Design Huddle is a cloud platform for template-based design and video. You run it as a white-label portal, embed its editor in your site as an iframe, or generate files through its API. Polotno SDK is a design editor you build into your own app from React components, with designs stored as JSON on your side. The question that decides it: do you want a managed platform with brand controls included, or an editor and data model your team owns?
Pick the one that matches how you want to run it
Pick Design Huddle if…
- You want a branded portal without developers: the out-of-the-box portal comes with your logo, colors, and login URL, and needs no developer to start.
- Many users share brand rules: permissions, per-brand visibility, locking, and project approvals come built in, which suits franchises and multi-location brands.
- You want a vendor to run everything: Design Huddle handles hosting and rendering, and onboarding includes a dedicated specialist.
- You run print through templates: you get vector PDF with bleed, crop marks, CMYK, spot colors, custom ICC profiles, and variable data printing.
Pick Polotno SDK if…
- The editor is part of your product: Polotno's React components render in your own page, with no iframe between your code and the editor.
- You need to self-host: editing and rendering run on your side, and every license includes both.
- You want designs as data: a design is documented JSON in your own database, which your code can generate, version, and migrate.
- You want rendering with no per-render fee: self-hosted rendering is unlimited under fair use.
How Design Huddle and Polotno differ
1. How the editor reaches your users
Design Huddle sells three deployment modes. White-label is a hosted portal under your name, logo, colors, and domain. Embedded puts its editor in your site: its JavaScript SDK inserts an iframe into your DOM, and a basic integration needs no backend code beyond authentication. Headless generates graphics, print files, and videos through APIs with no editor at all.
You tailor the embedded editor through that SDK and the API: override default controls, add custom validation, and build form-based editing.
Polotno's editor is React components in your bundle, with no iframe. You decide which panels exist and put your own next to them. Customizing it needs React, and we publish guides for Next.js, Vue, Angular, Svelte, and plain JavaScript.
With Design Huddle you start from a finished editor and work inside what its SDK exposes. With Polotno you own the UI, and your team writes and maintains it.
2. Where designs live
Design Huddle describes a cloud-hosted platform. Templates, projects, and rendering live on it, and we found no self-hosted option in its materials. You can bring designs in from PDF and Illustrator, and we found no template export format, so plan for your template library to stay on the platform.
Polotno templates are JSON files you store, version, and move yourself. Design content reaches Polotno servers only if you use Cloud Render or AI features. License checks and the default asset panels carry no design content.
3. Automation
Both products generate designs from your data. Design Huddle's Smart Templates let you tag text, media, and colors, then fill them through the API, preview variations in real time, and either let users finish in the editor or render finished assets in bulk. Its SDK also creates projects from a template or from scratch and adds elements, pages, and scenes, and an MCP server connects AI assistants.
Polotno designs are JSON, so your code creates and changes them. The schema has no variable concept: your code sets the values in the JSON, with a placeholder pattern as a convention. Magic resize moves and scales elements to fit a new size. You render through the Cloud Render API, on your own servers, or in the browser.
Design Huddle packages template tagging as a product feature your non-developers can use. Polotno gives your developers the data and leaves the pipeline to them.
4. Brand controls and approvals
Design Huddle leads here. Its FAQ lists feature visibility per user or group, permission levels on templates and assets, and per-brand visibility. Its pricing page adds granular locking, project review and approvals, and multi-brand support.
Polotno ships the building blocks: per-element locks on moving, resizing, deleting, content and style, admin, user and viewer roles, a font allowlist, and a brand kit panel. You write the validation rules and approval workflow.
If a hundred franchisees edit brand assets next quarter and you have no engineers to spare, Design Huddle gets you there with configuration. If your product already has its own users and workflow, Polotno's pieces fit inside them.
5. Media and output
Design Huddle treats digital, print, slides, and video as four media types, and your plan sets how many you get. It exports JPG, PNG, PDF, MP4, GIF, and WebP, with WebM on an upgrade. It imports Lottie motion graphics and offers print output with bleed, crop marks, CMYK, and spot colors.
Polotno's print output covers CMYK, bleed, crop marks, PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-4, spot colors, overprint, and a preflight tool. Video is a timeline with trim, split, audio tracks, and animation, and Lottie animations play on the canvas and in MP4 and GIF export. Polotno imports PDF, SVG, PPTX, PSD in beta, Figma frames through SVG, and Illustrator files through the PDF path.
6. Pricing model
Design Huddle sells subscription plans, with users as the main metric and an API-activity alternative for some use cases. A one-time onboarding fee applies, and video render minutes, video storage, and AI credits are metered.
Polotno SDK and Design Huddle compared
| Polotno SDK | Design Huddle | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary model | Editor SDK you build into your app | Hosted platform with portal, embed, and headless modes |
| Editor inside your app | Yes, React components in your bundle | Yes, a hosted iframe through its JavaScript SDK |
| No-developer start | No, an SDK needs engineers | Yes, the white-label portal |
| Hosting | Self-hosted, plus optional Cloud Render API | Cloud-hosted, no self-hosted option found |
| Design storage | JSON in your own database | On the Design Huddle platform |
| Automation | JSON from your code | Smart Templates through its API, plus MCP |
| Template locking | Per-element locks, admin, user and viewer roles | Granular locking, custom roles and permissions |
| Approvals | You build the workflow | Built-in project review and approvals |
| Media types | Images, documents, video | Digital, print, slides, video, set by plan |
| Print output | CMYK, bleed, crop marks, PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-4, spot colors, overprint | Vector PDF, bleed, crop marks, CMYK, spot colors, variable data printing |
| Export formats | PNG, JPEG, PDF, SVG, HTML, PPTX, GIF, MP4. Cloud Render: PNG, JPEG, PDF, PPTX, GIF, MP4 | JPG, PNG, PDF, MP4, GIF, WebP, with WebM on an upgrade |
| Mobile | Adapts to touch, with WebView guides for native apps | Mobile web for basic template edits, and WebView for native apps |
| Pricing model | Fixed license fee by custom quote, Cloud Render billed per use, 30-day free trial with no credit card | Subscription plans by users, with metered video and AI |
When Design Huddle is the right call
Design Huddle fits a company that wants design tools for its users and doesn't want to build or run them. Franchises, brokerages, and commercial printers get template tools, brand rules, approvals, and print output from a vendor that handles hosting and onboarding, and the portal can go live with no developer work. Polotno SDK can't match that last part, because an SDK needs engineers.
Polotno fits when the editor is part of a product you build: your UI, your data model, and your choice of where it runs.
FAQ
Does either product include templates?
Design Huddle's FAQ says design and video templates aren't included, though stock media is, and it can introduce you to agency partners. Polotno's default panels bring stock photos, icons and shapes, Google Fonts, and templates, and you can replace any of them with your own content.
