Content creation, especially video is a key part of virtually every company in the modern world, so naturally… video editing is a must. If you’re looking for free and easy editing software, there are plenty of options available online i.e Lightworks, but some are better than others... Canva Video has been a popular choice for many since its arrival last year, and now… it’s subject to a Tool of the Week review!

As mentioned, Canva Video is free to use, which is especially great for startups, but there are some features only available to Canva Pro customers. The subscriptions start at $12.97 (£11) a month and you get 100GB of cloud storage over the free version’s 5GB. This subscription also gives you access to five other users of your account. If you pay yearly, it comes out at £108, which is the equivalent of around two months free of charge, so this is something to consider. The interface is nice and bright for a web-based design service, it’s clean with a white background and all your features and settings are across the sides of the page. To start a new video project, go to Canva’s main page and click on Features > Video from the menu bar, then click on ‘Make a Video’. The interface via a desktop web browser is simple to navigate, with a sidebar on the left-hand side for project management. You can customise your interface display using the View menu.

Start by selecting a template, these are housed by categories: Education, Reviews, Explainer, Sale, Fashion, Slideshow, YouTube etc. We haven’t counted how many templates there are, but it’s comfortably over 100. Personalise your project by uploading your own videos and images - you can add from your device, as well as Google Drive, Dropbox, Facebook etc. Canva does supply a plethora of royalty-free stock images and videos to choose from if not. Canva video is certainly intriguing, but it raises as many queries as it solves. Video creation is achieved through an assembly of slideshows, it has an intuitive drag and drop setup and while this is quick and simple, it is far from a fully-fledged video editor, and requires you to almost unlearn traditional editing skills like trimming multiple media to different lengths.... On top of that, some of the more useful features like aesthetically pleasing graphics and animations are only available on Canva Pro. Additionally, incorporating audio into your videos isn’t an absolute given, so this will be a hurdle for many creators. It’s certainly good fun, and if your video needs are not complex, Canva Video will likely stand you in good stead. But if you need to create complex videos, we would recommend something more substantial like Premiere Pro, this is what we use at OD and think it’s the best editing suite available.

All in all, Canva Video isn’t too good to be true, it’s just not great. It’ll get you by, but that isn’t necessarily enough for many creators, but don’t just take our word for it, give it a go and see what you think!

Canva, fair dos - 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼/5.