Adobe Creative Cloud Express (formerly Adobe Spark) is a task-based, web and mobile product used to create and share rich multimedia content – from social media posts and stories to invitations to marketing materials like logos, flyers and banners.
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DaVinci Resolve
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Australian company Blackmagic Design offers their video editing application DaVinci Resolve for a wide range of high quality ultra HD effects, render queue, and video uploading options among other features.
$0
Free
Pricing
Adobe Express
DaVinci Resolve
Editions & Modules
Free
$0.00
Premium
$9.99 / $99.99
per month
Teams
$9.99
per month per user
DaVinci Resolve 17
$0.00
Free
DaVinci Resolve Studio 17
$295.00
perpetual license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Express
DaVinci Resolve
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Contact Adobe directly for Enterprise pricing plan details.
Express is a great product for anyone that is more of a design novice than a seasoned designer. The tools can help you do lots of complex things that used to take lots of work very quickly. For example the 'Remove Object' and 'Remove background' tools work very well amazingly fast. You don't need to painstakingly trace around objects or worry about accidentally including something you didn't want.
I learned so much from this instructional exercise, and I appreciated how the educator is an expert all-day colorist. The section on sound reduction was particularly instructive. I noticed a few inconsistencies between certain methodologies in this instructional exercise and approaches suggested in the Advanced Color Grading in Resolve 15 instructional exercise (e.g., where to place sound reduction in the hub tree), but this is to be expected given that there is no one right way to do any of this. I also learned a lot about Resolve's "Restoration" modules for working with authentic film. This instructional exercise will come up again and again in my work.
Comprehensive - It has video editing, motion graphics, audio, and export tools in one package. It's probably more than most people need, but you don't have to use all of the tools.
Platform and format agnostic - I like that I can work on projects on Mac or PC, and there are regular updates for new codecs and cameras. You can edit pretty much any format with no compatibility worries.
Price - They offer a free version which has most of the functionality. It's a great way to try before you buy and learn the tools. The final price is only $300 per license for the full product. It's a bargain for everything you get, and you don't feel like you're not getting your money's worth, even if you don't use all of the tools.
Canva has a better interface, in my opinion... I like that this one is friendly to Adobe users, but I would likely recommend Canva to someone who's never used design software for a complete beginner.
Removing the background from images doesn't always work well. I almost always need to switch to Photoshop for this.
The touch screen interface could be better; graphics on mobile apps are tough in general but specifically, the iPad interface could use some improvement.
Some areas of Resolve can leave inexperienced users feeling a bit handicapped. Multiple user sign-ins can be confusing, and determining where to place the database of users might need troubleshooting. The exporting workflow is a bit finicky and will need to be learned to use for even simple capabilities.
Resolve is not friendly on a single screen editing workflow, and even worse on a laptop. Ideally, an editor has multiple screens in the first place, but because a colorist needs to see scopes and monitor, handling both on the same screen, along with all tools is a challenge. This software is best with more screens.
While the NLE capability of Resolve makes for a quick editing workspace, my little experience with it leads me to the conclusion that unless someone desires a completely free alternative to other NLE software, Resolve is not your best friend. Other programs are better.
I use it daily for almost all my marketing needs. So far it is the program that has the most and best to offer for what I need and is the easiest to use
The overall usability of the software was strong. The application, especially relative to other Adobe services like Photoshop that can demand a lot of knowledge and skill, was highly easy to use. At the same time, that also speaks to the somewhat limited amount of customization opportunities that allow content designers to truly create content that is dynamic, engaging, and different than the standard stuff that floods our vision every day.
Da Vinci Resolve is up there amongst the big, professional video editing packages like Apple's FinalCutPro and Adobe Premier Pro. To just be included in this league, the package needs to have a plethora of features that the common man does not need. In essence, this overwhelming amount of features makes the product tricky to learn, but once you have the hang of it, it is a dream.
Because adobe is so widespread the community support is amazing. I have never actually used adobe support short of their website, but I go to youtube a lot to get my questions answered. You can google any problem you have and not have any issues finding an answer. In my opinion, community support is much more meaningful and helpful than support directly from the company
Not only do they have classes available in Los Angeles, but they'll also allow you to work from home with the manual and demo materials, and then let you test out to get a certification. They get back to you quickly when you email, and they've got a "family" approach to customer service, they make you feel like you're important to them.
The Adobe Express Creative Cloud (premium) version is all you need. But even the free version is so much easier to edit than in Canva. Canva is cool for certain projects that don't need too much editing (editing in Canva can cause migraines). But, almost no matter what I think up to create, I will almost always open up AE rather than struggling through the learning curve in Canva.
It has a free version that is very complete. It lets everyone on the team use a lot of very good tools for video editing that would be very expensive while using other solutions that are equally excellent but not as generous. The cost is a very good reason but not the only one, the software is actually really good.
Adobe Creative Cloud Express is included with an Adobe Creative Cloud account. Our company has a corporate team membership so it is nice to have a professional and powerful tool that anyone on our team can use for free. The pricing structure of giving the tool away for free will be fundamental to users utilizing the tool. Similar tools, such as Canva, cost significantly more but do not offer the same features
The professional services for Adobe Creative Cloud Express is top notch and should be highly commended. I am thoroughly impressed with how far Adobe has come. In the past, I had several issues with how something were handled, but in the past few years things have been better than ever and they get no complaints from me
It has allowed us to complete more demos and projects in less time by being so flexible.
It has positively impacted our efficiency in delivering creatives such as YouTube thumbnails, event poster designs, Instagram story posts, etc to clients in a timely manner no matter where work takes us.
I would say the ROI has been seeing more projects completed and invoiced per month. I would estimate overall a 20% increase in volume on deliverables.
Bringing all our video development inhouse has helped us save over $9,000 annually. And a huge part of doing it successfully has been because of DaVinci Resolve.
In our first year, we pivoted between DaVinci and Adobe for which would be our primary video production software. The results of both test runs showed that DaVinci needed half the total time investment needed to take a novice through training to completing their first major project when compared to Premiere.
DaVinci's hardware requirements were higher than what we mostly had, so we have had to invest more in better equipment to be able to execute. But overall, it's still a significant positive net return when we consider how much we have saved and earned directly as a result.
