An In-Depth Explaindio Review: Create Engaging Animated Videos on a Budget

Explaindio is an inexpensive but feature-packed software for creating whiteboard, cartoon, and animated explainer videos for marketing or educational purposes. It aims to provide an all-in-one toolbox for producing professional videos without the typical complexity or high price tag.

In this detailed Explaindio review, I‘ll give you an inside look at the software‘s features, interface, strengths, and shortcomings to help you decide if it‘s the right fit for your video creation needs. I‘ll also compare it to popular alternatives like VideoScribe and Adobe Animate so you can make an informed choice.

What is Explaindio?

Explaindio is a desktop software for Windows and Mac that provides tools to create animated videos in a variety of styles. Its primary target audience is internet marketers and business owners who want to make professional-looking explainer videos to promote their products or teach concepts to their audience.

The software uses a drag-and-drop, timeline-based interface to combine visual elements, text, and audio on a canvas. It supports importing your own media files or using built-in libraries of sketched images, 3D models, animations, and music tracks. The final video can be exported in various resolutions up to 1080p.

Explaindio‘s Key Features

Here‘s a quick rundown of Explaindio‘s main capabilities:

• Drag-and-drop scenes, animation paths, and visual elements on a timeline
• Draw images and text on screen in a "whiteboard" style
• Create 2D cartoon and 3D animations
• Import your own SVG graphics, images, videos, and fonts
• Add text with entry/exit animations and effects
• Include voice-over narration and background music
• Export videos up to 1080p resolution

I‘ll take a closer look at how these features work in practice as I walk through the Explaindio interface and creation process.

Getting Started with Explaindio‘s Interface

When you first launch Explaindio, the interface can seem overwhelming – there are over 20 buttons on the top menu bar alone! But the layout starts to make sense once you understand its three main areas:

1. Top menu bar: Contains buttons for high-level actions like opening projects, adding scenes, inserting media, and launching the exporter
2. Timeline: Shows your scenes and the timing of media elements within them. This is where you‘ll do most of your arranging and editing.
3. Canvas and editing panel: Displays a preview of the currently selected scene and provides options to modify elements‘ properties.

With this basic orientation, you‘re ready to start assembling your first Explaindio video. The initial step is to create a new project, which simply involves giving it a name. Then the real work begins!

Creating Scenes and Animating Media

Videos in Explaindio are composed of scenes, each of which can contain images, video clips, animations, text, and audio. Think of scenes like slides in a presentation – individual segments that combine into your overall video.

To create your first scene, click the filmstrip icon in the top menu. You can start with a blank scene or choose from a library of pre-built animations. I started with the former to understand the scene creation process from scratch.

With a fresh scene open, you add media to it through the expanding menu at the bottom of the screen. You can import:

• SVG images to "draw" on screen in a sketched style
• Bitmap images (PNG/JPEG)
• Videos
• Pre-built flash animations
• 3D models
• Text
• Audio (voice-over or background music)

I tried out each of these options and discovered some notable strengths and limitations:

Sketched SVGs and Images

The sketched SVG graphics are the signature of the whiteboard animation style. Explaindio comes with an extensive library of these illustrations across a range of categories – from stickmen to icons to cartoon characters. You can also import your own SVGs created in programs like Adobe Illustrator.

I was impressed that Explaindio can automatically convert regular bitmap images into a sketched style as well. It worked quite well on logos and simpler graphics. However, it had trouble with photographs or complex images.

Video Clips

You can import your own video clips or screen recordings to incorporate into whiteboard animations. The process worked smoothly when I tried it. However, there are no options to trim or edit the videos from within Explaindio. You need to do that beforehand in a separate program.

Flash Animations

Explaindio also lets you add pre-built Flash animations as standalone scenes. I couldn‘t import my own Flash files, as I don‘t have any lying around. The built-in options seem aimed at intros, outros and transitions. They‘re snazzy but very generic.

3D Models

This was Explaindio‘s most confusing and underwhelming feature in my experience. It offers a paltry 6 pre-built 3D models in a proprietary .ZF3D format. The animations were very basic and the models seemed to have little practical use (an opening door hinge, really?).
Explaindio‘s marketing heavily touts 3D as a key selling point, but the reality doesn‘t match the hype. You‘d need to create or buy third-party 3D models to take full advantage of this feature. Even then, the software offers minimal options for controlling the 3D animations.

Once you‘ve arranged the elements in your scenes, the real magic happens on the timeline. This is where you control the timing, animation, and flow of your media. I was impressed by the level of control Explaindio provides here:

• Drag and drop media to rearrange their order and timing
• Use the playhead to scrub through the animation
• Adjust entry and exit times by expanding/contracting the media blocks
• Create precise start/end points and overlaps between elements
• Zoom in/out on the timeline for granular edits

With some practice using the timeline and understanding the different animation options for each media type, I was able to create some compelling whiteboard sequences. It does take some trial and error to get the timing right. The interface, while powerful, isn‘t always intuitive.

Working with Text and Audio

In addition to visuals, text and audio play key roles in explainer and whiteboard videos. Here‘s how Explaindio handles these elements:

Adding and Animating Text

You can add text boxes to your scenes and customize the font, color, and size. More impressively, Explaindio offers a deep library of entrance and exit animations to apply to your text. These range from simple fades and swipes to complex handwriting simulations and motion paths.

A few limitations to note:

• No bold/italic/underline options, just a basic font picker
• Can‘t wrap text around other objects or images
• Minimal control over text box dimensions and positioning

Including Voice-Over and Background Audio

Audio is an area where Explaindio falls short compared to some other tools I‘ve used. The main issue is with recording voice-overs. You can record narration directly in the app, but you only get one take. If you mess up, you have to scrap the whole recording and start again.
Most similar apps allow you to do multiple takes and make edits. With Explaindio, I found it easier to record the audio in a separate program and import the final MP3 file.

For background music, Explaindio offers a small library of built-in tracks. But the selection is very limited (only about 15 songs) and skews toward overly dramatic orchestral themes. You‘ll likely want to use your own royalty-free music instead.

Exporting the Final Video

Once you‘re satisfied with your scenes, it‘s time to generate the final video file to share with the world. Explaindio‘s export options are relatively basic but cover the essentials:

• Choose a resolution up to 1080p
• Select a video quality/file size tradeoff
• Add a watermark
• Pick a save location

The process is pretty self-explanatory. I didn‘t encounter any technical hitches in my tests. Just know that you can‘t export individual scenes, only the entire project at once. And there are no options to directly share to sites like YouTube or Vimeo. You‘ll have to do that manually.

The Verdict: Is Explaindio Right for You?

Having thoroughly tested Explaindio, here‘s how I rate it across the key criteria I look for in a video creation app:

Effectiveness: 3.5/5
You can make some impressive animated videos with Explaindio‘s tools. But reaching that level takes practice and patience to overcome a somewhat clunky interface. And you‘ll likely need to supplement the built-in media libraries with your own graphics and audio.

Price: 4/5
At $67 for a one-year personal license, Explaindio is very affordable compared to alternatives. VideoScribe, for example, costs $144/year. The downside is that Explaindio doesn‘t offer monthly plans if you only need it for a short-term project. And there‘s no free trial version.

Ease of Use: 3/5
Explaindio has a steeper learning curve than beginner-focused apps like Powtoon or Doodly. The timeline is powerful but complex, and many features are buried in non-intuitive places. Expect to consult the tutorials frequently at first.

Support: 2.5/5
The included tutorial videos cover the basics but are poorly organized. When I ran into an issue using a pre-built animation, it took several days to get an unhelpful form response to my support query. For an app aimed at non-designers, better documentation and live support would go a long way.

How Does Explaindio Compare to the Alternatives?

Explaindio‘s closest competitors are other easy desktop video tools aimed at marketers, educators, and casual users. Here‘s my take on how it stacks up:

Explaindio vs. VideoScribe
VideoScribe ($144/year) is a more user-friendly and polished app for creating whiteboard animations. It has a larger library of graphics/music and integrates with popular online storage services. But it lacks Explaindio‘s 3D and Flash capabilities.

Explaindio vs. Doodly
Doodly ($39/month) focuses exclusively on whiteboard videos and excels at that specific style. It boasts a huge library of pre-animated scenes and props. But like VideoScribe, it can‘t do Explaindio‘s more advanced animation types.

Explaindio vs. Adobe Animate
Adobe Animate ($21/month) is a pro-grade successor to Flash for creating interactive web animations. It‘s far more complex and expensive than Explaindio and is overkill for basic explainer videos. But if you need advanced character rigging, interactivity, and HTML5 output, it‘s worth the extra cost and effort.

Explaindio vs. Powtoon
Powtoon (starts at $19/month) is a purely web-based platform for making animated videos and presentations. Its drag-and-drop interface and pre-built templates are easier to use than Explaindio for beginners. But the browser-based workflow can feel constrained if you want more control over your animations.

The Bottom Line

Explaindio is a powerful and affordable tool for creating professional-looking explainer and whiteboard videos. It packs an impressive depth of features and customization options into its timeline-based workflow. And the ability to combine different animation styles sets it apart from most competitors.

However, it does have some notable limitations. The built-in graphics and audio aren‘t sufficient on their own for most projects. The much-hyped 3D animation features feel underbaked. And the interface demands a lot of tinkering to master.

If you‘re a marketer, educator or business owner who needs to produce animated videos on a budget, Explaindio is well worth considering – especially if you already have some design chops. It‘s a solid middle ground between the simplicity of web apps and the complexity of pro tools like Adobe Animate.

On the other hand, if you just need to crank out a few basic whiteboard videos without a big learning curve, you‘d get faster results from a more specialized app like VideoScribe or Doodly. And if you‘re a total beginner, Powtoon‘s web-based templates are an easier starting point.

Ultimately, Explaindio‘s value depends on your specific needs and willingness to climb its learning curve. It may not be a perfect fit for everyone. But it offers a unique and affordable toolset for creating engaging animated content.