You probably already know about some of the best ecard makers for personalized greetings, like Adobe Spark, Canva, or JibJab. The problem is, so do most others. These sites are so popular that they end up being the default choices, and so the ecards start looking a little too familiar.

If you want to stand out from the crowd this holiday season, check out some of these little-known and creative apps to make ecards and send holiday wishes. While some are exclusively about Christmas, others can be used for a wider range of greetings.

1. Designs.AI Cards (Web): Make Custom Holiday Ecards or Video Cards With AI

Designs.AI makes it easy to create a gorgeous Christmas card or video-card with artificial intelligence

Designs.AI rose in popularity as one of the best AI video generators, but it has also leveraged AI to become an incredible online design tool. One of its coolest uses is as a digital card maker, especially for video cards, where you can create your own design with its simple tools powered by artificial intelligence.

The app functions a bit like a PowerPoint slideshow, where you add elements to page after page to make your custom card. You can use readymade templates or add photos, backgrounds, text, grids, masks, shapes, and animation styles. Everything is adjustable, and the AI will smartly replicate changes across pages if needed.

Once you're done making your card, you can preview it and even use the AI-powered "Magic Resize" to modify its dimensions to best suit an Instagram or Facebook Story, Twitter or Instagram post, A4 sheet, and much more. You can download it as a JPG, PNG, PDF, or MP4 video. Turning multiple slides into a cool video is the highlight of this app. If you download the video or image for free, it'll include the Designs.AI watermark, but you can remove it for a price.

2. Greeet (Web): Easy, Free, No-Signup Personal Message Ecards in a Jiffy

Greeet is a no-signup, free, and simple app to create an ecard with a personal message for that special someone

Some people in your life deserve a little more than a template card used by thousands. These special people deserve a personal message written by you. Greeet is a simple tool to create an online page that acts as a greeting card for any occasion.

Greeet is also the best option if you want to quickly send someone an e-card without going through the fuss of registering on a website and choosing from lots of designs. It's fast, it's free, it's super simple to use, and it requires no signups. In fact, the site boasts that you can create a Greeet in as little as 30 seconds.

When you create a Greeet card, you add a short headline of fewer than 20 words, followed by your personal message in the dialog box. You can optionally add an image too. Then, choose from five basic designs (which change the background, colors, fonts, and headers), and you're done. Share the Greeet personal message link with that loved one.

3. Greety (Web): Free, Quick, and Simple Video Greeting Cards for Christmas

While there are several free apps to make custom video greeting cards, there are no guarantees that the site or app will last for years. If your recipient wants to revisit the video card as a bit of nostalgia, will they be able to?

The simplest solution would be to upload a video to your own YouTube account, which you can make private or public, and it's almost guaranteed to last for your lifetime. But sending a YouTube link by itself looks tacky, so Greety puts some seasonal gift wrapping around it.

Add the recipient's name, your own name, and the link to the YouTube video. That's it, you're ready to share the unique Greety link now, which appears as a simple Merry Christmas message with a gift box that the recipient has to click to start the video. Greety stores nothing on its own servers and is completely free.

4. Bells and Wishes (Web): Send Greetings and Cards as a Group

Bells and Wishes is a free app to send group greetings with everyone's personal message in one card

Wishing Grandma a Merry Christmas as a whole family? Bells and Wishes makes it super simple for everyone to add their own message into one single ecard, complete with GIFs, photos, or videos.

Here's how it works. As the creator, you start a card and add the first message to it. The message is plain text, includes your name, and you can insert a GIF, photo, or video. The video option also makes it simple for anyone to shoot a video message with their phone, as Bells and Wishes can be updated on mobile. You can also set a background from the available templates, change fonts, and preview how the card will look.

Then, share the ecard's link with others whose messages you want to add to the card. Anyone with a link can submit a message or multiple messages. The free version of Bells and Wishes restricts you to five messages per card, and one final recipient, while the premium versions remove these restrictions.

The recipient can view the card on a desktop or mobile seamlessly. They can also download the ecard to save it offline.

5. Elf Yourself (Web, Android, iOS): Create a Dancing Elves Video With Custom Faces

Elf Yourself lets you add up to five faces and create funny dancing elf videos that you can download and share for Christmas greetings

Elf Yourself lets you create cute animated videos of dancing elves, but with your own or your friends' faces. It's surprisingly easy too. In any video, you can add up to five faces on the elves.

The app lets you upload images from your gallery or hard drive, or take a photo with your camera or webcam. You can also connect Elf Yourself to your Facebook or Instagram account to import pictures from there. Once you select a face, you'll have to align it within the elf's head shape, following the recommended line to set the mouth at. You can increase or decrease the size of the face, as well as rotate it. Your faces will also be saved to use later in other videos.

Once all faces are set, choose from the various types of videos. Most of these will be paid, but Elf Yourself gives two free videos every day, which you can share or save. You can keep returning to the app daily to use your bank of faces for these new videos and build a small collection.

Download: Elf Yourself for Android | iOS (Free)

Find a Way to Make It Personal

With this variety of apps at your disposal, you'll undoubtedly make a creative and unique holiday greeting card this year. But don't forget that the secret to a memorable card is to make it personal. If you're sending it to a sole recipient, make it about them. And if it's the mass card you send out to everyone, then add a dash of your personality into it somehow.