Canva developers wrapped

2023 was the start of a new era for developers building on Canva. Opening the doors to our Canva Developers program in June was a daunting and exhilarating task, and in just 6 months from the full launch of the Canva Apps SDK we’ve seen some incredible achievements by our community. To get inspired heading into 2024, we’re looking back at the biggest highlights and wins from this foundational year.

The products available for Canva Developers to build with have doubled this year, and the feature list is getting as long as Santa’s nice list. To put their ideas in the hands of Canva’s 170 million users, in 2023 developers gained access to:

• General availability of the Canva Apps SDK, enabling all developers to build an app for the Canva Apps Marketplace.
• Private early access to the Connect APIs — a set of REST APIs that allow enterprises to get resources from Canva into their 3rd party software.
• The launch of our 100TH APP on the Apps Marketplace 🎊

Being a model for good engineering practices is top of mind for Canva when we build our APIs and tools. While this work is never over, we made some big strides this year to be good citizens of engineering, including:

• Providing simplified access to the Canva Apps SDK with NPM packages⁠(opens in a new tab or window) and a public GitHub repo for our Starter Kit⁠(opens in a new tab or window).
• Contributing 4 PRs as a community to the Starter Kit, kickstarting an exploration for Open Source contributions in 2024.
• Releasing 30+ UI Components⁠(opens in a new tab or window) to help developers streamline creating app frontends.

We have a vision to make Canva the most pluggable, powerful visual communication platform, and we can’t do it alone. We’ve gathered a growing community, full of all-star developers helping us learn and build the best product possible. Here are some of the community memories and milestones that made our year:

• Launching a new community platform, ensuring long term growth for developer Q&A and feature requests.
• Distributing our first Innovation Fund prizes for the App Adoption Awards with 22 Apps awarded.
• Activating a global community with 7 events across the world in San Francisco, Sydney, Auckland, and NYC.

If you want to stay up to date on all the latest news and updates on the Canva Developers Innovation Fund, or to suggest new methods and APIs, don’t forget to join our Developers Community⁠(opens in a new tab or window). It’s the easiest way to keep an eye on our announcements and join the conversation with your fellow developers, founder, and innovators.