Tool of the week: Infographic makers – Infogr.am vs Piktochart.com vs Easel.ly
Whether you’re looking for an inviting way to blog about the numbers from an annual report or a news release, a free do-it-yourself infographic maker tool could do the trick.
No design experience is required and you benefit from the platform’s community also potentially sharing your infographic.
The down side is that you are generally limited to templates for designs that may not fit the story you’ve developed or your brand for that matter.
Still with little budget, an infographic maker can help spice up an otherwise plain looking blog post.
For demonstration purposes, Allstate Canada’s (client) recent release of distracted driving data was used to compare each of the tools. Different elements from the release and the distracted driving campaign helped create the infographics within the options available on the respective tools.
| Infogr.am | Piktochart.com | Easel.ly | |
| Allstate Canada’s (client) recent release | Sample infographic | Sample infographic | Sample infographic |
| Login options | Username/password
|
Username/password
|
Username/password
|
| Design options | Templates
Charts Country maps Text Upload images Embed video from YouTube or Vimeo |
Templates
Icons Stock images Upload images Text Tools (graph) Background Moods |
Templates
Background colours Shapes Text Upload images Charts Icons Stock Images Embed video from YouTube or Vimeo |
| Pros | Easy to use
Infographic could be widened Some animation features Works in many browsers including Explorer, Chrome and Firefox |
Many templates
Many icons Some animation features |
Easiest of all platforms, less finicky than others
Works in many browsers including Explorer, Chrome and Firefox |
| Cons | Few images/icons which makes it less visual | Very finicky when moving things around
Only partially appears in Explorer |
If topic does not fit into a specific theme, your infographic will be much more difficult to create
|
| Responsive design, mobile enabled infographics | NO | NO | NO |
| Embed feature | YES | YES | YES |
| Pro cost | $18 USD/month$180 USD/ year | $29/month
$169/year $39.99/year for student & instructors $700 for customized Piktocharts |
Free
$3 USD/Month |
Overall, I thought Easel.ly had the most inviting looking infographic, but using the particular template that I used (because of limited choices) may be a stretch for the topic.
Infogr.am was the least finicky of all the tools, which made it my favourite in terms of being the least frustrating to use. It also gave me the option to pull in a campaign video from YouTube, which was a nice bonus.
Piktochart.com was the one that offered the most options visually and as long as you’re patient when the tool is being finicky, you could probably create your most sophisticated free infographics through this tool.
Allstate Canada’s Just Drive initiative will relaunch early this fall. Watch for more!
Want to design an infographic or create a motion graphics video for your content? Thornley Fallis can help.
Diane, I found your article very helpful. I signed up for all 3 and I’m debating which one I should stick with. I think you would like to know that easily’s pro account charges $29 per month. I just saw it today. Great info on your article! Thanks for the enlightenment!
Just a note on Infogr.am – it is responsive, which is so important. We recently did a graph for a client’s site and responsive graphs are still a very hard thing to pull off. But now my client can log in regularly and update the data easily themselves.
The chart says Easel.ly is “Easiest of all platforms, less finicky than others,” but the conclusion says “Infogr.am was the least finicky of all the tools, which made it my favourite in terms of being the least frustrating to use.”
Which is it?