Animaps vs Flourish: Interactive Data Maps or Map Videos?

Comparison verified October 2026. Both products change from time to time. Check each site before you decide.

TL;DR

Short version: Flourish is a data visualization and storytelling platform owned by Canva. It has 50+ templates for charts, maps and timelines, including choropleth maps, point maps, 3D globes and animated 3D maps. Its maps are interactive: readers zoom, hover and click on a web page. Video export exists, but only for stories, and its help center calls it a premium feature that the Flourish team must turn on. Animaps is a map animation studio. It makes finished MP4 videos with borders, fills, labels, routes and historical maps, from a text prompt or by hand. If you publish interactive charts and maps on a website, Flourish is the better tool. If you need a map video for YouTube, TikTok or a lesson, Animaps fits better.

Quick links:

Key differences:

Both tools put data on a map. Flourish makes it something a reader explores on a page. Animaps makes it something a viewer watches in a video.

Quick Comparison

What Each Tool Is For

Flourish calls itself the place "Where data meets storytelling." Canva acquired it in 2022. Its pricing FAQ describes "over 50 chart types" for teams "who need to tell data stories across reports, websites, or presentations."

Maps are one family of templates. Its maps page lists choropleth maps, point maps, 3D globes, animated 3D maps, marker maps and heatmaps. Its FAQ adds locator, arrow, spike and line maps. Country starting points cover more than 60 countries, and you can upload your own regions as GeoJSON. The maps animate "changes across time, location or category," and readers can "zoom, hover, and click to explore data on every map."

You can group several charts and maps into a Flourish story, a step-by-step explainer with captions. Publisher and Enterprise plans add scrollytelling, where the story moves as the reader scrolls.

Animaps is a map animation studio. You describe what you want in plain English, for example "show the Roman Empire at its peak, then fly to Rome and add a label," and it returns a list of steps. Each step has a live preview, and you can change its timing, target, color or camera angle. You can also build every step by hand. Its site lists 23 animation types: camera moves, border tracing, land fills, labels, text, icons and 3D models, road, air, sea and rail routes, and historical border timelapses for 5,500+ empires, states and countries.

The simple way to say it: Flourish turns your data into charts and maps people explore. Animaps turns a map into a video people watch.

Pricing Side by Side

Flourish

Its pricing page shows no prices. It lists four plans:

Its FAQ says premium plans "are handled through custom contracts and invoicing," except Presenter, which is billed through Canva.

Animaps

Each AI prompt costs 2 credits on every Animaps plan. Editing and preview by hand are free and unlimited. Credits go to AI prompts and exports.

Flourish's free plan is wider for web work. It has no project limit and gives you every template, so you can publish interactive maps and charts for free as long as you keep the attribution. Animaps' free plan is metered in credits. For video, the picture flips: Animaps prices are public and every plan exports video, while Flourish video sits on its premium side.

Video Export

This is the main gap between the two.

Flourish exports video from stories only. Its help center says "The video export function is a premium feature and must be enabled by the Flourish team." Its pricing table lists video only in the top export column. When it is on, you get:

The same page lists the current limits: no captions in the video and no audio. It also says the feature is "still undergoing heavy testing and improvement." For a single chart, Flourish suggests putting it in a one-slide story, or recording your screen. Its help center also says that, except on business and enterprise plans, "it's strictly required to include a link back to the Flourish homepage wherever you publish or embed a video or GIF made with Flourish."

Animaps exports MP4 or GIF at 30 or 60 FPS, in 16:9, 9:16 or 1:1, on every plan. Exports are 1080p on every plan, and 1440p is included on Pro. Each animation can run 30, 45 or 60 seconds depending on the plan, and GIFs are capped at 6 seconds. Starter and Pro can add sound effects and music to the export.

If your final product is a video, Animaps gets you there with fewer steps. If your final product is a web page, Flourish's interactive embed is something Animaps does not offer.

Data, Charts and Interactivity

This is Flourish's home ground.

Data in. You paste or upload a spreadsheet. Projection maps need one row per region with a code that matches the template. Point, 3D and other maps need latitude and longitude, plus time columns if you want movement over time. Publisher plans can link a Google Sheet or a public CSV so the chart updates by itself.

Charts next to the map. A Flourish story can mix a map with charts, timelines and other templates, all in one style.

Readers explore. Popups, filters and tooltips let readers find their own region. Embeds are responsive, so they work on phones too.

Animaps does none of this. It has no charts, no spreadsheet import and no interactive embed. It brings its own database of places, borders and routes instead, so you do not need a dataset to start. Its Atlas overlays add ready-made data layers such as time zones, tectonic plates and earthquakes.

If your story depends on numbers per region, or you want readers to click around, use Flourish.

Maps That Explain

Flourish colors and animates your data. Its maps page does not describe steps for tracing one border, filling a country with a flag, flying the camera along a route, or showing how an empire's borders changed over centuries.

Animaps covers those directly. You can trace or pulse a border, fill a country with a color or a flag, add labels and text, place icons and 3D models, follow a route with the camera, and play back historical borders. Scenes let several of these run at the same time, for example fly to a country while its border traces and a label appears. The camera move is part of the plan, which matters when you time a map to a voiceover.

Who Should Choose Which

Choose Flourish if

Your audience reads on a screen and wants to explore the data.

You publish on the web. Responsive, interactive embeds for articles, reports and dashboards.

You need charts as well as maps. 50+ templates in one tool and one style.

Your story is data per region. Choropleth and point maps fed by your own spreadsheet.

You work in Canva or PowerPoint. Presenter puts Flourish charts inside both.

You want a free tool for public work. Unlimited projects on the free plan, with attribution.

Choose Animaps if

Your audience watches a video.

You need a map video now. MP4 or GIF on every plan, with no feature to request.

You make vertical or square video. 9:16 and 1:1 from the same project.

You need borders, fills and labels in motion. Highlight a country, trace a border, label cities, and time each step.

You make history or geography content. Border timelapses for 5,500+ empires, states and countries.

You want to start from a description. Write the sequence in plain English and edit the steps it returns.

Use Both

The two tools fit well together. Use Flourish for the interactive chart or map in your article, and Animaps for the map sequence in your video. Readers explore one; viewers watch the other.

FAQ

Is Flourish free? Yes, there is a free plan with unlimited projects and all templates. Published projects are public and carry Flourish attribution.

How much does Flourish cost? Its pricing page lists no prices. Presenter comes with a Canva Business or Enterprise plan. Publisher and Enterprise are on quote.

Can Flourish export a video of a map? Yes, from a story, as an MP4 of up to 300 seconds. Its help center calls it a premium feature that the Flourish team must turn on. For other cases, it suggests a screen recording.

Can Flourish make an animated map? Yes. Its maps can animate changes over time, location or category, and its animated 3D map template animates "flows, routes or changes over time."

Does Animaps make charts? No. Animaps makes map animations only.

Can I embed an Animaps map on a website? You can embed the exported video like any other video. It is not an interactive map.

The Bottom Line

Flourish is the better pick for data stories on the web. It has far more chart types, interactive maps, a wide free plan, and Canva and PowerPoint links.

Animaps is the better pick when the result is a video: borders, regions, labels, history and routes together, built from a prompt and exported as MP4 on any plan.

Ask where people will see it. A web page points to Flourish. A video points to Animaps.

Sources checked on 2026-10-17

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