Top 7 best Vyond alternatives

A decade ago, one had to break a sweat to create videos.

 From being a luxury reserved to well-funded bigwigs to becoming every individual’s pocket tool, DIY video making tools have bridged the gap in skillset and dramatically revolutionized the world of content.

One of the early introducers of video making software was Vyond who’s been around since 2007.

Vyond was formerly known as GoAnimate that has been facilitating the creation of animated videos. Every product has its own growth, innovation, lifecycle, and uniqueness. Vyond, over the years, has definitely scaled up and strengthened its engineering muscle.

But, with the changing pace of customer demand and more DIY video making tools entering the market, does Vyond still have what it takes?

Does it check off all the boxes to be crowned as “the best video making platform”?

The short answer is – NO!

This article will demystify and highlight the core features that a video making tool should have (that Vyond does not).

But, before we jump into the comparison, let’s see the pros and cons of Vyond and their pricing.

Vyond Pros:

• A vast library with a massive collection of characters, properties, customization, and animations

• Their application is relatively stable as they have been in the market for so many years.

• There are three visual styles -  contemporary, business-friendly, and whiteboard

• Quick and accessible resources – tutorials, webinars, FAQs, and more

Vyond Cons:

• Vyond’s plans are extremely pricey and are the highest among the DIY segment.

• Pay to Play. They only offer a 14 day Free Trial and you won’t get options to download your video.

• Their animated characters don’t look as attractive as the ones offered by other tools.

• The tool does not have an in-built stock asset library

• No option to resize videos that are responsive to different channels

As you see, the above cons are why Vyond isn’t the best DIY video maker in the market today.

Let’s now see the top Vyond alternatives, the reasons why might be better off considering them instead.

Top Vyond alternatives that you must try!

1. Animaker

Animaker is one of the best video making tools in the market today. It allows you to create animated and live videos for free. With an easy to use app bundled with powerful features, Animaker has made video making easy for everyone including non-designers. Animaker has the largest collection of assets including an extensive custom character builder, 100M+ stock assets, advanced animations, and human-like TTS engine – most of which is not available in Vyond.

Pros:

• Animaker has a huge library of 100M+ stock assets

• The custom character builder with 15+ facial features and 10+ accessory options. This enables the creation of billions of unique character combinations.

• They are the only tool to offer 4K video exports

• It also comes with an automated lip-sync feature that makes speech animations look professional

• Their advanced text-to-speech engine enables humanizing the auto-generated voiceover

• Animaker’s plans are very pocket-friendly

Cons:

• The Brand kit is available only in the Enterprise Plan of Animaker

• 2K quality is available from the Pro Plan onwards

Clearly, Animaker is a good Vyond alternative and you must check it out if you haven’t already.

2. Powtoon

Powtoon is a cloud-based animation software for creating animated videos and presentations. Like Vyond, Powtoon too has existed in the market for a long time. With Powtoon, you can create live and animated videos. Powtoon has a freemium plan and a good collection of stock assets which makes it a more balanced tool compared to Vyond.

Pros:

• Powtoon’s application is really simple to use

• Powtoon has millions of stock images that are available within the image libraries

• With Powtoon, you can create videos of different sizes – horizontal, square, and vertical that makes it suitable for different social media platforms

• A wide collection of templates for different use cases

Cons: 

• While Powtoon isn’t priced as high as Vyond. It is still priced very high when you consider its limited feature set.

• You cannot download videos in the free plan which makes it difficult to evaluate the product

• Powtoon does not have advanced character animations and has an average of only 7 character expressions per character.

• There’s no humanizing TTS available in Powtoon which makes voice-overs sound robotic

• Powtoon does not allow for real-time collaboration by multiple users

3. Moovly

Moovly is a cloud-based video creation tool that allows the creation of animated videos and presentations. It has a wide range of templates and assets that will help you create good videos. Moovly, when compared to Vyond, has a wider collection of stock assets and is certainly a better tool for live video creation. However, as far as animations are concerned, Moovly is lagging far behind.

Pros:

• Moovly has a huge library of 75 million premium stock assets

• With Moovly, you can resize your videos to make it optimized and suitable for different social media platforms

• They have a decent collection of templates.

 Cons:

• There is no support available in the free version

• The duration of the video exports in the free plan is only 2 minutes

• The TTS software is available only in the most expensive subscriptions

• The UI is heavy and difficult to work with. Particularly, the timeline has multiple panels that make editing a cumbersome process and there is no grid color palette

• There are no advanced animations or a variety of characters available in Moovly. The quality of animations seem to be mediocre too

4. Toonly

Toonly is a very simple tool to make animations. It is a downloadable software and not an online or cloud-based tool. The ease-of-use and affordability make Toonly a tool worth trying. Toonly is a good Vyond alternative if you are looking to create animated videos on a budget. However, the characters and animations are pretty mediocre in the tool in terms of the availability of options and the look and feel.

Pros:

• Toonly is one of the most affordable tools starting at as low as $20/mo billed annually

• The tool gives a 30-day money-back guarantee which makes it risk-free

Cons:

• This not an on-cloud tool which has its own disadvantages

• There is no free trial which makes it hard to evaluate the tool

• The standard plan has very generic 2d background collection that makes it difficult to create videos for different use cases

• Color customization of gradient backgrounds is not possible and there are very limited animated texts, backgrounds, and font options available

5. Animoto

Animoto is a cloud-based video making tool that enables the creation of videos, presentations, and customized web-based presentations. The UI is more clean and intuitive compared to Vyond. Animoto does not have animations and is only a good alternative for creating live videos.

Pros:

• Animoto has millions of stock footage and images available in the library

• A clean, intuitive, and easy-to-work-with UI

• Has a good range of video style, textures, and filters

• You can download videos in the Animoto free plan which enables a fair evaluation of the tool

Cons:

• There is no option to create high-quality animated videos. There is no character builder or advanced animations available in Animoto

• There are very limited templates available

6. Biteable

Biteable is a video making tool that allows you to create animated and live videos for free. With a good collection of pre-built templates and assets, makes Biteable a good tool to try out. Biteable is good for live video creation. As far as animations are concerned, they lag far behind due to the absence of characters, animation effects, TTS software, and more.

Pros:

• Biteable has a good library of stock images and clips and allows a Full HD quality download right from the free plan

• A very good collection of templates for different use cases

• Unlimited exports right from the free plan

• The tool is intuitive and easy to use

 Cons:

• The animations are not very impressive in Biteable. There are no characters, advanced animations, TTS software, or any elements that support high-quality animated videos

• There’s no TTS software available in Biteable

• There are very limited font options

7. Wideo

Wideo is a cloud-based video creation tool that enables users to create, edit, and share videos. It is a simple tool that allows the creation of videos and presentations at ease. There are not many advanced animations available in Wideo. There is no character builder or an option to make your characters have a lip movement. Wideo is a good Vyond alternative if you want to create live videos or animated videos on a budget.

 Pros:

• A good collection of +970,000 stock images are available

• It has a light-weight UI with a timeline that is easy to work with

• It is available in English, Spanish, Korean and Portuguese

• Wideo is more affordable compared to Vyond starting at $19 m/o

 Cons:

• There are no video downloads in the free plan

• There is a limit on the duration of the videos across all plans. The 1.5-minute video duration in the basic plan does not justify the pricing

• There are very limited templates

• The free trial period is just for 7 days

Conclusion

 Vyond is one of the pioneers of the DIY video market. There are a lot of features in Vyond like extensive character customizations, animations, team collaboration, etc that make it an excellent video making tool.

But, there are still untapped areas of DIY video making that Vyond has not cracked yet. Vyond has made its mark with animated videos, but it will become a holistic tool only when it scales up live video creation as well.

So, sign up and try out as many tools as you can, see what fits your requirements, and then invest in the best one. If you were looking for alternatives to Vyond, I hope this post has helped you.

If you know other Vyond free alternatives, drop a comment!