I trialled Crello Pro just last month so I'm pleasantly surprised and happy to find this deal here today. (Thanks AppSumo & Crello!)

Let me start by saying I like Crello, it is an excellent Canva alternative. But I'm only giving this 4-stars because I think Canva is still the gold standard especially in its current iteration, and Crello isn't at that level yet in my opinion (sorry).

I do a lot of content/marketing design work and my go-to tool is Canva for tasks that don't require Photoshop. My next favorite is Stencil, which makes it super-easy to create basic quote graphics and other visual material for social media (no video or animations, but I love its simplicity). Then there's RelayThat, which saves you lots of time and hard work by automating creation of social media/ads graphics. These tools look similar on the surface, but they actually complement each other.

Now Crello is one of those that feels very similar to Canva, a real competitor. Before Canva added animations and a whole bunch of new features, Crello was probably the only one that let you incorporate animations in your design. Crello Pro is also more affordable than Canva Pro. For a while I thought Crello would be the Canva-slayer.

BUT...Canva made enhancements and leapfrogged ahead of the competition. Now Canva also has features Crello offers, and more:
- You can create a brand kit (really great for repetitive/agency work).
- You can put notes on your design.
- You can present your design directly from the app.
- There are third-party integrations.
- Its documentation and resources for learning design are outstanding.
- It has a massive collection of templates, stock graphic elements, and fonts.

This last comparison point was what made my Crello Pro trial disappointing to me. For example, in one test design, I searched for a "turtle" vector, and the result gave me only 6 free and premium elements. Whereas in Canva Pro, I got more than a hundred free and paid options for "turtle". Same with other searches I did. There seems to be very few free vectors available. I'm not sure if this is because their search engine isn't that good, or there really aren't that many elements available.

Of course I can upload my own graphics...but this is such a bothersome extra step. I do hope Crello adds a lot more to its library of stock illustrations and photos.

What I think are Crello's strong points:
- high quality and fresh/unique designs and templates
- focus on video and animation

I'm curious to see what Crello's next moves are to seriously challenge Canva's dominance (maybe incorporate svg? allow editing of lottie/json files?) ...or just do something delightfully different.

Should you buy this deal? OF COURSE YOU SHOULD! :)