Mockup and wireframing tools are a pretty hot topic in the web design industry. You can’t just pick a tool at random to use when you want to create a mockup or wireframe. There are many things you have to consider when debating which is the right tool for your job – the design process, workflow, etc. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the popular wireframing/mockup tools in the market today, and help you decide which is best for your needs.
In this article, I will be going over the top wireframe tools that you can use – it doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro – everyone could use a little help from time to time. Wireframing is a powerful, yet underused tool for designers and developers alike.
NinjaMock
Collaborative mockup and wireframing application for designing and testing mobile apps and web pages.
Price breakdown
- Free version (one project with 200 elements)
- Personal (three projects, single-user): $6.99/month
Why is NinjaMock great for wireframes?
NinjaMock lives up to its name by making wireframe creation super fast and efficient. It’s simple, quick to learn, and includes many interactive elements for both mobile and desktop.
The speed and intuitiveness of NinjaMock means you can spend less time learning how to work the software and more time getting creative with your wireframes. It’s also available for many platforms including IOS, Android, Windows phones and web.
Sharing and editing designs with clients is also made easy by the ability to produce unique links that can then be shared with customers allowing for real-time collaboration and editing.
Issues you may encounter with NinjaMock
If you’re a smaller company working on multiple projects that require various elements, NinjaMock’s pricing may not be feasible for you. Furthermore, users have reported issues with navigation between mockups and have requested more interactive layouts.
What users are saying about NinjaMock
- “I love the link feature which allows me to navigate through different pages: my customers love the live results!”
- “The major problem is with pricing, it’s a bit high for small companies.”
FluidUI
An intuitive wireframing tool for supported on a wide variety of platforms including mobile Android and iOS.
Price breakdown
- Free version (one project, single-user, 10 pages max)
- Solo (three projects, single-user): monthly, $15/month; yearly, $8.25/month
How FluidUI can help you make great wireframes
FluidUI is all about making great-looking high-fidelity wireframes. The free version offers up to 10 pages of workspace and even allows transitions and gestures between them.
FluidUI is unique among most other wireframing softwares in that it offers a wide variety of interaction elements and animations. Not only that, but it also comes equipped with over 2000 icons, widgets, and design elements that you can customize and drag-and-drop onto your page. Fluid UI puts everything you need for an awesome wireframe right at your fingertips.
What’s not so great about FluidUI
Although FluidUI does its best to give you great wireframing tools for free, their unpaid version is still a bit limited and many designers feel the need to upgrade. Another frustrating aspect to FluidUI is that multiple image upload is not supported, leaving you uploading images one-by-one.
What are FluidUI users saying?
- “I haven’t actually used any other software other than FluidUI but I truly have no reason to! It’s got everything you’d possibly need.”
- “Sometimes it can be a little awkward to position things…although it does get easier with practice.”
Mockflow
On-premise and cloud based wireframing software equipped with template library and drag-and-drop editor.
Price breakdown
- Basic: Free (one project with certain app limitations, two users)
- Premium: $14/month (unlimited projects and users)
Why should you wireframe with Mockflow?
Mockflow is kind of a one-stop-shop for wireframing and web and mobile app development. Not only does this software have amazing tools and presets for fast wireframing, but it also has website building, banner design, collaboration tools, and a timeline manager. All of these extra features make sharing your wires a breeze and moving forward in the design process a lot smoother.
Mockflow is especially great for beginners as their design presets save you the time it would take to create your own shapes and elements.
What are the drawbacks to using Mockflow
The basic package is a bit limited and most users feel the need to upgrade to the paid package. Mockflow is pretty specific to wireframing and mockup creation so if you’re needing something for prototyping and user testing, you might be better off with a different software. Users have also reported issues with the software lagging when they try to work with multiple pages.
What people are saying about Mockflow
- “It is easy to use and easy to load. You do not need any special skills to work on this.”
- “Wireframe Pro is very slow and needs better speed. It is lacking animations for your prototypes and an infinite artboard where one can just go on making screens.”
Cacoo
A diagramming software for designers, freelancers, and students to brainstorm flowcharts, mind maps, mockups, wireframes, and more.
Price breakdown
- Free 2-week trial
- $6 per user, per month (paid monthly); or $5 per user, per month (paid annually—2 months free!)
What’s great about Cacoo
Cacoo is a great wireframing tool for creating both low- and mid-fidelity wires. It’s cloud based and heavy on team collaboration with quality presentation tools and ways to share your ideas with colleagues. There’s a good amount of templates to choose from as well as other features for creating user flows, prototypes, and diagrams.
The free trial is on the shorter side but it offers unlimited users and up to 25 pages or projects— pretty generous! Especially since Cacoo can be a great tool for design tasks other than wireframes, such as flowcharts or user testing.
The downsides to using Cacoo to wireframe
The free version is a bit more limited than the subscription and you can only export projects as PNG files. You also can’t access your work once your free trial ends so you must back it up elsewhere in order to save it. Some users have reported its cloud-based nature to be a bit frustrating as it can lag or malfunction if they’re not using a very up-to-date computer.
Furthermore, there is a bit of a learning curve to using Cacoo as the keyboard shortcuts are not as intuitive as desired.
What are other designers saying about Cacoo
- “Easy to learn and use. Cacoo lets you make fast and great diagrams for many usages.”
- “Using a good computer is needed for flawless function.”
UXPin
UXPin is a wireframing, UX design and mockup tool that comes with share, comment and review features as well as features such as approval requests, task assignments and Slack/email notifications, enabling users to streamline workflows. The simple drag and drop functionality will let you drag icons, custom UI elements and images to enhance a wireframe.
Administrators can set team and role-based permission access and lock up important projects.
Pricing: Free/ $29 (Pro)/ $49 (Team)/ Custom (Enterprise, billed monthly)
Website: www.uxpin.com
Sketch
Sketch is a great app design tool for vector editing, prototyping and collaboration. The tool offers a digital design toolkit for app building which contains plenty of design symbols that are reusable and shareable within the design community. You can even add data to your designs and transform them into user flow diagrams.
Pricing: For a personal license, users pay $99/year. Alternatively Sketch offers a package per device (volume license) for $89/year/device.
Website: www.sketch.com
MarvelApp
Last but not least, there’s MarvelApp. MarvelApp is a really cool multifunctional design platform that can be used to create mobile app wireframing for multiple devices. This application allows its users to assemble designs quickly and efficiently via its drag-and-drop feature. MarvelApp also lets users bring their prototypes to life with realistic screen transitions (using triggers, i.e. hover, swipe or click).
Pricing: Pricing starts at $12/month (Pro package).
Website: www.marvelapp.com
Adobe XD
All-in-one design tool
©Adobe, Fair Use
Product Type: Desktop apps for Mac and Windows
Free Tier Limitations: 1 active shared document, 1 active shared link, 2 co-editors
Upgrade: Starts at $9.99 per month
A late player in tools for UX design, Adobe’s XD has caught up fast with the other tools in the market. You can design, prototype and share your designs from a single application. The free version of the application has a few limitations – you get only 1 active shared document, 1 active shared link and up to 2 co-editors. If you are already a part of Adobe’s creative cloud ecosystem, you will find it easy to use XD in your design workflow.
InVision Studio
All-in-one design tool
© InVision, Fair Use
Product Type: Desktop apps for Mac and Windows
Free Tier Limitations: 3 documents, 10 users
Upgrade: Starts at $7.95 per user/month
InVision Studio is a desktop application that you can use to create screens and animations. Originally known for its browser-based prototyping application, the desktop application Studio is not as popular as the other tools listed above, partly because it came after the other tools. With the free version, you can create 3 documents and include a generous 10 active users. The Pro account lets you create unlimited documents but still limits active users to 15.
Conclusion
A wireframe is a foundation; it’s the first step in the design process, as well as the last. A good wireframe can help designers focus on developing their ideas and put functional aspects before aesthetic ones. That means a better product at the end of the day – one that converts users to customers, and customers to loyal followers. But creating a wireframe is a long tedious process – one that can be avoided by using a wireframe tool.