Design Rails vs Canva
Canva is the world's most popular design tool for non-designers. It's incredible for marketing materials—but it doesn't solve the AI context problem.
Keep using Canva for social media graphics, presentations, and one-off marketing assets.
Use Design Rails to create the design context that makes your AI-generated code consistent.
| Feature | Canva | Design Rails |
|---|---|---|
| Social media templates | Thousands | OG images only |
| Presentation templates | Yes | No |
| Brand kit storage | Colors, fonts, logos | + agent context |
| Manual editing interface | Drag-and-drop | Not the point |
| Agent-readable output | No | Yes |
| Design tokens export | No | Yes |
| UI component guidelines | No | Yes |
Making an Instagram graphic
You need a quick announcement image for your launch. Canva's templates and drag-and-drop editor get you there in 5 minutes.
Generating a whole landing page
You're asking Claude to build your marketing site. Design Rails gives it the context to use your colors, typography, and patterns correctly.
The bottom line
Canva helps you design on-brand artifacts. Design Rails helps your AI design on-brand artifacts. They're complementary. Use Design Rails to establish your brand and feed it to your coding agents. Use Canva when you need to quickly create a one-off graphic yourself.
Ready to give your AI design context?
Create your brand identity and get agent-ready files in about 30 minutes.