TL;DR
Canva acquired motion design software Cavalry in February 2026, and by April, made the full Pro version completely free for individual users under the Affinity by Canva umbrella. This follows the same playbook Canva used with Affinity, and it’s adding real pressure to Adobe’s market position. If you haven’t been paying attention to what Canva is building, now is the time to start.
If you missed the news around April 16th, 2026, you’re not alone. Cavalry Pro is free now. The full version. For individual users. No subscription required. Canva made the announcement quietly, but the reaction in the design community has been anything but.
I missed it too, honestly. But the more I dug into what actually happened, the more I realized this is bigger than just a free tool announcement. It’s another data point in a much larger story about where the creative software industry is heading, and what it means for you as someone who lives and breathes design.
Let’s talk about it.
What Is Cavalry, and Why Does It Matter?
Cavalry is a procedural 2D animation tool with professional-grade features, many of which are inspired by 3D software. Think of it as a modern, systems-based approach to motion design where elements respond dynamically to changing parameters, rather than manually keyframing every single movement. It’s been trusted by studios and motion designers who wanted something more flexible and performance-driven than the standard After Effects workflow.
It was originally developed by Scene Group and first released in 2020, with the team being a spin-off from Mainframe North, which developed MASH, Maya’s motion graphics toolset.
Cavalry quickly became a modern favourite among professional motion designers, thanks to its procedural, performance-first approach and deep commitment to creative control. Canva
Before April 2026, the software had a free Starter tier that was capped at HD resolution and lacked advanced tools. If you wanted to use it professionally, you were paying a Pro subscription. That has now changed. The free version now has no restrictions and is available for use on commercial work, at least for individual artists. You can read the full breakdown of what’s included on CG Channel’s coverage of the announcement.
Enterprise operations will still require a paid Canva Enterprise or Education plan, but strictly for Single Sign-On and team management functionality. For most creatives working independently or in small studios, that distinction is irrelevant. Cavalry Pro is free for you.
The Timeline: How We Got Here
This didn’t happen overnight. Canva acquired Cavalry, a UK-based motion design platform, in early 2026. It was a recent acquisition, with the software bought just six weeks before the free announcement. That’s a remarkably fast pipeline from acquisition to free release. Compare that to Affinity, which appeared in stasis for fifteen months after being bought by Canva while the company built the new version.
The speed here signals confidence. Canva already knows this playbook works, and they’re running it faster each time. If you want the full story on how the Affinity side of things unfolded, I covered it in detail here: Affinity Is Now Free: Canva’s Disruptive Move for Designers.
With Cavalry Pro now free alongside a Canva account, you can work across photo editing, vector design, layout, and motion, all from one account.
That last part is worth sitting with for a second. One free account. Photo editing, vector work, layout, and motion. That’s an enormous amount of professional capability handed to you at no cost.
This Is the "Affinity Playbook" Running Again
If you were around when Canva made Affinity free in October 2025, this will feel very familiar. Making Affinity free fundamentally attacked Adobe’s pricing model. Canva is betting that giving away professional-grade tools for free builds market share faster than subscription revenue, then monetizing through AI upsells and cloud collaboration.
Affinity surpassed 5 million downloads within months, demonstrating that professional designers were actively seeking alternatives to Adobe’s pricing structure.
So what does Cavalry Pro being free mean in the context of this larger strategy? Together with Affinity, Cavalry completes a professional stack that now spans static design, vector work, layout, and motion, with Canva connecting it all so creatives can move seamlessly from deep craft work through to collaboration and distribution at scale.
They’re building a full creative operating system. And piece by piece, they’re making it free to get you in.
What's New in Affinity at the Same Time
Cavalry Pro going free wasn’t the only announcement in April. Alongside it, Canva Brand System is now inside Affinity. You can craft with precision and stay on brand by tapping into approved colors, fonts, imagery, and brand voice right where you’re already creating, then move assets seamlessly into Canva to collaborate and distribute work across teams, formats, and channels.
For anyone doing brand work, this is genuinely interesting. The idea of building inside Affinity and pushing directly into a Brand Kit in Canva without manually exporting and reformatting is the kind of workflow improvement that saves real time on client deliverables.
There are also new integrations worth knowing about. Capture One and DaVinci Resolve both now support Affinity’s native .af file type, making it faster and more seamless to move between applications without losing quality.
And for automation, by connecting Claude with Affinity, you can describe a process once and Claude builds and saves it as a reusable script in your Scripting panel, ready to run whenever you need it, whether that’s batch image editing, print prep, or bulk colour balance adjustments across entire documents.
You can see the full list of what’s new directly on the Affinity April 2026 update page.
What This Means for Adobe
Let’s be direct about this. Cavalry Pro being free is another chip away at Adobe’s long-standing grip on the creative software market.
Adobe maintains an overwhelming market position with over 70% of the creative software market as of 2024, and the Creative Cloud holds more than 80% market share in creative software according to Valens Research. That’s not a position that disappears overnight. But the pressure is building in a real way.
Adobe’s reign as the top design firm is no longer guaranteed, with competitors buffeting it from every side. Topline growth and the bottom line have plateaued in recent quarters.
Adobe’s shares declined 30% in early 2026 as investors reassessed software companies facing AI disruption.
The thing that makes Canva’s approach particularly effective is the pricing contrast. Adobe’s Creative Cloud all-apps plan currently runs at $69.99 a month on an annual plan, or $104.99 month-to-month. Cavalry Pro is free, Affinity is free, and the barrier to building a professional workflow without Adobe keeps getting lower. That’s a gap that’s genuinely hard to justify to clients, employers, or even yourself if you’re re-evaluating your tools.
Canva has a massive active user base of something like 260 million monthly active users. The total professional creative market is about 65 million customers. Canva can subsidize this vision indefinitely even if very few Affinity users convert to paid subscribers.
That’s the part that makes this strategy so durable. The economics favor Canva’s approach in a way that’s difficult for Adobe to counter without fundamentally changing their own model.
None of this means Adobe is finished. Adobe Firefly continues to grow, with Firefly Enterprise new customer acquisition growing 50% year-over-year in Q1 2026. Enterprise clients in particular are unlikely to drop Adobe anytime soon. But the mid-market, the freelancer segment, the small studio — that’s exactly where Canva is making inroads. And Cavalry Pro being free is one more reason for someone sitting on the fence to make the switch.
What the Design Community Is Saying
The reaction in design circles has been pretty vocal. Reddit’s r/MotionDesign community was enthusiastic, with many users thrilled about the announcement. School of Motion described it as part of Canva quietly assembling a full creative pipeline that completely bypasses the Adobe pipeline.
There’s also healthy skepticism in the mix. The shift to requiring a Canva account to access the latest version is a meaningful trade-off for those who preferred keeping their tools siloed. Whether professionals accept trading a one-time purchase for mandatory Canva integration is the billion-dollar question.
Canva has been clear on one point, though. Everything that is free in Cavalry today will remain free. The focus is on expanding access while continuing to invest in the depth professionals rely on.
That’s a direct promise worth holding them to.
Should You Add Cavalry to Your Toolkit?
If motion design is any part of your work, or even adjacent to it, the fact that Cavalry Pro is free makes it worth exploring with basically zero downside. You need a free Canva account to access the latest version (Cavalry 2.7 and beyond), and that’s the extent of the barrier.
All previously locked features including advanced rendering codecs, batch processing, and export formats are now open to anyone. The only holdout is enterprise SSO.
If you’re already inside the Affinity by Canva ecosystem for static design work, adding Cavalry gives you a complete creative stack from a single login. That’s a genuinely compelling proposition.
If you’re not ready to go deep on motion design just yet, it’s still worth downloading and having available. The design community is moving toward motion being a baseline expectation for brand work, and having a professional tool ready when that moment arrives costs you nothing right now.
The Bigger Picture for Your Design Business
What Canva is doing here is worth paying attention to beyond just the individual tools. The pattern is consistent: acquire professional-grade software, make it free, pull creatives into the Canva ecosystem, and monetize through AI features, team collaboration, and enterprise tiers.
As someone building a design business, that shift matters. Your clients are likely already in Canva. The tools you use to create for them are increasingly interoperable with Canva’s infrastructure. And the barrier to accessing professional-grade software, for you and for new designers entering the field, keeps dropping.
Cavalry Pro being free is a straightforward win for the design community. A professional motion design tool, available at no cost, with no feature restrictions for individual use. Whatever you think about Canva’s broader strategy, that’s a good outcome.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Cavalry Pro really free?
Yes. As of April 2026, Cavalry Pro is free for individual users. The full version, including all features previously locked behind the paid Pro subscription, is now available at no cost. You need a free Canva account to access Cavalry 2.7 and later.
Do I need a paid Canva account to use Cavalry?
No. You need a free Canva account to access the latest version, but no paid subscription is required for individual use. Enterprise and team features requiring Single Sign-On still need a paid Canva Enterprise or Education plan.
Is Cavalry a good After Effects alternative?
Cavalry takes a procedural, systems-based approach to 2D animation that many motion designers find more flexible than traditional timeline-based tools. With Cavalry Pro now free, it sits alongside Maxon’s Autograph as one of two free professional After Effects alternatives available right now.
Will Cavalry Pro stay free long-term?
Canva has stated publicly that everything free in Cavalry today will remain free, and that their focus is on expanding access rather than restricting it. Some future AI or enterprise features may require an upgrade, but the core software is committed to staying free for individual users.
How does Cavalry Pro being free affect Adobe's position?
Canva making professional tools free continues to erode Adobe’s competitive advantage, particularly with freelancers and small studios who are most sensitive to subscription costs. Adobe still holds significant market share and continues to grow its AI offerings, but the competitive landscape is meaningfully different than it was two years ago.
What else launched at the same time as Cavalry going free?
Canva launched Brand System inside Affinity, allowing designers to build brand assets directly in Affinity and publish them to Canva Brand Kits. New integrations with Capture One and DaVinci Resolve were also announced, along with Claude-powered automation inside Affinity’s Scripting panel.
