Marq vs Canva

by Gralio Feb 03, 2025

Marq and Canva are design platforms catering to different needs. Marq excels at brand consistency and automated workflows, while Canva prioritizes ease of use and diverse design capabilities. Choose Marq for strict brand control and streamlined content creation. Opt for Canva for broader design needs and a user-friendly experience.

At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.

This comparison was created by analysing 5582 reviews and 55 websites, saving 1 day, 7 hours, 28 minutes of reading.

Marq

Website LinkedIn

Canva

Website LinkedIn Twitter

About

Marq (formerly Lucidpress) is a cloud-based design and brand templating platform. It helps businesses of all sizes create marketing materials like brochures, flyers, and social media posts, while ensuring brand consistency. The platform offers drag-and-drop templates and collaborative features, making it easy for non-designers to create professional-looking content. Marq also allows businesses to lock down branding elements and automate content creation workflows.

Canva is a user-friendly design platform that makes it easy to create professional-looking visuals. It offers a wide range of templates and design tools, including a library of stock images, videos, and fonts. Canva can be used to create social media graphics, presentations, marketing materials, and more. Its drag-and-drop interface and intuitive features make it suitable for users of all skill levels, even those without prior design experience. Canva's focus on simplicity and ease of use has made it a popular choice for individuals and businesses alike.

Summary

Main difference

Marq is a brand templating platform specializing in brand consistency and automated workflows, ideal for businesses prioritizing controlled branding. Canva is a versatile design platform for various visual content, focusing on ease of use and a vast library of resources, better suited for diverse design needs.

Relative strengths of Marq (compared to Canva)

Strong brand control features for maintaining brand consistency.
Automated content creation workflows for efficiency.
Focus on template-based design for streamlined content production.

Relative weaknesses of Marq (compared to Canva)

Smaller template library and fewer design resources compared to Canva.
Less intuitive user interface than Canva.
Limited free version compared to Canva’s extensive free tier.

Who is using Marq and Canva?

No data

Sanchit Sarhadi

Network Growth Manager DACH - Networking Consultant - Aurora

Charlie Hills

Cognified Founder

Olesia Krilyshyn

Sales Acceleration Specialist at Reply.io

Lindsay Rosenthal

Founder at Cred.Marketing

Jonathan Parsons

Marketing Director - Clinique UK & Ireland

Who should use Marq VS. Canva

Marq is a cloud-based design and brand templating platform empowering businesses to create consistent, professional marketing materials. Its user-friendly interface and collaborative features make it easy for non-designers to produce high-quality content. Users praise Marq's intuitive design and templating capabilities but note occasional performance issues. Marq is best for companies focused on brand consistency across various marketing channels.

Canva is a user-friendly design platform ideal for creating professional visuals. Its drag-and-drop interface and wide selection of templates make design accessible to everyone, regardless of skill level. Users praise Canva's ease of use and extensive library of resources, while some note limitations in the free version.

Best for small, medium, and enterprise businesses.
Ideal for various sectors, including Healthcare, Finance, E-commerce, Retail, and more.

Best for small to medium-sized businesses, but also applicable to larger enterprises.
Highly suitable for various sectors, including marketing, education, and non-profits.

Marq and Canva features

Supported

Partially supported

Not supported

Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

Template Creation

Partially supported

Marq allows creating templates from scratch or pre-designed templates, but importing design files is not clearly documented.

Supported

Canva allows creating reusable templates from pre-designed templates and customizing them.
Brand Controls

Supported

Marq supports locking brand colors, fonts, and logos to ensure consistent branding.

Supported

Canva supports brand controls, including locking brand colors, fonts, and logos for consistent branding.
Data Visualization

Partially supported

Marq offers basic data visualization but not complex interactive ones.

Partially supported

Canva supports interactive data visualization through its Flourish integration.
Social media graphics

Partially supported

Marq can be used to create social media graphics, as it offers a wide range of design capabilities and templates. However, this is not explicitly stated as a primary feature of the tool.

Supported

Canva excels in creating social media graphics, offering diverse templates, design tools, platform optimization, and integration options for seamless content creation and publishing.
Drag-and-drop editor

Supported

Marq offers a drag and drop editor suitable for designing logos.

Supported

Canva supports drag-and-drop functionality for designing logos.
Logo generation

Not supported

Marq does not appear to have the capability to design and generate logos from scratch. It focuses on managing and applying existing brand assets and templates.

Supported

Canva allows users to design and generate logos using provided templates, design elements, and a user-friendly interface. Users can customize these templates, incorporate various design elements, and export their logos in different formats.

Qualities

Value and Pricing Transparency

+1

Strongly positive sentiment

-0.02

Neutral sentiment
Customer Service

No data

+0.53

Rather positive sentiment
Ease of Use

+1

Strongly positive sentiment

+0.97

Strongly positive sentiment
Reliability and Performance

+1

Strongly positive sentiment

+0.01

Neutral sentiment
Ease of Implementation

+1

Strongly positive sentiment

+0.79

Strongly positive sentiment
Scalability

No data

+0.17

Neutral sentiment

Marq and Canva Pricing

No data

User sentiment

Strongly positive

We couldn't find a pricing page for Marq.

No data

User sentiment

Neutral

-0.02

We couldn't find a pricing page for Canva.

Marq and Canva review insights

5543 reviews analysed from and

Users love

Easy to use and intuitive interface
Excellent templates and customization options
Great for brand consistency and collaboration
Professional-looking output

Easy to use and intuitive interface
Wide variety of templates for every need
Extensive library of stock images, videos, and fonts
Great collaboration features

Users dislike

Limited font options
Occasional performance issues and slow loading times
Adobe font integration issues
Limited offline functionality

The free version is quite limited
Many features are locked behind a paywall
The mobile app is underwhelming and laggy
Limited offline functionality

Marq and Canva Ratings

G2

4.4/5

(207)
Capterra

4.6/5

(279)

G2

4.7/5

(2674)
Capterra

4.7/5

(2444)
TrustPilot

2.6/5

(39)
Glassdoor

4.2/5

(732)

Company health

Employee growth

No change in the last year

46% increase in the last year

Web traffic

No data

7% increase in the last quarter

Financing

No data

July 2024 - $3B

How does Marq's brand locking compare to Canva's brand kit for ensuring consistency?

Marq offers more robust brand locking features through its "Brand Controls" which allow users to lock down brand colors, fonts, and logos, ensuring strict adherence to brand guidelines. While Canva offers a "Brand Kit" to store brand assets for easy access, it doesn't provide the same level of control over locking elements to prevent deviations from the brand identity. This makes Marq better suited for organizations with stringent brand guidelines where consistency is paramount, while Canva provides more flexibility which can be beneficial for teams that require more creative freedom.

Which platform, Marq or Canva, offers a more intuitive user experience for non-designers?

Canva offers a more intuitive user experience for non-designers. Both Canva and Marq offer drag-and-drop interfaces and templates, but Canva's wider range of templates, stock images, and user-friendly features, combined with higher user ratings on ease of use, make it a more accessible platform for those without design experience. While Marq focuses on brand consistency, Canva's simplicity and breadth of resources cater to a broader audience, including those just starting out with design.

What are the advantages of Marq?

Marq focuses on brand consistency and offers features like Brand Kit and Brand Controls, which allow users to lock down brand elements and ensure consistent branding across all marketing materials. This is a key differentiator from Canva, which, while offering a wider range of templates and design elements, doesn't have the same level of dedicated brand management features. Marq also provides Smart Fields for personalized content within templates, streamlining the creation of variations for different audiences or campaigns.

What are the disadvantages of Marq?

Marq users have reported limited font options, occasional performance issues and slow loading times, Adobe font integration issues, and limited offline functionality as disadvantages.

Alternatives to Marq and Canva

Visme

Visme is a design platform that helps non-designers create engaging visual content like presentations, reports, infographics, and social media graphics. It offers templates, stock images, icons, and data visualization tools to simplify the design process. Users can collaborate in teams, manage content libraries, and track engagement with built-in analytics. Visme is suitable for individuals and teams of all sizes who want to improve their visual communication.

Papirfly

Papirfly is a cloud-based software platform designed to help mid to large companies manage their brand assets and create marketing materials. It provides a centralized system for storing and organizing brand logos, fonts, images, and templates, ensuring everyone in the company can access the latest versions. Papirfly also offers tools that enable non-designers to easily create professional-looking marketing content, like social media posts and brochures, while staying consistent with brand guidelines. The goal is to improve brand consistency, streamline marketing operations, and increase efficiency.

Design Huddle

Design Huddle is a cloud-based design platform that lets you create templates for digital and print content like social media posts, ads, and brochures. It's designed for medium to large businesses that want to simplify their design process and ensure brand consistency. You can control which elements users can edit and offer pre-approved images, logos, and fonts. The platform also automates tasks like resizing images and generating file formats. While Design Huddle requires some design knowledge, its drag-and-drop interface is relatively user-friendly.

Stencil

Stencil is a web-based graphic design tool aimed at individuals and businesses looking to easily create engaging visuals for social media, ads, and more. It provides access to a vast library of royalty-free stock photos, icons, templates, and fonts. Stencil emphasizes user-friendliness and speed, enabling users to quickly create and share professional-looking images without needing advanced design skills or software.

Picsart

Picsart is an all-in-one visual creation platform. It offers easy-to-use tools for photo editing and graphic design, powered by artificial intelligence. Users can leverage Picsart's extensive template library to design social media content, marketing materials, and more. The platform caters to both individuals and businesses, simplifying visual creation regardless of prior design experience. Picsart is accessible online and via their mobile and desktop apps.

PosterMyWall

PosterMyWall is a cloud-based design tool that helps businesses create marketing materials without needing professional designers. It offers a vast library of customizable templates for social media posts, flyers, posters, emails, and even videos. You can easily tailor these templates with your branding and messaging. PosterMyWall also allows you to print your designs, share them on social media, or use them in email campaigns.

Page co-authored by

Michal Kaczor

CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

Tymon Terlikiewicz

CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

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