Prototyping is one of the most useful and necessary activities when designing or developing a new website or app. You can complete all the required tasks with just a standard text editor, but using dedicated prototyping tools is even better. They often come with advanced features such as intuitive UI designer and collaborative elements, they also significantly simplify workflows. To help you decide which tool is the best for every task, we’ve collected 7 Best Free Prototyping Tools to help you get your job done faster and easier.
Prototyping tools are critical for giving your designs that extra polish or showing them off to clients. Enter a few lines of code, make a few clicks, create sitemaps, wireframes, prototypes and even mockups. All this is possible with prototyping tools. Here is our list of Best Free Prototyping Tools.
01. Origami Studio
Developed at Facebook as a tool for building and designing products, Origami is available free for Mac users. You need to be a registered Apple developer to get started, with Xcode and Quartz Composer installed, but once you’ve jumped through the necessary hoops you’ll find that it’s easy to start creating with Origami, thanks to a wealth of online documentation, tutorials and ready made prototypes.
You can import designs from Sketch and Photoshop with project layers preserved, and create concepts with simulated scrolling, taps, swipes and page links. As well as mobile apps you can also use Origami to create responsive websites with features such as text input and drag and drop, and once you’re finished it’s easy to export prototypes to be added to projects.
Vectr
Built as a free cross-platform vector design app, Vectr also works very well as a free prototyping tool. While it’s maybe a little slim on features compared with other vector apps, it’s designed to be easy to pick up and play with, and after following a few tutorials (there are plenty to get stuck into on the Vectr site) you’ll be ready to start designing.
One really useful collaboration function is its link sharing option; with that you can send a link to others and they’ll be able to watch you edit in real-time and provide quick feedback. And once you’re done, your finished design can be exported as a JPG, PNG or SVG.
Figma
Advertisementhttps://47a57f1271f25e03656e5d24ed255bf4.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
For anyone wanting to work collaboratively on their prototypes, Figma is a brilliant solution. It enables designers to work together in real-time and also makes it easy to share works-in-progress with clients and stakeholders, and crucially it enables you to build prototypes that feel like the real deal, complete with interactions, animations and dynamic content overlays.
While the professional versions of Figma are paid-only, there’s a free starter version that’s ideal for getting up to speed with its tools. It allows for up to two editors and three projects, with unlimited cloud storage and a 30-day version history, making it perfect for getting up and running. If you’re a student, though, it’s worth knowing that you should qualify for free access to Figma’s professional plan, giving you unlimited project and much more.
Adobe XD
Adobe XD has skyrocketed into popularity since its initial release date in 2016, and with good reason. This tool is fantastic for wireframing, prototyping, and collaboration. If you’re collaborating with others (especially remotely), this is a tool to check out. Get a beginner’s introduction to Adobe XD this event recording:
Price breakdown
- 7-day free trial
- $9.99/month after the trial ends (or $99.99/year)
What’s great about Adobe XD?
As we said, this is an all-in-one when it comes to wireframing and prototyping (at any level of fidelity) and is excellent for collaboration.
Adobe XD includes tools for everything from a quick sketch to a high-fidelity wireframe, with options to create interactions so that you can more closely imitate the user flow! The tool has a auto animation feature, and it’s made things easier with it comes to layering images in 3D (great for showcasing all your hard work!). You can also work with your teammates in real time, and they’ve made it easier to iterate on content without having to practically re-design whole screens. This is helpful for teams seeking more collaboration between content and design.
Adobe products are widely appreciated across the industry, too, so being familiar with it can only help throughout your career.
What’s not so great about Adobe XD?
As many have said, the price point is certainly a factor. It’s only really free for a week, but that’s a week to test it out and see if this high-power tool is well suited for your team. If you’re working solo, it’s still worth considering simply for the high quality output and for it’s possibilities when it comes to collaborating with stakeholders or outside clients.
What other designers have to say about Adobe XD
- “Adobe XD is the best on the market, in my opinion, as far as UI/UX design is concerned. In a really simple way it is possible to create the design of websites or apps and then move on to the prototyping phase, creating the various links, interactive components, buttons, animations. The sharing phase is also excellent, which allows you to export the prototype to encourage the work of the developers, who will have the opportunity to take a look at the generated css code and can download the various assets.”
- “The pricing of this tool is quite high. It has also increased a lot of restrictions on the free plan, and this is not helpful for budding designers.”
Mockplus
Mockplus is a rapid wireframing/prototyping tool for designers to create interactive wireframes for websites and mobile apps, which enables you to share and test design ideas across PCs and mobile devices from an early stage in the design process.
Price breakdown
- Basic: Free
- Pro: 15-day free trial, $16 per month( Billed annually)
Why should you use Mockplus for faster and easier wireframing?
With a large number of ready-to-use components, icons, UIs and templates pre-installed, Mockplus goes beyond simply providing you the tools to create your wireframe and lends you a hand with your designs. A full set of interactions and animations also make it easy to create more realistic wireframes. It’s also a collaborative tool: Your entire team can work on the same project.
What’s not so good about Mockplus?
Mockplus is much suitable for you to create low- and medium-fidelity wireframes, mockups and prototypes. If you are looking for tools to create high-fidelity designs, it may not be a good option.
What users are saying about Mockplus?
- “Mockplus does what it advertises which is a great thing. No learning curve and free plans that you can check all the features for free. Using the team just an invitation away.”
- “What used to be time-consuming can now be done with the speed of thought, everything is a drag-and-drop away and with the number of components Mockplus has to offer, you will never feel the need of creating one.”
Wondershare Mockitt
Looking for a powerful prototyping tool for apps and websites, make sure that you give Wondershare Mockitt a chance. This software will allow you to create user interface prototypes for your app and also animate them. The prototypes that will be created will have clickable buttons so that you can create a working prototype to share with your team. One of the best features of this tool is that you can create an enterprise and simply share your prototypes with your team and they can all provide their inputs directly. Just because of this feature, a lot of people consider it to be one of the best prototyping tools in 2021.Try it Free
Pros:
- Rapid prototyping – it is a lightweight prototyping tool and you can simply drag-and-drop widgets to complete a design.
- Prototyping on the cloud – it is a cloud-based prototyping tool that enables you to create, edit, share, test, and handoff on the cloud.
- Tons of widgets and templates – it offers 500+ built-in widgets and templates for you to use directly.
- Interactive and animated prototyping – it allows you to create interactive gestures and many kinds of animations.
- Collaboration – the enterprise version enables you to collaborate with your team members and manage their limitations of your projects.
Cons:
- There are limitations for the screens in the free version.
Compatible with: Browser usage, Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu.
Conclusion
I’ve collected a list of the best free prototyping tools for wireframing and designing webpages. They’re produced by startups as well as established companies like Google and Adobe. Prototyping tools help you as a designer to create the best layout as well as functionality for your apps and website projects. The purpose of this article is to make sure you don’t spend hundreds of pounds on tools that could actually be free.