Alternative to Stencil 🤔

Stencil, a low-code image generation tool is great for users with basic needs and a bit of a technical background. Though this tool is considered “low-code” it requires enough tech-savviness to understand drag-and-drop dynamics, different image layers, and how to build workflows within the tool.

With a large focus on e-commerce, Stencil connects directly with Shopify and WooCommerce to generate images based on what each user is selling. With Stencil, advertising is streamlined and connected, so when the e-commerce sites update, so does the image generation. Stencil has invested development dollars into making it even easier to use, but unlike Switchboard Canvas, the tool requires input from the user to generate the image.

Software Strengths

To enable true automation, Stencil utilizes connections with Google Sheets and Airtable. For users with a bit of programming knowledge, these automations are quick to set up, easy to change, and simple to maintain. Integrations between Stencil and other applications make it easier to generate images without much code at all, opening the tool up to non-programmers who have a knack for technical work.

Because of the e-commerce focus, Stencil can automate social media images for all popular platforms, generate digital certificates, and even automate email campaigns. Regardless of whether a business sells digital products or tangible products, Stencil reduces the time to close sales by automating critical marketing tasks.

For digital marketers that want a bit more control over how images come out, Stencil allows for a wide range of customizations. Users can change different elements of a graphic such as the font or color, and manually select stock photos they want to use before asking Stencil to populate the final image.

Software Limits

Although the team at Stencil has done a lot of infrastructure refinement to support less-technical users, it still requires some technical understanding to be effective. Users build workflows on a front-end interface for simple requests, but with more complex needs or multiple platform connections, the platform is still optimized for those with mastery of programming languages. Users need to be able to query data, or, at the very least, understand how queries work and make tweaks when needed.

Switchboard Canvas fully automates image generation and only asks users to paste a link to the information, but because Stencil offers a higher level of customization than Switchboard Canvas, it’s difficult to say this tool can fully automate certain tasks.