Doodly Review – Pros & Cons [2023]

Doodly is a whiteboard animation platform that allows users to create professional whiteboard videos without much technical knowledge. Creating whiteboard animation videos with Doodly is so intuitive that even a teenager can produce high-quality videos using vast resources with the tool. Besides whiteboard videos, you can create blackboard and glass board videos. Green screen animation is also available on the platform. If you have your own images, you can even make animations using their Smart Draw technology. While Doodly offers an impressive set of features, there are some drawbacks to be aware of. In our review, we’ll guide you through the features, pros, cons, and pricing plans of Doodly. Let’s go!

Top Features of Doodly

Doodly is a feature-rich whiteboard animation software. In this review, we’re highlighting the top features to give you a solid idea of what you can do with the platform.

Large Asset Library

Professional images are absolutely important to express your ideas through a whiteboard video. Doodly offers a large collection of images inside the platform on just about any topic. Professional artists created these images so they really are the highest-quality images.

For now, Doodly offers about 200 characters with 20 poses for each character. So, that becomes a combination of 4,000 elements you can use in your videos. Twenty background scenes are also available to make unique videos every time. Besides, you can use various props to make your videos look more realistic.

These resources are truly incredible when it comes to making whiteboard videos. All the characters are drawn beautifully, so you can attract a bigger audience. And the pose variation lets you pick the right image for any given situation.

Unlimited Whiteboard videos

With Doodly, you can generate unlimited whiteboard animation videos using the resources available on the platform or your own resources. But the tool isnโ€™t only limited to whiteboard videos. You can also produce blackboard videos to make your videos stand out.

And the green screen animation is probably the next level of whiteboard videos, where you can customize the videos according to your needs. The whole process of creating these videos is pretty straightforward. But if you want to work with green screen animations, that might require some technical knowledge.

Multiple Hand Types

The requirements for the hand that draws the images in a whiteboard animation video might be different in various scenarios. Doodly offers multiple hand types to create your videos using the perfect hand type for the audience. You can choose gender, skin color, size, ethnicity, etc., to make your videos more relatable to the target audience.

Drag and Drop Editor

This is what makes Doodly so user-friendly. The drag-and-drop editor is pretty intuitive, so people with almost no technical knowledge about whiteboard videos can create one quickly. You can place or remove any building blocks on or from the canvas right away.

Aligning elements or arranging them in the correct order is also easy. Be it a text, image, or anything else; you can play around with the elements. On the right side of the screen, you will have options to format the elements on the canvas to make your whiteboard videos look much more professional.

The process is so fun and addictive that it will make your video production a lot less stressful. But it would be better to have some more commands to transform the elements on the canvas freely.

Video Editing

Editing videos can sound scary if you have no prior experience. But Doodly makes it so easy, even for the newbies, that you will be intrigued to produce a video on your own. All the editing elements are organized so that you can perform various actions like duplicating or trimming scenes quickly. As you can control every step of the process, the tool lets you make the perfect video possible.

Royalty-Free Music

Any whiteboard animation video wonโ€™t be complete without the music that fits the context. Doodly has a collection of royalty-free music tracks to go with your videos, regardless of the category or topic of the videos. These music tracks are pretty easy to add to your videos.

You just need to go to the Sounds tab and choose the right music for the video. There are a few options on the bottom left corner of the screen to adjust the music as per your needs. Once that is done, you will be left with a video that doesnโ€™t only look great but also sounds great.

Custom Voiceover

You donโ€™t need to wait for professional voiceovers to make great whiteboard animation videos. The process becomes much simpler when you can record your own voice within the tool. In Doodly, you can easily record your voice with the click of a button and adjust the attributes to make the perfect voiceover for your videos.

The recorded voice can be directly added to the videos. But if you want to import voiceovers from other platforms, that is also possible on Doodly. You need to simply import the audio file and add that to the video here. Doodly supports multiple audio formats so that you can easily add your voiceovers.

Create Templates

Besides using the pre-built templates on the platform, you can create your own. For example, if you are working with a specific type of video that needs the same base structure for every video, you can skip the hard work of creating them from scratch.

Instead, you can save your designs at any point as templates to use in the future. This way, you save a lot of time and hassle next time you make a similar video.

Video Sharing

Once your whiteboard animation videos are ready, you need to upload them on various platforms requiring different resolutions. To meet those criteria, you can select the resolution of your videos while exporting them. Doodly supports up to 1080p resolution, which is a good fit for most platforms out there.

You can also choose the file size to match the size requirements of various platforms. What pricked us here was the lack of higher video resolutions. Having something like a 1440p or 2K would be much better. But thatโ€™s not much of a flaw, in our opinion.

File Management

Managing your resources is pretty easy on Doodly. Once you upload files to the media library, you can use them repeatedly for any of your videos. Other file types also stay in order so that you can pick the required file quickly whenever you need it.

The resources of the platform are also easy to find. But it often takes a bit longer to load the resources if you have a slow internet connection. Though that is considerable, as Doodly has a massive collection of resources, a faster experience would be better.

Pros & Cons of Doodly

Like all whiteboard software, Doodly has both pros and cons.

Pros

  • Doodly is very affordable
  • Easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor
  • Vast media library with an assortment of characters, poses, and props
  • Ability to import your own resources (images, voiceovers, etc)
  • Users can request new features or for updating existing ones
  • You can use one account on multiple computers

Cons

  • Only supports PNG and JPEG images
  • Requires a good internet connection to upload and export reliabliy
  • Rendering time could be faster

Doodly Plans & Pricing

Doodly offers two plans, and both are pretty affordable for what’s included.

  • Standard โ€“ starting at $39/mo
    • 1,164 character images
    • 1,620 prop images
    • 150 royalty-free music tracks
    • 20 video templates
  • Enterprise โ€“ starting at $69/mo
    • 3,959 character images
    • 3,341 prop images
    • 250 royalty-free music tracks
    • 40 video templates

Our Take on Doodly

Doodly makes creating whiteboard animation videos a breeze by providing almost every character, pose, and prop you can imagine. Turning your ideas into reality becomes much easier when you use these resources to make whiteboard, blackboard, chalkboard, glassboard, or green screen animation videos. The drag-and-drop editor is solid, and anyone can easily create stunning videos using various elements in the editor. Editing scenes is also easy, thanks to the built-in tools. The media library is massive, so you may never need to create your own assets (but if you need to, it’s easy to import). Doodly also offers royalty-free music tracks to take your videos to the next level. On the flip side, the platform does have limits with image formats for uploading and exporting videos takes a bit of patience. The Standard plan starts from $39 per month, which is a pretty good deal.