Top 20 online services for animation and design

The last decade among many visual trends slowly made people very fond of animation and design. Today the whole world is communicating mainly visually. Especially when it comes to branding — no matter if it is a product or personal brand. People chose animation and engaging design because it is the main language these days.

You can’t convey your project’s value without properly “speaking” it. 

So, online services, huh?

Let’s figure out what it is and how it is different from professional animation. Animation online services allow users to generate moving graphics from basically any visual. The possibilities are endless: from variations of 2D, and 3D to computer-generated graphics with the effects of VR. Such services are most commonly used by animators, but anyone can work with them depending on the level of the program.

Animation software platforms may be used in pairs with drawing software or 3D modelling software. Ever since online tools for animation and design became popular, it has changed many tasks that were possible to receive only from professionals. Online animation programs make a good video accessible with a touch. It fundamentally alters how we perceive animation since it is possible to make a decent marketing video from scratch within ten minutes.

Creating engaging video content is possible without a big budget. What used to be a hardly achievable goal, that is almost impossible to reach without specialized knowledge, now became an exciting experience. You can try that too!

Top 20 animation and design online services

If you are creating animations online, it doesn’t mean you signed to a lower quality. This is a myth, don’t take it seriously. With the right services at hand, you can create great animated videos or pieces of design. Of course, many tools have limitations, and professionally speaking the scope is not as wide as in the tools used by animated studios.

However, we took a look through many tools and chose the best for you. Here are the best online animation and design services. Enjoy, use, and create great stuff!

Renderforest — is an all-in-one branding platform with a variety of online tools to create animated videos, graphic designs, logos, and  even websites. The video editor allows users to make high quality explainer animations by using pre-made templates. 

Price: there are various pricing plans to choose from: free (which is quite limited), $9.99/month, $24.99/month and more expensive ones if you are looking for rather professional stuff.

Platforms: you can work online in the web version, or download it on the app store or play market.

Features: there are hundreds of video templates that will help to start your way through. Since the tools are cloud-based it will be easier to change the scene or modify something in the video. You can check their explainer video and understand the program better. The problem though is that users can’t pre-watch the video for different devices and size ratios.

Conclusion: Renderforest is a fine online animation maker that allows you to create many animated videos just because its library of templates is quite impressive. You can work with various formats for your goals.

Animaker — video creating and editing tool designed for people who have never dealt with animation or video making before. 

Price: there are several plans, including free, basic for 10$, a starter for 19$, pro for 49$, and enterprise.

Platforms: you can work online in a web version.

Features: video styles include 2D, 2.5D, and 3D, infographics, typography, and whiteboard animation. This is definitely one of the easiest online programs to use if you want to create animated content. The program is evolving and we believe there will be more things to use in Animaker.

Conclusion: Animaker was voted as the No.4 best Design Product in the World. Even though it is very easy to use, it has some cons. The main one is the limited number of video styles. However, among the pros is usage – everyone can be good at it.

Animatron — an online animated video platform that enables users to create animated videos right in the browser on PC.

Price: there are several plans, including free, pro for 30$, and business for 60$. However, if you pay annually, the price will be two times cheaper.

Platforms: you can work online in a web version.

Features: Absolute freedom to customize everything you want. From basic shapes to fully-animated characters, it allows reshaping, recoloring and editing every piece of your marketplace assets and more. You can check out Animatron and create a project without signup or payment. If you like it, you can register for a free account with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Dribbble or your email address.

Conclusion: A perfect tool for businesses and startups. They offer a comprehensive guide to videos, great editing tools and many possibilities in paid versions.

Moovly — online platform designed to help people create animated videos, video presentations, marketing videos and or any other type of video without being a professional. 

Price: there are several plans, including free, pro for 99$per month, max for 199$, and enterprise which is customized.

Platforms: you can work online in a web version.

Features: moovly is a very useful platform for companies, education, and organizations. It offers maximum video length, PowerPoint file import, quick-edit templates, text-to-Speech, screen and webcam recording and many more.

Conclusion: Moovly offers users extremely wide online video creation options. A great video editor with millions of copyright free assets available in many different styles, a variety of advanced features such as text-to-speech or green screen recording gives a unique tool that we highly recommend to use.

Biteable — one of the most famous online video and animation makers with a the biggest library of templates. 

Price: Biteable doesn’t offer free plans. There are only $15/month, $29/month, $49/month plans, each of which offers different possibilities.

Platforms: you can work online in a web version.

Features: Biteable is a very respected online tool that helped many brands and people to nail their videos. They have an amazing blog with lots of interesting topics that will help both professionals and amateurs. What impresses is the fantastic number of styles and formats you have here: the list includes basically every single animation style.

Conclusion: Moovly offers users extremely wide online video creation options. A great video editor with millions of copyright free assets available in many different styles, a variety of advanced features such as text-to-speech or green screen recording gives a unique tool that we highly recommend to use.

Powtoon — the visual communication platform that offers animation/design creation. More than 30 million people, according to stats, use Powtoon to create a various content. 

Price: the platform offers three plans, among which pro $20 /month, pro+ $60/month, $100/month plans, each of which offers different possibilities.

Platforms: you can work online in a web version, as well use its mobile version.

Features: Powtoon offers many templates, customer galleries, and lots of ideas for your creations. Intuitive interface, and lots of community resources to help. Templates are the very foundation of Powtoon, you can’t deny that. They come in different aspect ratios. If you need to add text it will be very easy.

Conclusion: We would recommend Powtoon to anyone who is looking for a simple way to create animated videos. Yes, there are some limitations, but it really depends on your goals.

Doodly —  is a whiteboard tool that works by “drag and drop” principle. It is also a video creating platform that requires minimum skills from a user.

Price: standard $39 /month, enterprise $69/month. 

Platforms: you can work online in a web version, as well as use its mobile version.

Features: If you don’t need more than a whiteboard tool, this is your best choice. The program is very easy to learn. Since it’s a whiteboard, you have lots of character options. However, the library of sounds is quite limited. There is also a possibility to choose from Whiteboard, Blackboards the third option, Glassboard. For media graphics, you will have four main formats: Scenes, Characters, Props, and Text.

Conclusion: Great tool for very specific goals. If you need a whiteboard animation for your business, use this tool. If you need a lot of videos in different styles, it won’t be a great choice.

Explaindio —an animation software for both beginners and experienced users. It offers doodle sketch, and motion video creation options. 

Price: there is a possibility to pay 37$ a month, or a one-time payment 497$. Middle options – 67$ per year.

Platforms: you can work online in a web version.

Features: if you find another online software for design and animation that would be as cheap and flexible as this one, please, tell us. A great selection of pre-made animated scenes and templates is among the pros. Audio is limited though and the interface seems to be counterintuitive.

Conclusion: Explaindio’s main features are the creation of animated videos in multiple animation styles. The biggest con is the very limited amount of free materials, but other than that you can use it in many ways.

Camtasia — a platform for creating professional-looking animated videos, software demonstrations, online lessons, and so on. Offers a wide range of services that help to make video professional-looking. 

Price: 332$ a year per user.

Platforms: available for both Windows and macOS.

Features: The program allows you to render and share your video files to Youtube, Vimeo, and Google Drive. Since it supports a range of popular media formats it will be easy to create what aims. There are also interactive abilities in the program.

Conclusion: It is a powerful video editing program that will be a great choice for those who work with animated productions. Even if you have never used video and animation editing software before, Camtasia won’t be too hard for you. Plus, you have enough educational materials here.

Vyond — a video creation studio that helps hundreds businesses around the world to create animated content. A sophisticated tool that many possibilities for a great content. 

Price: premium is 54$ a month, professional 83$. Also, customized plans are called enterprise.

Platforms: an entirely cloud-based platform that allows users to use it everywhere.

Features: Vyond offers a great pre-built library of assets and styles which makes it different from a lot of other programs we reviewed today. The platform has hundreds of pre-made templates that will be a fit for a variety of industries. It goes without saying that pre-constructed scenes will help both professionals and amateurs to start a video.

Conclusion: we strongly recommend using this platform. In this price segment, it might be the best one. There are many possibilities for novices and experienced creators.

Mixamo — Adobe project that offers tools for working with 3D characters, a selection of mocap animation that can be useful for professional filmmakers of for projects that require quality animation. 

Price: mixamo is a free platform.

Platforms: a web-based tool that you can use online.

Features: This is a platform only for working with characters. But what possibilities do you have here! First, a great collection of high-quality 3D characters. Second, automatic character rigging. Third, motion capture animation. It is a program that works perfectly with the tools from Adobe.

Conclusion: if you are working with characters, or planning to create them for your project, there are many options, but this one is your cheapest tool that offers lots of things.

Visme — all-in-one platform created for non-design people in order to help them create engaging content in less time. 

Price: you can use it for free, but also can get a starter plan for 12$, a pro for 12,5$, business plan for teams.

Platforms: use it online.

Features: this platform allows you to create anything you need for visual communications: from presentations and social media graphics to video. A lot of design capabilities help to create brand content when you need it.

Conclusion: Thanks to dynamic functionality and a very good program environment it will make it easier to create what you need through a program.

Toon boom — a powerful design/animation tool that offers a bunch of lessons and courses on animated creation on the platform. 

Price: you can use it for free, but also can get an individual plan for 12$, a company for 15$.

Platforms: use it online.

Features: Storyboard Pro and Harmony software provide everyone from enthusiasts to professionals with the artistic freedom to create in any style and efficiently publish anywhere. The world’s largest 2D animation studios choose Toon Boom to bring their TV series and feature films from ideation to screen.

Conclusion: if you are looking for a good software company that specializes in animation production and storyboarding software, you can choose toon boom animations.

Autodesk motion builder — is a 3D character animation software with pre-built moves, that allows you to capture, edit, and work with animations. 

Price: you can buy a 3 years plan for 5,830$, or pay annually 2,045$.

Platforms: use it on your PC.

Features: MotionBuilder is a professional 3D character animation software produced by Autodesk. Among its capabilities are virtual production, motion capture, and character animation. We are here in Darvideo studio and just love it. It possesses a certain level of sophistication, of course, and requires time to learn to use.

Conclusion: not the easiest tool to use, but its capabilities are hard to underestimate. If your task demands high-quality characters, don’t hesitate, and use this program. Production editing tools let you manipulate motion capture data and take characters to the next level.

Bryce —  an award winning 3D modeling tool and animation package. Allows inexperienced users to quickly create and render images in 3D. 

Price: depending on the country.

Platforms: use it online or buy a program.

Features: Bryce is a 3D modeling, rendering, and animation program that allows you to work with fractal landscapes. If your video or project requires this type of animation, choose Bryce.

Conclusion: this is not the easiest program to use, however, one of the best in its segment. It is also not really an online platform, however, we wanted to add it to the list just to leave you knowledgeable about this possibility.

Blender — a complex platform that allows users to modify characters into fine animations, and generally requires more skills or time to learn it. One of the main features is the character animation pose editor.

Price: a platform offers a 14-day free trial and plans that start at $9 per month (or $7, if billed annually).

Platforms: use it online.

Features: Blender is an open-source 3D creation platform that supports the 3D pipeline, modelling, rigging, and animation among other things. Blender offers texturing objects, a great library of animations and supports complex modeling.

Conclusion: Blender is open-source free-to-use software. It is quite hard to work with and might require some time from you to learn it.

Harmony — an online animation maker that constantly adds new features and expands the number of spheres you can apply it to. Harmony is the choice of many top studios all over the world.

Price: a platform offers a 14-day free trial and plans that start at $9 per month (or $7, if billed annually).

Platforms: use it online.

Features: A big library of templates and animation styles along with great tools allows you to create content easily. The platform offers color controls and quite flexible prices.

Conclusion: Harmony makes creating animation quite easy and possible for everyone. A great, intuitive user-interface is definitely among the pros. We recommend using it for a variety of goals.

FlipAnim — a very basic tool that is designed to help people create simple animation quickly. Maybe the easiest tool in this list.

Price: you can use it for free.

Platforms: use it online.

Features: You can make a quick animation by using templates. A bug library of templates and many other options make it a very good tool for total beginners. You can also change the speed of the animation – there are five options for that.

Conclusion: FlipAnim is easy to make animations. If you are a total beginner and want to get creative, don’t hesitate to choose this platform.

Anireel — a platform for animation creation that can help anyone to craft engaging animated videos for marketing, businesses, startups, and many other use case scenarios with ease. 

Price: you can use it for free or buy the full version.

Platforms: use it on your PC.

Features: the platform here is doing a lot by itself, you just have to direct it. Choose your script, input the content, and Anireel will find animated scenes – you have to approve the right ones. There is an option of converting the text into voice-over which is very important for animated videos in general.

Conclusion: very easy to use program. If you want to save some money on getting a video from a freelancer or a studio, just try this program.

Flim ai — helps you find the perfect image to express your ideas so you can be more efficient in your creative process. A great addition to animation and content creation process.

Price: you can use it for free.

Platforms: use it online.

Features: not so much as the animation maker as design and aesthetic tool which was very missing in most of the other tools we shared today. The thing is that you can find many necessary materials for your product, inspiration or even for video. Great source for references. Search or filter by color, dates or word.

Conclusion:Last but not least on our list is this tool. Flim helps you find the perfect image to express your ideas so you can be more efficient in your creative process.

Conclusion

No matter if you don’t have special skills or knowledge in the field, you can create simple and yet powerful animated videos. You don’t have to worry about a professional understanding of animation making. Many online animation makers allow you to use their vast libraries of templates.

Adding one element to another, like in a puzzle that has never existed, you can make your original animated video. Some online animation makers are suitable for one set of goals; the other suits better something different.

Make sure you know your goals well enough to choose the right tool. One of the cons of online tools is that you can’t find something that will be good for a wide range of goals. Thus, if you know what exactly your video has to be about, find the right tool for it from the list above. That’s it!