15 Best Graphic Design Software for Beginners in 2024

Choosing the right graphic design software is essential for meeting your project needs and maximizing your creative potential. The ideal software offers robust tools and flexibility to elevate your designs without a steep learning curve. However, finding the right fit for your design needs, skill level, and budget can be challenging.

This guide rounds up the 15 best graphic design software options for beginners, covering each tool's pros and cons, pricing, key features, and compatibility. With this resource, you’ll be able to find the perfect software to match your goals and support your journey into graphic design.

• Snapshot of Our Top 3 Best Graphic Design Software
• 15 Best Graphic Design Software for Beginners in 2024
• Best Graphic Design Software Comparison Chart
• How to Create a Graphic Design
• How to Choose a Graphic Design Software
• Download the Best Graphic Design Software for Free
• Best Graphic Design Software FAQ

Top 3 Graphic Design Software Snapshot

15 Best Graphic Design Software for Beginners in 2024

1. PhotoDirector Essential
2. MyEdit
3. VistaCreate
4. Stencil
5. Snappa
6. Lunacy
7. Pixlr
8. Canva
9. Vectr
10. DesignWizard
11. CorelDRAW
12. Adobe Express
13. Affinity Designer
14. Visme
15. PicMonkey

1. PhotoDirector - Best Graphic Design Software Overall

Key Features

• AI-Powered photo retouching
• Upscale old and grainy photos
• Remove people or objects in 1-click
• Professional filters and LUTs for color correcting

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

TechRadar Rating: 5/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 5/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $3.33/month

Who It’s For

PhotoDirector is a one-stop image manipulation software featuring a suite of advanced image editing and enhancement tools. It is the best graphic design software for beginners because it has a clean user interface, guided edits, one-click effects, and design asset libraries with everything from stock images, stickers, emojis, frames, animated titles, and more. And PhotoDirector uses a folder structure, allowing seamless sorting, tagging, and filtering of your images and projects. 

Why We Picked It

With PhotoDirector’s layer editing module, express templates, and clipping masks, you can combine elements from different images, creating engaging compositions. It also has all the essential image editing tools you could need, including corrections, beauty touch-ups, and more. 

Bottom Line

Even though PhotoDirector offers professional graphic design tools, it’s the best graphic design software for beginners, thanks to an intuitive drag-and-drop platform with guided edits. If you are new to PhotoDirector, you can use the interactive in-program tutorials and take full advantage of every feature this software offers.

Check out these related topics for photo editing:

1. 15 Best Free Photo Editing Software for Windows PC in 2024
2. 15 Free Photoshop Alternatives With Similar Features in 2024
3. 5 Best Online Cartoonizer Tools | Transform Your Photos into Cartoons for Free

2. MyEdit - Best for Online Editing

Key Features

• Browser-based editing
• AI-assist tools
• Remove people or objects in 1-click
• Cartoonize effect

Compatibility: Online

Overall Rating: 5/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 5/5

Price: Free

Who It’s For

Based on our review, we found that MyEdit is skillfully designed to cater to individuals, professionals, and businesses that need an intuitive, easy-to-use online platform for editing photos and creating graphic designs. With its user-friendly interface and advanced tools, it's suitable for beginners with limited design experience, as well as seasoned designers seeking a streamlined platform for their work. 

Why We Picked It

We chose MyEdit because of its impressive versatility and the robust set of design tools it provides. Its intuitive interface, coupled with online accessibility, easily makes it one of the option for beginners. MyEdit's comprehensive suite of features allows for high-quality photo editing and graphic design. Furthermore, its cloud-based platform encourages easy collaboration and access from any location, making it an excellent choice for a wide range of design tasks. 

Bottom Line

Once we tested the product, we determined that MyEdit serves as a potent and convenient graphics software, accommodating users of varying expertise levels. Balancing simplicity with professional-grade tools, and providing online accessibility, it presents a comprehensive solution for photo editing and design needs. This makes it a formidable contender in the digital design tools market, and one we'd recommend considering.

3. VistaCreate - Best for Storage

Key Features

• Team collaboration tools
• Speech bubbles
• Blur tool
• Frames and filters

Compatibility: Online

Trustpilot Rating: 4.6/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4.5/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $10/month

Who It’s For

VistaCreate (formerly Cello) has over 75,000 professionally designed templates for users to customize. It is the best graphic design software for storage because subscribers get an unlimited amount of storage, and the free version offers 10GB. By comparison, Visme only offers 3GB to their top-tier business customers, and DesignWizard only offers 10GB of storage to their $50/month clients. 

Why We Picked It

We also think this is one of the best graphic design software because of VistaCreate’s robust free version which includes brand kits, a feature usually saved for paid customers in other graphics software. It also has free fonts, music, objects, animations, and backgrounds (although the background remover is only available in the paid version). Photo editing tools are also available, such as rotate, crop, flip, and resize. A unique tool allows you to upload your own images and turn them into stickers for your projects. 

Bottom Line

VistaCreate has one of the best free versions of most graphics software on our list. However, anyone requiring a background remover for YouTube Thumbnails or similar projects will have to pay the monthly fee. Lunacy and Adobe Express offer background removal for free. 

4. Stencil - Best for Bloggers

Key Features

• Upload and store your logos
• 5,100+ Google Web fonts
• 140+ preset sizes
• Browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox

Compatibility: Online

Trustpilot Rating: 4.7/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $9/month for Pro and $12/month for Unlimited

Who It’s For

Stencil is a web-based graphics software that allows beginners to quickly and easily create digital design assets. It is one of the best graphic design software for bloggers because the site focuses on design for social media and websites for people with no previous experience. The narrow focus means a pared-back feature set, which makes it easy for DIYers to navigate the site. 

Why We Picked It

If you need a speedy solution to your web-based graphic design needs, then Stencil is perfect for you. Simply pick a background, add text, and upload it directly to your site (Stencil offers direct sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Buffer). Stencil has plenty of stock assets, so you can find exactly what you need. There are over 1,350 templates and over 5 million stock images, with more added every week. 

Bottom Line

Stencil is a quick and simple tool for bloggers who want to spend more time writing and less time designing. While it is one of the best graphic design software for creating beautifully crafted posts, it doesn’t include editing features. If you need to edit your photos, you’ll need to use another software first, wasting valuable time. We placed it below PhotoDirector and VistaCreate because they offer photo editing and graphic design features.  

5. Snappa - Best for Online Marketing

Key Features

• 200+ fonts
• Instant resize
• 100,000+ vectors and shapes
• Pre-Schedule posts

Compatibility: Online

G2 Rating: 4.6/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscriptions available for $10/month for Pro and $20/month for Team

Who It’s For

Snappa is yet another online graphics software for users with no prior experience. We voted Snappa the best graphic design software for online marketers because, like Stencil, Snappa focuses entirely on web-based designs. It features ready-made templates for infographics, which help users market their online content and products.   

Why We Picked It

This graphics software has an extensive library of well-organized templates, stock images, and graphics, so beginners can easily craft professional-looking designs with a few clicks. It also has some photo editing tools, such as crop, rotate, flip, color adjustments, blur effects, and overlays. 

Bottom Line

Snappa is very similar to Stencil. They both focus solely on web and social media design for beginners. And while Snappa has some photo editing tools that Stencil lacks, Stencil is cheaper and has a much more tenable free version. Snappa is not a choice for anyone who wants to learn graphic design, as it is very hard to create designs from scratch, and there is no drawing tool.  

6. Lunacy - Best for Teams

Key Features

• Image upscaler
• Background remover
• Avatar generator
• Eyedropper tool

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux

G2 Rating: 4.4/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 3.9/5

Price: Free

Who It’s For

Lunacy is a completely free graphics software with no ads, locked features, or upselling. It’s perfect for teams because you can edit with up to 100 teammates in real-time. With Lunacy, you can leave comments and get feedback immediately. This isn’t the only graphics software on our list with team collaboration features, however, most charge a premium for business users.   

Why We Picked It

Lunacy is one of the best graphic design software for vector graphics editing. It offers tons of built-in icons, illustrations, and stock images you can layer together like Lego. There’s also a text generator and a pen to draw directly on your design. 

Bottom Line

Lunacy is a sketch tool and one of the best graphic design software for UI/UX and web design. For any beginners who want to learn graphic design - especially web design - this is a very robust free tool, and former Sketch users will find it a worthy replacement.

7. Pixlr - Best for Photoshop Users on a Budget

Key Features

• Large stock image library in free version
• Photo effects like dispersion and glitch
• Import photos from computer, URL, or Facebook
• Healing tool

Compatibility: Online

G2 Rating: 4.4/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4.2/5

Price: Free
*Premium version available for $4.90/month

Who It’s For

Pixlr is an online photo editor and template designer, and the best graphic design software for former Photoshop users who need a more wallet-friendly option. Pixlr has an interface and menu that are very similar to Photoshop. It offers layer editing with a slightly pared-back feature set to the Adobe photo editor and a very pared-back price. 

Why We Picked It

Beginners should not let the comparison scare them away - Pixlr comes with advanced (Pixlr E) and beginner (Pixlr X) versions, and projects will easily carry over between the two. When you open Pixlr, you can choose a template category, then customize your chosen template. Categories are Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Roblox, Pinterest, Twitter, or LinkedIn. You can also choose a simple collage, business card, or flyer. Since Pixlr is also a photo editor, you can make detailed edits and add effects to your photos before inserting them into the template. 

Bottom Line

We like that you can simply go to the site and start editing - no sign-in required. However, because Pixlr X is web-based you need to be connected to a strong internet signal for it to work properly. We also weren’t that impressed with the typography options and found the text hard to manipulate. We recommend Pixlr more for photo editing than graphic design because of the poor text options and the small number of available templates.  

8. Canva - Best for Stock Content

Key Features

• Background remover
• Built-in video editor
• Magic resize
• Simple design sharing

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Online

Creative Bloq Rating: 4/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4.3/5

Price: Free
*Pro version available for $119.99/year

Who It’s For

Canva is one of the best graphic design software for the sheer number of stock and design assets available. Canva subscribers have access to over 100 million images and animated graphics, as well as audio clips for social media posts. It offers beginners over 610,000 easy-to-use templates, with new templates created daily. 

Why We Picked It

This graphics software has a completely free version that offers a robust amount of stock as well, including 1 million photos and graphics, and 250,000 templates. But what we like about Canva Pro which is not available to free users, are the brand kits. Upload your own logo, fonts, and colors into Canva to use in your designs, or create them from scratch. Then save and build reusable templates to use in all your company’s designs. 

Bottom Line

Scrolling through Canva’s completed projects, examples, and professionally designed templates is a great way for beginners to learn graphic design. And while we think it is one of the best graphic design software available, it offers very few image editing tools. If you need graphics software with a full photo editor, try PhotoDirector or Pixlr.  

9. Vectr - Best for Web Design

Key Features

• WordPress integration
• 100 free edits
• Grid and snap tool
• Supports importing

Compatibility: Online

G2 Rating: 4.4/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4/5

Price: Free

Who It’s For

Upon evaluating Vectr, we identified it as among the best graphic design software options, particularly well-suited for beginners entering the field. Its uncomplicated and intuitive interface, paired with robust features, makes it an excellent starting point for individuals eager to grasp the fundamentals of vector graphics, without being besieged by excessively complex functions and tools. 

Why We Picked It

Our choice of Vectr was influenced by its user-friendly design and its status as a free graphics software. Its functionality deftly balances simplicity for novices with the power required for those looking to delve into more advanced design elements. The dual availability of Vectr as a web-based platform and a desktop application infuses a degree of flexibility, empowering individuals to learn graphic design from virtually anywhere. 

Bottom Line

While Vectr provides a user-friendly introduction to vector graphic design, our testing revealed certain limitations. Its focus on simplicity can sometimes lead to a deficit in more advanced features necessary for intricate projects. Users might also encounter performance and speed issues, especially with the web-based version, potentially impeding productivity and extending project turnaround time. Despite Vectr's effectiveness as a stepping stone for beginners, those aspiring to advance their graphic design journey may eventually require a more sophisticated and reliable tool.  

10. DesignWizard - Best for Templates

Key Features

• Magic resize
• Video tools
• 1GB of storage
• Download in JPG, PDF, and PNG

Compatibility: Online

Capterra Rating: 4.3/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 3.5/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $9.99/month

Who It’s For

DesignWizard is yet another online graphics software with thousands of customizable templates. However, we think this is the best graphic design software for templates because the beautifully designed templates are so well organized that it’s easy to find exactly what you need. Templates are alphabetized by category, such as Album Covers, Announcements, Book Covers, Bookmarks, Brochures, Business Cards…you get the idea. Click inside a category, such as Book Covers, and you will find even more categories like Cookbooks, Romance, Science Fiction, etc. 

Why We Picked It

With DesignWizard every part of a template can be edited, so you can upload your own fonts, photos, and logos or create custom color palettes. It also comes with over 1 million stock images, videos, illustrations, and graphics. 

Bottom Line

This graphics software makes it easy to quickly and easily create a professional looking design with editable templates for any possible scenario. While we think DesignWizard is one of the best graphic design software for templates, that is all it offers. There are no image or photo editing tools, and no way to create a design from scratch. Canva has a similar amount of templates, but also offers some simple photo editing tools, while PhotoDirector offers templates and a fully-featured photo editor.  

11. CorelDRAW Standard - Best for Illustrators

Image from CorelDRAW.

Key Features

• Professional vector image software
• Page layouts
• 1,000 clipart and digital images
• AI and animation tools

Compatibility: Windows

G2 Rating: 4.3/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 3.5/5

Price: $299

Who It’s For

CorelDRAW Standard is the best graphic design software for illustrators who require optimal efficiency, reliability, and professional features. It includes PowerTRACE™, a bitmap-to-vector tracing tool that improves the quality of your bitmap, and a live sketch tool. Vector graphics can be scaled with no quality loss. 

Why We Picked It

This graphics software comes with PHOTO-PAINT Standard, Corel’s basic photo editor. It also has a modest library of royalty-free stock, including 100 high-res images, 175 fonts, 20 frames, and 60 templates. It is also one of the best graphic design software because it has precision color tools for applying fills and outlines, and a layer editing module where you can create compositions while keeping the elements separate.  

Bottom Line

Even though CorelDRAW is an excellent tool for creating and enhancing illustrations, this software is not ideal for photographs. We found in our test that when you enlarge an image, the program tends to accentuate imperfections, which can impact the overall quality of your image. It’s also rather pricey for software aimed at hobbyists and home businesses. Although it has the same rating as Design Wizard, we found CorelDRAW was not as beginner-friendly, so it fell to #11 on our list.

12. Adobe Express - Best for Social Media

Key Features

• Create logos
• Convert images to various formats
• Background remover
• Image resizer

Compatibility: Online

TechRadar Rating: 4/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4.2/5

Price: Free
*Premium version available for $9.99/month

Who It’s For

Adobe Express is a web design app for beginners. We think it is one of the best graphic design software for designing social media posts. Adobe Express has design templates for any kind of post, like YouTube thumbnails, Facebook ads, and Instagram Stories. While many of the graphics software on our list has social media-friendly templates, not many let you plan, schedule, and publish content across multiple channels at once. 

Why We Picked It

Upload a photo and start a design from scratch or use one of the thousands of ready-made templates. You can add your branding assets in one click. Adobe Express also has some photo and video editing capability and access to Adobe stock. 

Bottom Line

We were impressed that the free version of Adobe Express had access to plenty of Adobe Stock and Adobe Fonts for most projects. However, it lacks the branding kits, refined photo editing features, and scheduled social media posts found in the expensive Premium version, which is triple the monthly price of PhotoDirector. 

13. Affinity Designer - Best for Precision Edits

Image from Affinity Designer.

Key Features

• Non-Destructive layer editing
• Vector tracing and isometric illustration tool
• Responsive drawing tools
• Dynamic on-screen guides

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 3.5/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 3.9/5

Price: $54.99

Who It’s For

Affinity Designer from Serif is the best graphic design software with features that allow optimal design accuracy. These tools include flexible grid systems to create isometric elements, a snapping tool, a brush stabilization tool, and responsive zooming. 

Why We Picked It

It’s also one of the best graphic design software because of its dual-environment capability that lets you work in vector and pixel art environments simultaneously, saving valuable time. You can create vector and pixel image layers using the layers panel to create unique compositions and effects. You can also use this panel to create clipping masks and gradients. 

Bottom Line

Affinity Designer is relatively easy to learn and use and is ideal for illustrators who want to create vector images. However, it does not have pre-made templates, so we recommend it for beginners who are trying to learn graphic design. With Affinity Designer, you make everything from scratch. For an option with both preset and manual options, try PhotoDirector. 

14. Visme - Best for Businesses

Key Features

• 1,000+ layouts and themes
• Widget creation
• Social media templates
• Animated elements

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 3.5/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4.4/5

Price: $12.25/month for Personal, $24.75/month for Business, and Teams users have to contact sales for a quote.

Who It’s For

We think Visme is the best graphic design software for businesses because it has templates and tools for creating professional reports, proposals, interactive charts and graphs, and product mockups. It also comes with team collaboration features and asset management tools. Visme has privacy controls for sensitive information and supports importing and exporting for PowerPoint.   

Why We Picked It

With Visme, you can use branded templates to keep all company assets together and save valuable time. This graphics software also contains a large library of GIFS, images, illustrations, and audio/video for presentations. 

Bottom Line

Anyone on your team can use Visme to create professional documents, reports, and presentations without needing to learn graphic design. We recommend this graphics software for businesses, but not for personal use. The price is too high if you aren’t taking advantage of the business features, and you can find better options for personal use on our list of best graphic design software, such as PhotoDirector or Pixlr. 

15. PicMonkey - Best for Frames

Key Features

• Brand kits
• Animations
• Smart resize
• One-click background removal

Compatibility: Online

TrustPilot Rating: 1.6/5

Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4.4/5

Price: $72/year for Basic or $120/year for Pro

Who It’s For

PicMonkey from Shutterstock is the best graphic design software if you like to put fun frames around your images and completed projects. This graphics software offers a variety of frames, like classic, shape cutouts, polaroid, vintage, and museum. There are pre-made frames, and completely customizable frames so you can match your brand colors with ease. 

Why We Picked It

With PicMonkey, you also get over 6,000 fully customizable overlays, such as clipart, images, and stickers. There are also photo editor beautification tools like red-eye remover and teeth whitener, photo filters, and effects. You can also customize hundreds of different fonts and over 2400 design templates. 

Bottom Line

We were quite confused when researching PicMonkey. In our test, we found it easy to use, with lots of assets available. Our only issue was how little was available in the more affordable Basic version, forcing most users into the more expensive Pro version. However, it appears most long-time PicMonkey users are fuming over recent changes and the diminishing quality and ease of use of older versions. Also, many users feel scammed by the free trial, which charged people a full year and then refused to reimburse them. If these user reviews have you worried, PhotoDirector offers similar features, (including premium images from iStock by Getty Images) for a more reasonable price, and has excellent customer service. 

Best Graphic Design Software Comparison Chart

How to Create a Graphic Design

Creating amazing graphic designs is easy with PhotoDirector, a powerful tool available for free. Follow the steps below to add creative elements, apply advanced edits, and bring your vision to life. Get started by downloading it with the link below.

1. Download PhotoDirector for free and use the "Expert" Tab.
2. Add text layers, animated stickers, shapes and images to add any elements that you would like to see on your graphic design.
3. The guided tools tab on the right will help to proceed to more complex editing adjustments such as background removal, cartoon filters, object removal and such.
4. Once satisfied with your design, you can save your work by clicking on the "Export" button on top of the interface.

If you want to learn more about creating designs with PhotoDirector, try How to Make a YouTube Banner, or How to Make a Transparent PNG.

How to Choose a Graphic Design Software

Graphics software enables users to design for various applications like branding, packaging, online content, and more. Before purchasing, ensure the software meets your needs with essential tools such as:

• General photo editing tools
• Drawing and painting tools
• Branding and logo design features
• Design templates
• Animation tools

Top graphic design software often includes AI tools, such as object segmentation and sky replacement, and layer editing capabilities for complex projects. Options vary widely in price and user level, so consider your budget and required features. Checking user reviews can help confirm that software marketed as "beginner-friendly" truly lives up to its claim.

Download the Best Graphic Design Software for Free

Graphic design is a versatile field with countless applications, and selecting the right software is key to matching your skill level and project needs. PhotoDirector stands out as the best graphic design software because it combines professional-grade tools with beginner-friendly features. It offers graphic design templates, layer editing, and AI-powered tools like sky replacement. With customizable fonts, titles, and a library of free stock images, it’s easy to bring any creative vision to life.

Unlike many web-based design tools that rely on strong internet connections and can lose work without autosave, PhotoDirectoris a dedicated, secure software that keeps your creations safe. Download PhotoDirector today to start creating stunning graphics and make your graphic design dreams a reality.