11 Best Animation Makers Online

Try an offline alternative – Movavi Video Editor!

  • Trim, cut, crop, and rotate videos
  • Add titles, stickers, and transitions
  • Apply visual effects
Edited by Ben Jacklin
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From bloggers to coaches to moviemakers and educators, anyone can now create simple, high quality animated videos for their target audience. Thanks to the advancement of technology, anyone having the right tools can create very good animations by themselves from the comfort of their house. If you want to create an animation video yourself, check out our top of animation makers!

  • Best offline alternative: Movavi Video Editor

    Movavi Video Editor is a full-scale video editor that, among other useful features, has all the necessary tools for making great animations.

  • Best simple video editor: Fastreel

    This online video editor offers a wide variety of tools and templates. It’s easy to create animations in Fastreel thanks to its user-friendly interface.  

  • Best tool for professional-looking videos: Moovly

    Moovly proves all the necessary tools to make a great video for your business. You can start a video from scratch or choose an appropriate template. 

  • Best integrated content: PowToon

    PowToon is integrated with many top sites and content creators, so you have an access to a huge collection of media files you can use for free.

  • Best animation templates: Animaker

    Animaker offers over 1000 templates, which makes it easy to create animations even for beginners.

  • Best animation maker for beginners: Renderforest

    Renderforest has a toolkit that explains everything it does and helps to familiarize the users to its platform and offered features.

  • Best tool for creating brand videos: Biteable

    Biteable offers numerous templates for you to easily create videos and brand them in a single click. 

  • Best for creating HTML5 animations: Animatron

    This video maker lets you export your animations to HTML5. It also has special tools for creating HTML5 banners. 

  • Best for education videos: Voki

    Voki is designed for animated speaking characters for education purposes. The software provides useful tools that you can implement in the learning process.

  • Best for making cartoon animations: Toonator

    This site provides tools for you to draw out illustrations and then animate them. It also provides a collection of animations made by other authors. 

  • Best for whiteboard animation: Explee

    Explee has a “draw” mode that is convenient for making whiteboard animations. The technology used in this app allows you to animate any picture. 

  • Best for explainer videos: simpleshow video maker

    This tool lets you create explainer videos in 4 steps: draft, write, visualize, and finalize.


Offline alternative: Movavi Video Editor

Before you proceed to the list of online animation makers, take a look at the powerful yet simple desktop software. Movavi Video Editor makes it easy for you to create videos using your own media or in-built content – the app has a rich collection of backgrounds, titles, videos, sounds, and stickers. The timeline is convenient and allows for an unlimited number of tracks. The app also has a sound-recording option, so you can easily add a voice-over to your animations. 

Free online animation makers

First on our list is Fastreel – an online video editor that offers a wide variety of tools and templates, wrapped in a user-friendly and intuitive interface. These tools and templates make Fastreel extremely suitable for creating animations and editing videos. The ability to export videos straight to YouTube and Facebook is another useful feature of this web app.

Pros:

  • Simple and user-friendly interface

  • You can use the free version for an unlimited amount of time

Cons:

  • The free version adds a watermark to all created videos

Features:

  • Direct export to YouTube and Facebook

  • The website has detailed instructions for any video-editing feature

Moovly is a great free online animation maker. It is known as one of the best as this online animation creator comes with over 1 million media assets (including sound effects, music, photos and motion graphics) all of which are royalty free. Moovly offers a wide range of features that allows you to easily customize your videos by choosing templates before you start your animation. It has a built-in tool kit to make your animation making process easier and allows you to integrate smoothly with Shutterstock. As a bonus, it has a very straightforward interface so that beginners can easily get familiar with tools offered and create awesome videos.

Pros:

  • 30 day free trial with no credit card required

  • Popular animation types such as whiteboard, GIF, etc. are all supported

Cons:

  • There is a no download policy on videos made

  • Free videos come with a watermark

Features:

  • Wide range of templates

  • Built-in toolkit for easy customization

PowToon is an animation maker that’s free and online. It’s a great tool for people who want to get really creative. PowToon allows you to create professional animations as this cloud-based program is packed with many helpful features design to make your animation making process easier, faster and better. As PowToon is integrated with many top sites and content creators, you get to choose content from a wide database which consists of a huge collection of media files you can use for free.

Pros:

  • You can create both videos and GIFs

  • PowToon supports the format of MP4

Cons:

  • The free user gets only 100mb of storage space limit

  • The free version has a 3-minute video limit

Features:

  • Various templates

  • Free collection of media files

Animaker makes creating animations an easy walk in the park as it offers features such as pre-made presentation templates so that you can add some text to each of your slides. This free online animation provides you with HD quality videos and other features such as 2D videos, whiteboard animations, the ability to animate image and typography. Animaker boasts of an interactive interface that allows the user to easily find helpful tools to work with. After your animated movie is ready, you can then share to the world.

Pros:

  • It supports direct voice recording

  • You can upload your animated video to YouTube and Facebook

Cons:

  • The free version only supports 2-minute videos

  • With the free version, you can only export 5 videos in a month

Features:

  • Over 100 million stock videos and photos

  • More than 100 templates

This is one of the top websites with a studio online animation maker. Whatever content you have in mind, Renderforest gives you the right tools to work with so that you can create realistic 3D videos or fun and interactive animations. It has about 200 templates you can use to easily start making videos. To make things easier for the user, Renderforest also comes with a toolkit that explains everything it does and helps to familiarize the users to its platform and offered features. So, apart from giving you a platform to create professional animations, Renderforest also allows you to explore and come up with the best possible content.

Pros:

  • It offers videos in HD resolution for professional users

  • It can be accessed anywhere, and it’s easy to use and understand

Cons:

  • On the free version, videos are watermarked

  • There is a 3-minute video limit on the free version

Features:

  • Useful explainer video

  • Customizable templates

Biteable is a very good and free animation maker that allows you to make animation online for free without stamping a watermark on them. It comes with many ready-to-use templates and provides a generator that provides live-action scenes that you can use and then edit to your preference. Biteable also offers features that allow you to add your own text, music, and effects to customize your video and boosts its availability to use for promotional content or just for fun.

Pros:

  • It allows for free 1 GB of storage

  • You can directly share and publish your videos to YouTube and Facebook

Cons:

  • It offers 5 videos per month for the free user

  • The full features are only available on the paid version

Features:

  • Stock animations

  • Huge selection of templates

Top companies like Google, New York Times and Disney have used this program to make videos for the simple and easy to understand platform that it offers. Apart from that, Animatron can boast about mind-blowing features. It gives you the right tools to create different kinds of videos like animated banner ads, explainer videos, and as it has over 500,000 royalty-free media clips, you have a big list of media files to choose from and incorporate in your video making. You can also use Animatron to create a whiteboard animation style while saving money on expensive software for video creation.

Pros:

  • It offers over 500,000 media clips that are royalty free

  • It supports camera option, record and transition too

Cons:

  • The free version can only support 5 videos per month for the free version

  • 3 minute is the maximum video capacity on the free version

Features:

  • Free pre-animated characters

  • Sharing option directly from the editor

Voki is one of the best sites for creating animated classroom leaner videos to boost student performance. With Voki, you can make interesting videos for your class and customize your videos by adding voice-overs and customized avatars. This all helps to aid the learning process and improve the student experience.

Pros:

  • If you have the license, you get the full school management package

  • It is available on mobile apps for Android and iPhone

Cons:

  • You have a limited character library in the basic plan

  • You cannot create videos from scratch as you have to use an already existing template

Features:

  • Collection of speaking avatars

  • Sharing option directly from the website

This site is one of the best with simple editing tools that allow you to create high-quality animations. This site allowed you to draw out illustrations by giving you a wide range of frames to work with. It also offers tips and tutorials or beginners to make the animating process easier and faster.

Pros:

  • It has tutorials beginners can learn from

  • There are many frames and templates to work with to create animations

Cons:

  • You have to use already existing frames to work with

  • Red and black are the only available colors to work with

Features:

  • Collection of animations created by other users

  • Easy drawing and editing tools

With Explee, you can create wonderful animated videos for a diverse audience. With over 6,000 animations to work with, Explee provides you with tools to make animating a fun and exciting experience.

Pros:

  • It has a simple and easy to use interface

  • It is ideal for whiteboard animations

Cons:

  • It doesn’t support many file formats

  • You have to get an upgraded plan to remove the watermark

Features:

  • Built-in image bank

  • Text-to-speech system

simpleshow video maker is a web-based, AI-powered video platform for creating short explainer videos in no time. The video maker offers easy-to-use features for professional results. You can use simpleshow video maker for marketing purposes, such as promoting a lead gen webinar, explaining a product update, promoting your product / service, or describing a new product. It is also suitable for company announcements and weekly communications in newsletters to customers. simpleshow video maker is a great alternative to PowerPoint or to enrich your presentations.

Pros:

  • The service suggests the perfect storyline for your message

  • You can use it on your website

  • You are free to make use of thousands of simpleshow illustrations and upload your own images

  • You can preview your video and make changes in an instant

  • You can use the Explainer Engine tool, which illustrates your story with images

Cons:

  • Advanced features require a Business, Pro, or Enterprise account

Features:

  • Create custom videos in your brand colors to perfectly match your corporate identity

  • Record your own voice-over or leave it to the professionals (if you’d like to have your video dubbed by a professional speaker, or if you need individual graphics and interactive elements, the service will take care of it)

  • Publish and share your video with your audience

Frequently asked questions

What software is best for animation?

Check out our article reviewing the best 2D animation software.

What is the best free animation software for beginners?

Here's some of the best software for whiteboard animation suitable for beginners:

  • Powtoon

  • Animaker

  • MySimpleShow

  • Renderforest

Conclusion

With all these great free sites to make and customize your own animations, no matter the purpose of the animated video, you have many options to choose from. Think of the features you’d like to use in your video – animated characters, voice-over, drawing – and choose the app lets you create what you need.

If you’re willing to try a more advanced yet simple video maker, try Movavi Video Editor. It has a simple interface and provides features that allow you to edit and customize videos to your taste and save and share them with your family, friends, clients etc. So, the hassle is over. Use one of these free online programs or try Movavi Video Editor and make awesome videos today!


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