The discrepancy is the story

Polotno is the tool people describe two opposite ways.

One version: a free, no-account, no-ads design editor you open in a browser and export from. The other version: a paid product, because something changed.

Both sentences can be true at once if you mix up two products with the same first name. I opened Polotno’s official pages on 23 August 2026. Studio and the SDK are not the same offer.

What Polotno Studio still is

Polotno Studio is at studio.polotno.com, also linked from polotno.com/studio. The official “free, no sign-up, privacy-friendly” page is specific.

You can use every core feature without logging in. The editor loads in the browser. Exports — they list PNG, JPG, PDF, GIF and MP4 — render on your device and save locally. Designs stay in the browser session unless you choose to save to an online workspace. Accounts are optional, and only for cloud save across sessions.

They also document the small leaks that “nothing leaves your machine” marketing usually skips. The editor may load fonts from Google Fonts. It may use lightweight analytics depending on your browser and ad-blocker. They say those requests do not send your design data.

That is still a free editor. I did not hit a paywall opening the studio. I am not going to claim I designed a 40-page brand book in it.

What changed is the other product

Polotno the company also sells Polotno SDK: a white-label editor you embed in your own app, with a programmatic API. That is a developer product. The public marketing points at a pricing page for API keys and lists business customers.

If you are a person who wants to make a thumbnail, you do not need the SDK. If a comparison site says “Polotno is paid-only,” check whether they are pricing the SDK. Pricing the SDK as if it were Studio is how the “free ride ended” rumour gets written down as fact.

I am not putting an SDK dollar figure on this page. That number is for a different buyer, and it is not what makes Studio a Canva alternative.

What you give up if you leave Canva

Canva Free, on canva.com/pricing today, still claims 1.6 million+ templates, 4.7 million+ media items, a Brand Kit and 5GB of cloud storage. Pro adds resize, translate, background removal, five Brand Kits, a social planner and 100GB.

Polotno Studio’s official pitch is the opposite shape: start immediately, keep the file on the device, skip the account. It does not claim a Canva-scale template or stock library on the page I read. Older write-ups that call it “open source Canva” are also sloppy. The Studio is a free web app. The company’s GitHub exists. That is not the same as “the whole Canva clone is MIT and you should self-host it instead of opening studio.polotno.com.”

You also give up Canva’s collaboration, Brand Kits, Education plan, print pipeline and mobile apps — unless Polotno has added them since this sentence was written. They were not on the privacy-friendly feature page I used as a source.

Who this is actually for

Polotno’s own page names the audience: schools, kids, people who do not want another account, teams with strict IT policies, and anyone who wants to sketch an idea without handing over an email.

That is a good list. It is also a smaller list than “everyone who is tired of Canva.”

If you need to stay signed out, export a PNG and close the tab, Studio still does that. If you need a shared brand folder and a colleague in another city, Canva is still the product that documents that job.

How I would choose, labelled as opinion

For a one-off graphic where I do not want a new login, I would try Polotno Studio before I created another SaaS account. The official no-signup claim is the whole point.

For anything I expect to reopen next month, I would use Canva Free or accept Polotno’s optional account. Local-only work dies when the browser profile dies. That is not a moral failing. It is how browsers work.

I would not tell a small business to “switch from Canva to Polotno” as a strategy. I would tell them to open Studio once and see whether the canvas is enough. If it is not, they have lost ten minutes, not a migration.

What I did not check

I did not measure the template count. I did not test video export length or PDF print marks. I did not review the SDK licence. I did not create a Polotno cloud account, so I cannot describe that save flow from use.

The useful fact that survives those gaps: on 23 August 2026, the no-signup Studio is still there. The paid thing with the same name is for people building software, not for people leaving Canva Pro.