Recommended software(s) for creating animated gifs?

[akshtray]

This is a standard feature in Photoshop but I do realize that neither Photo nor Designer have any such feature.

I am not trying to do anything complicated. The idea is to use a background image and add some simple animation. I am thinking basically a timed text message where words appear over 2 seconds on the image background, etc.

Just looking for suggestions of software (paid or otherwise) that can let me do this. I am trying out Moho 12 Debut and like it but I realize that it does not let me export to the .gif format. Suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks.

Edited November 13, 2018 by akshtray
Added additional information

[souacz]

If you want to make simple gifs - try https://ezgif.com/ - a lot of options, optimizing etc.

If you want to build more complex animations - you can use SwishMax. It used to be commercial software, now the company publishing it has ceased its operations, the software is abadonned and can be downloaded and activated for free. It is basically for building flash animations but it also has the options of exporting it to GIF. You can download the program from the Polish distributor website (translate page with Google Translator): http://www.swish.pl/swish_max - do not be afraid to use key generator - it's developed by Swish Company, the developer of software you unlock. The SwishMax generated GIF animations are a bit poorly compressed, you can use https://ezgif.com/ to optimize the file

[akshtray]

Thanks @souacz. Are there any other standalone apps like Swish that are also options? I prefer to go the standalone desktop app route than a website to do the conversion.

[Wosven]

Gimp can do GIF too, you can for example export some images img_01.png, img_02.png, img_xx.png and import them in bulk, they'll show as layer 1 to xx. You'll have some options when saving as GIF.