Adobe Express
Runway
| Feature | Adobe Express | Runway |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $9.99/mo | Free / from $12/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.5 / 5 |
| Best For | social-media-managers, small-businesses, marketers, content-creators | filmmakers, content-creators, advertisers, video-editors |
| Founded | 2021 | 2018 |
| Templates | ✓ | ✗ |
| Ai Image Generation | ✓ | ✗ |
| Background Removal | ✓ | ✗ |
| Animation | ✓ | ✗ |
| Brand Kit | ✓ | ✗ |
| Video Editing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Resize | ✓ | ✗ |
| Text To Video | ✗ | ✓ |
| Image To Video | ✗ | ✓ |
| Green Screen | ✗ | ✓ |
| Motion Brush | ✗ | ✓ |
| Inpainting | ✗ | ✓ |
| Upscaling | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Adobe Express Pros
- Adobe Firefly AI integration
- Huge template library
- Remove background instantly
- Animate designs easily
✗ Adobe Express Cons
- Less powerful than full Creative Cloud apps
- Watermarks on free tier AI content
- Limited advanced editing
✓ Runway Pros
- Industry-leading video generation quality
- Comprehensive AI creative tools
- Text-to-video and image-to-video
- Professional-grade motion control
✗ Runway Cons
- Credits deplete quickly with video generation
- Expensive for heavy use
- Generated videos limited to a few seconds
The Verdict
Adobe Express is built for social media managers and small businesses, with a focus on templates and ai-image-generation. Runway targets filmmakers and content creators and leads with text-to-video and image-to-video.
Pricing is close: Adobe Express starts at $9.99/mo versus $12/mo for Runway — not a deciding factor on its own.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Both tools are a solid fit for content creators — in those cases, the decision often comes down to workflow style and how your team prefers to organize work.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.
