Are you looking for video animation software for beginners? Check out our collection of best animation software options, which includes some of the most popular and well-liked packages and lesser-known but excellent animation tools.

You’ll find paid, free, and open-source solutions and online animation tools in this post about the best animation software for beginners. This post will assist you in sorting out your options, whether you are just getting started with animation, looking for an alternative to the software you are currently using, or want to experiment with a completely different type of animation (e.g., traditional frame-by-frame, Flash-style animations, stop motions, 2D and 3D animations, etc.). Let’s get started!

The Best Video Animation Software

• Adobe Animation
• Canva
• Adobe Character Animator
• The Adobe Character AnimatorPix Teller
• Blender
• Keyshort
• Powtoon
• PowtoonEasil
• Animaker
• Pencil2D
• Synfig Studio
• Procreate
• CelAction2D
• PosterMyWell
• Clip Studio Paint
• Animatron Studio

1. Adobe Animation

Adobe Animate is the latest version of Adobe Flash Professional and is the best animation software option. This software will create dynamic vector graphics and 2D animations for films, commercials, games, television, and more. You can use timeline controls to animate characters, avatars, objects, and other items.

Features of Adobe Animation:

• Size, smoothness, pressure, and velocity can all be adjusted for vector brushes.
• Advanced animation parameters and intuitive timeline controls.
• You may apply pan, zoom, and other effects to your virtual camera.
• Sound loops can be made by snchronizing audio with your animations.
• You can use Typekit to get premium online fonts.
• Flash, HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, SVG, and more formats are all available for export.

Pricing: From $20.99 per month.

Perfect for: designers of video games, YouTubers, and cartoonists.

Pros and Cons

Pros: Export and share your animations in practically any format for any platform using the extensive export and sharing options.

Cons: Like any other Adobe product, Animate has a steep learning curve, particularly for novices.

2. Canva

Online design tool Canva recently added a few simple animation functions. Canva is popular and great animation software. The program offers six different animation styles to choose from when saving your graphic designs as GIFs or videos.

Features of Canva:

• Hundreds of different categories of modifiable templates are available.
• Advanced animation features.
• Thousands of free and paid images, icons, and other resources are available here.
• You’ll have no problem finding the right one with six different options.
• Share your brand’s aspects with coworkers.
• Make folders for your designs and keep them all in one place.
• GIF and MP4 video formats are available for your create animations .

Pricing: From as little as $12.99 a month or $119.99 a year.

Perfect for: entrepreneurs, bloggers, and other types of online promoters.

Pros and Cons

Pros: Some graphics can be used only if you pay for them. With this software, animations can be added to photographs.

Cons: There are no tools for creating bespoke animations. The free plan only offers a small number of animation options.

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3. The Adobe Character Animator 

Another piece of Adobe’s animation program, Adobe Character Animation, is available. While Adobe Animate doesn’t allow you to employ motion capture for your 2D characters, Character Animator does. Use Character Animator to import your Illustrator or Photoshop creations, add tags, and then use your webcam and face expressions to the character animator.

Features of Adobe Character Animator:

• Automatic facial tracking and motion capture in real-time.
• Use the Creative Cloud Market to get a character animator.
• Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator compatibility.
• It has advanced animators features.
• Use your mouse to control the character’s limbs.
• Scenes can be recorded and edited using the timeline panel.

Pricing: The creating animations All-Apps Plan includes this feature, which costs $52.99 a month.

Perfect for: Bloggers, marketers, performers, and educators are just a few examples.

Pros and Cons

Pros: Facial tracking makes it simple to mimic real-life motions and expressions. There are numerous import and export possibilities.

Cons: This software is included in the All Apps Pack and is not accessible separately. You’ll also need a webcam and a microphone to use the motion capture feature.

5. Pix Teller

The animation software from PixTeller is ideal for both corporate and personal use. It is great software if you’re searching for something more basic than a full-featured animated video editing tool.

By establishing frame-by-frame motions and then changing the attributes of each frame, such as colors, rotation, opacity, and more, you can make short animated videos with PixTeller.

Features of PixTeller:

• Hundreds of customizable, pre-animated templates
• Create a timeline frame by frame.
• Make your animations stand out with custom text effects.
• There are over 100,000 shapes to choose from to use in your animated animations.
• Provide select people with the video’s URL.
• Video and GIF versions are available for download.

Pricing: Their most basic priced plan does not include animation. The paid animation plan costs $12 per month and is payable annually.

Perfect for: Bloggers, freelancers, and marketers

Pros and Cons

Pros: Edit a frame-by-frame timeline to create animated posts and banners.

Cons: There aren’t any complex animation features. Only the paid subscription has the option to download as MP4 or GIF.

6. Blender

Blender is a free, open-source video editor that gives you complete control over your animations. The tool has advanced command line and programming features for rendering, modeling, and producing 3D animations. It works on Linux, Windows, and Mac.

Features of Blender:

• Rendering, modeling, and sculpting tools are quite powerful.
• Advanced rigging and animation tools.
• In 3D mode, you can draw and edit.
• Motion tracking, masking, and compositing are part of video editing and visual effects.
• Simulators that are both powerful and realistic.
• This is one of the best free animation software of its kind.
• Scripting and customization are made easy with the Python API.
• The user interface, window layout, and shortcuts can all be customized.

Pricing: Free.

Perfect for: students, animators, engineers, scientists, and artists.

Pros and Cons

Pros: It is completely free to use Blender. Thanks to advanced animation and rendering tools, it also suits both novices and experts.

Cons: Blender has a steep learning curve due to its extensive feature set. Beginners will be intimidated, and they may need to spend hours watching tutorials to get it correctly

7. Keyshort

KeyShot is a simple yet powerful animation program that allows users to make photorealistic, scientifically correct animations. The program is notable for producing high-quality 2D and 3D animations without using a separate graphics card.

It also has interactive labeling, texture mapping, physical lighting, and more than 30+ types for generating 3D animation.

Keyshort’s Features:

• 750+ templates to help you style your animation in various ways.
• Workflow for rendering 3D images in real-time.
• More than 30 different 3D file types are available.
• With HDRI lighting, you can adjust and light your scene to your liking.
• Create touch-enabled, interactive visualizations for mobile and the web.
• Animations of still images, interactive web content, and mobile material

Pricing: Plans begin at $99 per month, payable annually.

Pros and Cons

Pros: Both Mac and Windows are supported. A variety of model formats can be imported and exported. The level of detail, precision, and realism in visualization are unparalleled.

Cons: For newbies, the user interface is not user-friendly. Framing, scaling, and resizing the window can be difficult at times. For a beginner, 3D animation is difficult to grasp.

8. Powtoon

Powtoon is an online animation program that allows you to make interactive videos with animated characters and pre-made graphics. It’s ideal for video presentations, explainer videos, and whiteboard animations.

Features of Powtoon:

• There are dozens of preset templates in five categories.
• Thousands of visuals, animated characters, and more are included.
• Character customization and advanced animation controls.
• Built-in audio, recording audio, and uploading audio files are all options.
• To produce instructional and video presentations, record your screen and webcam.
• Photoshop and PowerPoint files can be imported and edited.
• Download it in a variety of formats or share it on social media.

Pricing: The free plan is limited. Paid plans begin at $19/month and are invoiced annually.

Perfect for: Marketers, presenters, instructors, and trainers are just a few examples.

Pros and Cons

Pros: For beginners, this is an easy-to-use tool. Graphic assets are plentiful. Character customization is extensive.

Cons: Built-in music options are limited. Free users can not access advanced features or remove the watermark. Working on large projects can cause Powtoon’s editor to slow down.

9. Easil

Another web-based design tool that supports GIF downloads is Easil. In Easil, however, the only option to produce an animated GIF is to duplicate an image frame numerous times and modify each frame separately.

Features of Easil

• Thousands of modifiable templates in a variety of areas are available.
• Save your brand colors, colors, and logos with the Brand Kit function.
• Drop shadows and masks are examples of creative text effects.
• Templates and designs can be resized for social media or print.
• Use the color palette generator to create color schemes.
• Features for sharing between teams and sub-teams.
• GIFs that are animated can be downloaded.

Pricing: The price per user starts at $7.50 per month, payable annually.

Perfect for: Marketers, brand managers, and bloggers are examples of people who work in the marketing field.

Pros and Cons

Pros: There are several options for team collaboration and branding.

Cons: To make an animated GIF, you must copy an image numerous times and adjust each “frame.” In the free plan, there is no way to download GIFs.

10. Animaker

Businesses and schools who want to produce interactive presentations and movies will love Animaker. This animation program includes a wide collection of pre-animated elements, such as images, characters, and movements.

Features of an Animaker:

• A large collection of animated assets and templates.
• edit and remix six different video styles.
• Camera In and Out, and other pro-level animation capabilities.
• There are 200+ sound effects and music tracks to use in your videos.
• features for enterprise and team management.
• Directly upload to YouTube and Facebook, or share the URL.
• Download in GIF and MP4 video formats.

Pricing: Free plan with limited functionality Paid plans begin at $10/month and are invoiced annually.

Perfect for: marketers, speakers, and freelancersers, speakers, and freelancers.

Pros and Cons

Pros: We create animated videos for various commercial and personal purposes. Several video types are available, including several for whiteboard videos.

Cons: The free plan only allows for five watermarked downloads. It is only useful for making videos, not animated graphics.

11. Pencil2D

Pencil2D is a free, open-source animation program that allows you to create 2D animated characters with vector sketching tools and classic animation methods. It runs on all major operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.

The features of Pencil2D:

• Beginners will appreciate the simplified user interface.
• Toolbar that you can customize to meet your creative process.
• Bitmap, sound, camera, and vector layers are all shown in the Layers panel.
• Use the timeline and keyframes to add, delete, and duplicate frames.
• Drawing tools that can be used to produce vector drawings.
• GIF, MP4, AVI, WEBM, and other export formats are available.

Pricing: Free.

Perfect for: Digital artists, cartoonists, game designers, and basic animators are all needed.

Pros and Cons

Pros: It’s open-source and cross-platform, so it’ll run on any computer. Create traditional, hand-drawn animations using this simple and basic editor.

Cons: Pencil2D is wonderful for simple sketches, but it lacks advanced animation and character creation tools. It’s not the best choice for sophisticated or modern animations.

12. Synfig Studio

Synfig Studio is a more powerful tool than open-source and free animation software. It has powerful controls that allow you to create high-quality animation swiftly. It’s a tweeness animation system that uses sprites and digital tweening to speed up the animation process.

Synfig Studio is the perfect option to try out new features. It’s also a fantastic alternative to Adobe Animate.

Features of Synfig Studio:

• You may change any vector shape into another with the vector tweening tool.
• As a result, manual twining is no longer required.
• To build a sophisticated animation, use more than 50 layers and filters.
• Apply complicated deformations to bitmap artwork using an additional skeleton distortion layer.
• Lottie’s output is vector animation.
• Automatic friction effects are built-in to improve animation production.
• Macs, Windows, and Linux are all supported.
• Advanced controls, such as link parameters, are available for several levels.

Pricing: Anyone can use it for free.

Perfect for: Beginners, solo artists, and seasoned professionals.

Pros and Cons

Pros: It’s open-source and free. On the other hand, advanced animation tools are suitable for both beginners and seasoned animation aficionados. Free video tutorials to help you learn the software in depth.

Cons: Sometimes software fails. The learning curve is steep. The user interface isn’t very user-friendly.

13. Procreate

Procreate is a frame-by-frame animation program that is powerful and easy to use. It provides all the advantages of working digitally while also recreating the traditional feeling of using pencils, pens, and paint on paper. As a result, it is a great beginner’s tool.

Download the app from the Apple Store if you already have an iPad and an Apple pencil.

Features of Procreate: 

• The QuickShape feature ensures that you always get the ideal form.
• ColorDrop is a function that allows you to select any color easily.
• Extra-special effects to give your work a stunning finish.
• Motion blur, Gaussian.
• Complete font control for stunning typography.
• Filters can be used to give your artwork the right final touch.

Pricing: Procreate is only available via the Apple Store for a one-time fee of $9.99. There is no need to subscribe.

Perfect for: Beginners, independent contractors, and hobbies

Pros and Cons

Pros: Simple user interface. Many brushes are available, and the ability to import Photoshop (.abr) brushes into your program. 120hz performance is required to utilize Apple’s ProMotion technology fully.

Cons: Only the iPad and Apple pencil are compatible. You can’t make vectors because it operates in pixels. Layers of difficult adjustment

14. CelAction2D

CelAction 2D is a strong animation program that emulates the look and feel of hand-drawn animation. The software comes in four different editions: Studio, Professional, Animator, and Educational, so there’s something for everyone. The tool works well with other software, making selecting the appropriate tools for your production pipeline easier.

Furthermore, CelAction2D allows you to import 3D CGI models and place them anywhere in a completely 3dimensional world.

Features of CelAction 2D:

• A dockable tool panel in the software allows you to work on many monitors and boost productivity.
• More than 60 special effects to add visual depth to your animation with little work and time. You can also create special effects and save them to the library for later use.
• Pose your avatar and model using this advanced inverse kinematic tool.
• Other tools such as Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, and others can be used to import drawing assets.
• The 2D animation can be generated in any resolution and NTSC, PAL, and HDTV formats.

Pricing: CelAction 2D comes in four different editions. CelAction Animatic’s perpetual license costs $449 per year.

Perfect for: Animators, cartoonists, and digital artists

Pros and Cons

Pros: Large teams are supported. Import scanned sketches, pictures, or even 3D CGI to animate them instantly.

Cons: There is no cross-platform support; it only works on Windows. There are no drawing tools available.

15. Animatron Studio

If you seek a feature-rich animation program, this is an excellent choice. Animatron Studio has a large library of pre-animated elements and themes to enable you to make explainer videos, HTML5 banners, and advertisements, among other things.

The customization possibilities are nearly endless—you can even change the characters’ expressions. This is a character animation. You can also look into Animatron Lite if you want a less powerful version.

Features of Animation Studio:

• Thousands of animated items, characters, and more are available.
• Customization choices are plentiful.
• Make your graphics to import, insert, and edit.
• Narration can be added using built-in voiceover tools.
• Collaboration and suggestions in real-time.
• HTML5, MP4, SVG, and GIF files can all be exported.
• Use a link or an embed code to share it online.

Pricing: Animatron offers a free “Lite Mode” with fewer capabilities. Paid plans begin at $30/month and are invoiced annually.

Perfect for: Marketers, business teams, educators, and independent contractors.

Pros and Cons

Pros: All pre-animated characters and objects have advanced modification options. You can save your designs in a variety of formats.

Cons: There are no free stock videos inside the software, and the interface can be glitchy.

16. Clip Studio Paint

Clip Studio Paint is an all-in-one animation program that helps you make comics, illustrations, and 2D animation. The program supports macOS, Windows, iOS, iPad, Android, and Chrome OS.

Clip Studio Paint can thus be one of the best animation programs for you if you can get over its slightly complicated user interface.

Features of Clip Studio Paint

• Pen pressure can be adjusted to replicate the natural, high-quality lines of pen and paper.
• Reduce unsteady and wavering lines by automatically tapering the beginning and end of brush strokes.
• This is one of the best free animation software of its kind.
• For realistic compositions, use 3D references.
• While inbetweening, use the light table function to free reference certain keyframes.
• Between keyframes, draw frames.

Pricing: Up to 6 months of free trial Plans for Clip Studio Paint EX start at $53.94 per year.

Perfect for: Beginners, amateurs, and experts.

Pros and Cons

Pros: Advanced vector toolkit and multiple export choices AI, 3D capability, a plethora of brush possibilities, and drawing flexibility

Cons: Prices for Pro or Ex are higher. There is no audio support. The user interface is a little complicated—no rigging equipment.