Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Canva VS MainWP

Compare Canva VS MainWP 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.

MainWP logo MainWP

A Free, Open-source, & Self-hosted one-stop solution to manage Unlimited WordPress websites from a single dashboard. MainWP is the only management plugin with 2000+ โญโญโญโญโญ reviews on WP.org
  • 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.

  • MainWP Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-02

MainWP is a suite of open-source self-hosted plugins & extensions for users that have multiple WordPress sites and want to control them from one central location. This includes sites on different hosts or servers.

Once you have connected your sites (called Child Sites) to your Dashboard, you can do almost anything from your MainWP Dashboard that you would be able to do from your Child sites wp-admin.

Combined with the MainWP extensions, here's a glimpse of what you can do to manage hundreds of WordPress websites effortlessly:

๐Ÿ’ฐ Free Forever

๐Ÿท White Label

โ™พ๏ธ Connect Unlimited Websites

๐Ÿ‘ฅ Organize Sites in Groups

๐Ÿ•’ Uptime & Site Health Monitoring

๐Ÿšฉ Lighthouse

๐Ÿ”„ Effortless Bulk Updates

๐Ÿšง Staging, Clone

๐Ÿ“ Client Reports

๐Ÿ”’ Full Privacy, Self-hosted

๐Ÿ”— Security & Backup Integrations

๐Ÿ˜Œ Bulk Content Management (Draft, Publish, Edit, Trash)

๐Ÿ’ฌ Comments

๐Ÿ›  Maintenance

๐Ÿ›ก Security

๐Ÿ“ˆ SEO, Traffic, etc. Analytics

๐Ÿš€ Rocket

And a lot more ๐Ÿ‘‰ https://mainwp.com/mainwp-extensions/

The MainWP plugin is 100% FREE, forever! However, MainWP Pro offers a wide range of 30+ premium Extensions at a single price. The extensions aren't required, but they extend the functionality to improve your workflows.

During the subscription, you'll get Priority Support, Important security & performance updates, and access to all new extensions.

  • Monthly: $29/mon

  • Yearly: $199/year

  • Lifetime: $499 (One-time)

Canva

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

MainWP

Website
mainwp.com
$ Details
freemium $29.0 / Monthly (32+ Premium Extensions & Priority Support)
Platforms
Browser Web Wordpress WooCommerce
Release Date
2014 January

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

MainWP features and specs

  • Monitoring
  • Backups
  • Staging
  • Google Analytics
  • Core Web Vitals
  • Client Reporting
  • SEO
  • White label
  • WordPress plugin

Canva videos

Canva Review

More videos:

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

MainWP videos

How to Manage Multiple Websites with ManageWP on Wordpress (MainWP Alternative)

More videos:

  • Review - Manage and control all your WordPress sites with MainWP
  • Review - Using MainWP for Client Website Maintenance (a biased review)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Canva and MainWP)
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0
WordPress
0 0%
100% 100
AI
100 100%
0% 0
Tool
0 0%
100% 100

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Canva and MainWP.

What makes your product unique?

MainWP's answer:

It's Open Source, Self-hosted, and privacy-focused WordPress plugin.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

MainWP's answer:

Digital Agencies, Freelancers, Developers, in fact, everyone who has multiple WordPress websites.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

MainWP's answer:

It's Privacy-Focused and affordableโ€”single pricing to get everything.

Who are some of the biggest customers of your product?

MainWP's answer:

Can't disclose that, however, as per our public stats on wp .org, 10k+ users are managing over 600,000 WordPress sites which makes 60 sites on average.

User comments

Share your experience with using Canva and MainWP. 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 MainWP

Canva Reviews

  1. Ai-doc-suite
    ยท Working at AI Doc Suite ยท
    Powerful design platform with great usability

    Canva is one of the most accessible design platforms available today. It significantly lowers the barrier to creating presentations, social graphics, marketing materials, and even short videos.

    The interface is intuitive, especially for non-designers. Templates are well organized, and collaboration features make it practical for teams.

    Strengths: - Very easy to use - Large template library - Strong collaboration tools - Fast cloud-based workflow

    Limitations: - Advanced layout control is sometimes restricted - Heavier projects can feel limited compared to professional desktop tools

    Overall, Canva succeeds at simplifying design for everyday creators while maintaining enough flexibility for professional use cases.

    ๐Ÿ Competitors: Google Docs, Notion, Smallpdf, Adobe Express
  2. AbigailLaurens
    Easy and Versatile Design Tool โ€” Great for Quick Projects

    Iโ€™ve been using Canva for everything from social media graphics to presentations and simple flyers, and itโ€™s one of the most accessible design tools Iโ€™ve encountered. The drag-and-drop interface makes it really easy to produce clean, visually appealing designs even if you donโ€™t have a background in graphic design. The huge template and asset library means I rarely start from scratch.

    It integrates well with cloud storage and collaborative editing, which makes working with team members or clients straightforward. For quick turnaround projects, Canva gets me from idea to finished design in minutes โ€” no steep learning curve.

    That said, some of the better assets and premium features (like certain templates, background removers, and export options) are locked behind Canva Pro, which adds ongoing cost. And while Canva is excellent for basic to intermediate design, it doesnโ€™t replace professional tools like Adobe Illustrator or InDesign when you need fine-tuned control or advanced features.

    Overall, Canva is a fantastic tool for fast, easy design work โ€” especially for non-designers

    ๐Ÿ‘ Pros:    Extremely user-friendly drag-and-drop design interface.
    ๐Ÿ‘Ž Cons:    Ome useful features and assets are locked behind the pro plan.
  3. Yansiliang
    ยท Working at Xspiral ยท
    Good

    good


Free Custom URL Shortener: Top Options in 2026
Canvaโ€™s free URL shortener is built directly into its design platform and powered by Bitly. If you already use Canva for graphics, this free custom URL shortener option is convenient. The free plan allows up to 10 short links per month and two QR codes per month. You get basic analytics including total clicks and location data. However, custom domains are not available on...
Source: trnqify.com
From Static to Magic: Top 4 AI Image to Video Generators Tested (2026 Tech Review)
Everybody knows Canva. It is the undisputed king of democratized graphic design. But recently, Canva integrated some serious artificial intelligence firepower directly into its ecosystem.
Source: dicloak.com
7 Best Pinterest Pin Generators in 2026 (AI + Free Options)
VistaCreate (formerly Crello) is a Canva competitor that offers a solid library of Pinterest pin templates at a lower price point. Like Canva, itโ€™s a design tool rather than a true pin generator โ€” so it wonโ€™t automate your workflow โ€” but itโ€™s a budget-friendly option for creators who want more template variety without paying Canva Pro prices.
Source: techinkers.com
Best Database Diagram Tools โ€“ Free and Paid
Canva: Although primarily known for graphic design, Canva offers templates and easy-to-use features that can be adapted for creating simple ER diagrams, especially for presentations or non-technical stakeholders.
Source: blog.devart.com
12 Best Free PosterMyWall Alternatives and Competitors
Canva is a user-friendly tool that helps people create stunning, creative content without any hassle. Itโ€™s great for making social site images, posters, videos, websites, and much more. Whether youโ€™re a beginner or a pro, Canva can boost your design skills.
Source: mockey.ai

MainWP Reviews

We have no reviews of MainWP yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Canva seems to be a lot more popular than MainWP. While we know about 227 links to Canva, we've tracked only 8 mentions of MainWP. 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 (227)

View more

MainWP mentions (8)

  • Managing Performance Across 50+ WordPress Sites Without Burning Out
    MainWP offers another centralized management option that's self-hosted on your infrastructure, which works well if you want full control over the management layer without relying on external services. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Flat Rate Website Acceleration Tools for Agencies
    MainWP is a management dashboard making plugin deployment and monitoring simpler. Pairs well with free optimization plugins if you control hosting. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Does WP-CLI have a command to detect out-of-date plugins?
    I've inherited about 40+ of wordpress sites and I need to produce a report on any plugins that are no longer maintained. I know that MainWP can do this but I would like to be able to run a search through the command line so that I can export into a spreadsheet. I need a centralized report that I can pass around other people in order to make larger decisions. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Website Developer Mentor - side job
    Each site is connected to MainWP. This allows us to monitor and patch all sites from a central place. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Nextcloud checking wordpress sites for updates?
    Currently I use mainwp.com from one WP site, but I thought it would be kinda neat to just see it on my daily Nextcloud homepage. Source: about 4 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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

ManageWP - ManageWP is a service for bloggers, site owners and web based companies helping them manage multiple WordPress sites from one dashboard.

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

InfiniteWP - Manage unlimited https://alternativeto.net/software/wordpress/ sites from a central admin panel.

Piktochart - Piktochart for Business Storytelling

WP Umbrella - The easiest way to manage multiple WordPress websites effortlessly.