-time notifications, and community moderation tools.
  • Scalability
    Discourse is designed to handle small communities as well as large, active forums, making it suitable for a variety of use cases.
  • Security
    Regular updates and a dedicated security team help keep the software secure against vulnerabilities.
  • Integration and APIs
    Discourse offers extensive APIs and integrates well with various other services and plugins, facilitating seamless extensions and automation.

Possible disadvantages of Discourse

  • Resource Intensive
    Discourse can be resource-heavy, which may require significant server capacity and maintenance, especially for large communities.
  • Hosting Costs
    While you can self-host Discourse, the server and maintenance costs can be high. Managed hosting plans provided by Discourse can also be expensive.
  • Complex Setup
    Installing and configuring Discourse can be complex, particularly for those without technical expertise in server management and Ruby on Rails.
  • Learning Curve
    Users and administrators might face a steeper learning curve compared to more traditional forum software due to its modern interface and extensive features.
  • Limited Built-in Themes
    The default theme options are somewhat limited, and extensive customization requires knowledge of front-end development.
  • Dependency on PostgreSQL and Redis
    Discourse relies on PostgreSQL for its database and Redis for caching, which might complicate setup and maintenance compared to solutions that use simpler database architectures.

Canva videos

Canva Review

More videos:

  • Review - Canva Pro | 7 Reasons To Upgrade To Canva Pro

Discourse videos

Why We Chose The Discourse Platform For Our Forums

More videos:

  • Review - Why Discourse is the Best Forum Software Out There (No, Really) | Location Rebel
  • Review - A Grammar Review for Discourse Analysis

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Canva and Discourse)
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Forums And Forum Software
Graphic Design Software
100 100%
0% 0
Forums
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Canva and Discourse. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Canva and Discourse

Canva Reviews

  1. Yansiliang
    · Working at Xspiral ·
    Good

    good

  2. Abizer Izzy
    Best Blog Image Generator

    I consistently use Canva to create featured images for my blog. The free version itself is amazing.

    🏁 Competitors: DesignCap
    👍 Pros:    Free elements|Free templates|Easy logo creation
  3. Arshia Jabbar
    · Marketing intern at PITB Incubation Wing ·
    A app where you make your profile by your own

    User friendly app for beginners, also their features are easy to use, and they have fun features too. Also they have multiple templates whatever you make you have many options. Also they support beginners in start.

    🏁 Competitors: PicMonkey
    👍 Pros:    Variety of graphics|Advanced features
    👎 Cons:    Download music from deezer premium

12 Best Free PosterMyWall Alternatives and Competitors
Canva is a user-friendly tool that helps people create stunning, creative content without any hassle. It’s great for making social site images, posters, videos, websites, and much more. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, Canva can boost your design skills.
Source: mockey.ai
Top 10 Best Animoto Alternatives For Stunning Video Creation
The graphic de­sign king offers more than images now. Canva provide­s video editing capabilities also. Add move­ment to social campaigns. A library of premade vide­o styles awaits within its interface. Making e­ye-catching videos is approachable for all skill le­vels through Canva.
Source: sharetool.net
Top 6 Alternatives to Animoto to Create Videos Online
Are there any Canva alternatives to make an amazing graphic design? Luckily, this post will provide you with the 5 best Canva alternatives. Read this post now!
The 13 Best Free PDF Editors (February 2024)
Unlike most free tools, Canva lets you fully edit text, and you don't need to sign up to do it. Click any text area to change what the text says and to adjust the font type, size, and color. You can also add hyperlinks to text and other objects, and special fonts are available to easily type out your signature.
10 Best AI Background Removers for Flawless Edits in 2023
Canva offers two primary pricing tiers. For the individual, Canva Pro is priced at $14.99 per month or $119.99 for a whole year. Should you need a platform for collaborative work, Canva caters to teams as well. It offers a team package at $29.99 per month - this price covers up to five team members. For an annual option, teams can avail it at $300 per year, good for the...
Source: picofme.io

Discourse Reviews

20 Telegram Alternatives to Chat With in 2024
Discourse is a basic forum function that could be an alternative to Telegram if you want to stick to text discussions. It's pretty analog, missing both video and livestreaming tools. Instead, Discourse is a basic community that lets you organize discussions--it feels a bit like having your own reddit or Quora.
18 Best Discord Alternatives 2020 | Expert Reviews
Discourse comes in a couple of flavours. You can self-host it yourself in which case the software is free, and you simply need to sign up for server space, or you can pay Discourse for a hosted-for-you option, though self-hosting is a lot cheaper the premium option takes care of the technical side.
IndieHackers: Best forum software
I used Flarum when trying to get a community set up for my product (ended up abandoning it to revisit when we have a larger customer base). It worked fairly well and I enjoyed it but it's definitely beta and unless you're fairly tech savvy it's not quite worth the setup / maintenance. Lots of config changes, crashes, huge issues with plugins, and some features missing. I'd...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Canva should be more popular than Discourse. It has been mentiond 226 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Canva mentions (226)

  • Here's how to build a Canva like UI using Reactjs
    Chances are, you’ve used Canva — maybe to whip up a poster, design an Instagram story, or create something that just looks good without breaking being a professional designer. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • The Best 100 Free UI/UX Resources for Every Designer & Developer
    Canva Canva.com Drag-and-drop design platform with free templates for social media, presentations, and more. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • CSS is Emotional: z-index and the Hierarchy of Needs
    Imagine shuffling papers on a desk. Even though the desk is flat, papers stack in layers—some on top, others below. That's exactly what z-index does on websites. If you're familiar with tools like Canva, PowerPoint, Photoshop, or Figma, you know this feature as "Send to Back" or more accurately, "Arrange" or "Position". - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • My tech stack for startups in 2025
    I'm continuing to use Adobe's Creative Cloud. Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro are tools that I already know my way around so I'm keeping those close. I know that many people love how quick and easy it is to get something done with tools like Canva or Figma. I think whatever you are comfortable with and enables you to move fast you should keep using. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • How I promoted my open source repo to 6k stars in 6 months
    Now, I’m not a designer, so for the promo images I just used Canva templates to create the promotional images in a style that seemed to fit. I think they came out good enough. What I was mostly going for was consistency. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
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Discourse mentions (23)

  • Qilin: A Starter Project Template For Every Open Source Project
    GitHub Discussions can also be a great place for support as long as these are regularly monitored. Another option along the same lines is Discourse and the Open Source Matrix which is used by quite a few Open Source and community-based projects. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: How to run an old-school mailing list?
    A lot of communities use [Discourse ](https://discourse.org). [LPSF](https://forum lpsf.org) migrated to it when Yahoo Groups was discontinued. Some of the advantages are that it's open source, self-hostable, and can be configured to work as both a traditional mailing list and modern forum. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • My Fediverse use – I'm hosting everything myself – PeerTube, Mastodon and Lemmy
    More like https://discourse.org/. You can run it yourself, but I can also just have them ding a credit card every month and not think about it again (I do this for a community). - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge
    Discourse perhaps? I've seen it in use in a few places; it has a modern look and feel to it at least. https://discourse.org/. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • So Long, Twitter and Reddit
    I fully agree with you see my comment here[0] -- I think you may have misread my comment, it says "Discourse" (as in the forum software[1]), not Discord. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37245220. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Canva and Discourse, you can also consider the following products

Piktochart - Piktochart for Business Storytelling

Flarum - Flarum is the next-generation forum software that makes online discussion fun. It's simple, fast, and free.

PicMonkey - PicMonkey is a feature-rich online photo editor that works right in your browser; no downloads...

phpBB - Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is a cheap, credit-card sized computer. The official website uses phpBB for their discussion forums. phpBB is not affiliated with nor responsible for any of the sites listed on the showcase.

Adobe Photoshop - Adobe Photoshop is a webtop application for editing images and photos online.

Vanilla Forums - Build an engaging community forum using Vanilla's modern cloud forum software.