Online Animation Makers: 7 Tools You Must Know (in 2024)

A brutally honest review of the 7 biggest online animation makers on the market (by an animator with 10+ years of experience).

This is a complete review of Vyond, Biteable, CreateStudio, VideoScribe, Powtoon, Animaker, and Doodly. What animation tools are worth the money? Let's find out!

Best online animation maker? (00:00)
It's not easy to navigate the jungle of online animation tools. What's the right animation maker for me?
My approach has been to sign up (or buy) each tool, give it a thorough test, and write down my impressions.

How I score (00:50)
Each animation tool gets a score from 1 to 10 on three parameters: Style, Usability, and Price. Style is about the aesthetics of the backgrounds, characters, and animations. Usability is about the feel of the platform and if it's pleasant to work with. And price is about the relation between the first two factors, and what the tool asks of you to get access to their software.

CreateStudio review (01:36)
A 3D animation tool that's unique for its style. It's hard to create 3D animation, so the promise of making this easy is big.
The style is impressive, with its 3D backgrounds, good-looking 3D characters, and coupled actions that are easy to use.
And with a price point in the lower end, the value you get from the annual deals is incredible.

Animaker review (09:24)
With 20M+ users, this animation maker is one of the most popular in the world. Not always easy to understand, when you're used to work with animation professionally.
But, the style and price is decent, so if you can learn the interface of Animaker, you have a strong, affordable animation tool on your hands.

Biteable review (14:23)
One of the most surprising contenders to win the title of best animation maker of the year came from an unsuspected place. Biteable's styles are varied and professional, and I like the simple UI and pricepoint a lot.
This might be one of the best choices for video beginners, looking for a better-than-basic animation tool.

Powtoon review (21:03)
With a strong character builder, I was excited to dive deeper into the animation tool as a whole. Super smooth animations, a strong primary 2D animation style, and a timeline that works alright.
The pricing is quite confusing, but you can get your hands on a good deal for a decent piece of animation software with Powtoon, for sure.

Doodly review (27:12)
Toonly and Doodly recently got acquired, but the animation tools are still going strong. My focus is on reviewing Doodly, which is one of the most affordable, simple whiteboard animation makers on the market.
Lifetime deals are often sneaky, and you'll probably find yourself investing in more props, more characters, and more scene templates if you want to make videos about something specific.

VideoScribe review (30:07)
Doodly's "cousin" is another whiteboard animation maker that stands out with its tight primary style, it's precise drawing path, and its ultra-accessible price.
One of the biggest drawbacks is how difficult it is to time the animations to the voice-over, but they are trying with an updated timeline.
This simple animation maker has a clear focus, and they keep getting better every time I revisit them.

Vyond review (32:47)
While I may be biased from spending 10+ years in this animation maker, I still believe this is the most professional, versatile 2D animation maker on the market.
I tested out some of the new features around AI, prop generation, and background removal, but it's the core platform that makes Vyond's usability stand out.

Conclusion (39:36)
How do all these animation tools stack up against each other? Get the quick recap of what's good and bad about Vyond, Biteable, VideoScribe, CreateStudio, Powtoon, Doodly, and Animaker.

[LifeOfJoslyn]

Thank you for such an HONEST review! It is so difficult to find honest/unbiased reviews!

[adelecarson]

Great video and reviews! I think you are a generous grader but an honest reviewer. Thanks for taking the deep dive and exploring these products. Really helps clarify things!

[colinmcintyre]

Animaker was recommended to me by GPT, for a small business that's advertising budget is $50, i think it was actually a good choice. It was half my budget for advertising this month, but it gave me the confidence to start a youtube channel for the company at an affordable price. I would prefer the other tools, but all these are expensive.

[veka]

Thanks for genuine, honest and hard to simple analysis man. Wish you all the best!

[southbridgeforestHOA]

wow great overview thanks so much. gonna try out biteable.

[Aditya_vlogs-]

Harsh reviews bring out the best products. Thanks for a great and unbiased review. Going to start the animation journey with Vyond.

[ShinobiKOKO-gvcb]

Thank you very much for this. I have been trying various other 2D program and this gives me so much insight without having to buy and commit myself. Thank you.

[wilcrossley]

Great video! I watched the entire thing. I would love to see these companies evaluated on customer service, response, technical support, and ease of cancellation (and do you get your money back). I know that's a very deep dive into the usability of each platform, but I think it is very important. Thanks for your great review!

[prajwallens]

was searching for this type comparision.. thank you so much. just subscribed you. hope to get more contents

[videoeditoranimation]

Hi Rued. Thanks for this video. Your tutorial videos on Vyond trained me to use Vyond as a Multimedia Instructional Designer four years ago. Since then I have become a Vyond master thanks to you and twenty-plus years in video production. So, you have a lot of credibility with me. My team and I were looking at Create Studio as a possible replacement for Vyond. But it just didn't measure up. So, now they want to look at other tools. The new AI storyboard-to-video generation tools just aren't measuring up either. They are like slow-motion slide shows that give creators limited creation control. But this video really looks at comparable products to that we can really see what's out there. I shared this video with my team so that they can better-understand and accept that Vyond is the best we can get for what we do. Your video should speed up this process that we can stop wasting time and get back to creating! Thank you!

[AloisiaSedai]

I want to create characters with custom textiles in their clothing and custom solid image backgrounds. Like characters on a simple stage with a backdrop. Which one would you recommend? I’m computer literate and have used photoshop and illustrator and Canva video but have not used animation tools. Thanks! Unlike other reviewers, you know what you are talking about.

[TheCroCroDil]

i was so hyped about vyond until i saw that part where you have to pay them 99 $ for each video u use... thats nuts ... i really like the software and the high pricing is fine, they offer a lot but that part destroyed me ....should i go with biteable then ? what would be the best option for making storytelling videos and making some cool anime style animations without hardcore softwares like blender or adobe ? Awesome video btw :)

[bouncemojo]

Love your honesty, so refreshing - Can you do more reviews on 3D

[probacon_]

helped me pick a good animating makers, thank you for this video

[jugibur]

Really well summarized, very helpful, thank you!

[sucd]

Create Studio, newest update has add in 3D charactor and it can customised how the charactor reactions and moves . This is a plus point that i came back to Create studio which i aldy gave up for long time. Its new developement has successfully attracted me. On the other hand animaker is the alternative competitor.

[archidesigns]

best comparision.. thanks a lot for the review.

[markm]

All ridiculous priced all of them, they are all more expensive then most real professional software, and quality of build really don’t match at all for what they want, very bad and also all are browser build almost which is unprofessional already for me, can’t even believe that people pay like 150bugs for a software like that a month, they should be priced from 10-15 bugs a month not more since these can only really be used for super small companies which want some explainer video.

[NazmulBhuiyan-eihk]

Please compare Biteable Premium vs Vyond Pro

[markusrichterfotografie]

Thank you for comparing these tools. VideoScribe or Vyond? My impression is that Vyond has very few styles and elements for "whiteboard" animations. I have the trial version - can Vyond keep up with VidesoScribe in this point and can I create good projects with it? And how exactly can I simulate the "infinite canvas" of VideoScribe? - And in general, I wonder which styles are good for what (Whiteboard, icon, Contemporary, etc.). Can you explain something about this? Thanks again!