If you’re building a website, I want you to be empowered — not overwhelmed! To help do this, I’ve compiled a list of free tools that can allow you to take control of your website development project. This will help you reduce the costs associated with building your website, by omitting the need to hire people who are expensive or difficult to find.
We are probably all aware of the fact that an expensive or complicated tool does not necessarily mean it is the best. After all, the best tools are those which are simple, obvious and free. And here you will find them – tools for website development that can save literally hours of work .
Origami: Best Free Web Design Tool for Animations
Free
Origami is an interface design tool created by the designers of Facebook. It’s everything you wish that Sketch had when it comes to making high-fidelity UIs and prototypes. It’s tailored to building mobile prototypes, which support all popular mobile interactions and gestures.
Origami truly shines in terms of adding screen interactivity. Most UI design tools offer limited micro-interactions settings, but this tool enables you to fine-tune spacing, timings, triggers, animation types, and more.
The best part is that it allows you to use it in conjunction with Figma and Sketch, so if you’re using those web design tools, you can switch back and forth without losing your work.
Origami Core Functionalities
- User Interface Design
- Animation
- Wireframing
- Prototyping
FluidUI: Best Simple Web Design Tool for Prototyping
Free
FluidUI is a free online tool that is ideal for prototyping and building UIs quickly. This tool, combined with the library of standard Apple and Google material assets, enables direct editing in your browser. You can also share prototypes via email and share links so that others can review and leave comments on the page.
FluidUI Core Functionalities
- Quick Prototyping
- User Interface Design
- Wireframing
GIMP: Best Simple Web Design Tool for Photo Editing
Free
The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is an open-source, popular photo editor supported by Linux, macOS, and Windows. Although the interface looks a bit outdated, it packs quite a bit of power and is capable of almost everything Photoshop can do.
It’s a wonderful choice for designers who have limited budgets and need to design UIs or edit photos.
GIMP Core Functionalities
- Photo Editing
- Prototyping
- Wireframing
Wix: Best Simple Website Builder
An affordable, easy-to-use WordPress alternative, Wix is a website builder offering free and premium plans. Like WordPress, Wix makes it possible to build all kinds of sites, including stores and blogs, in just a few minutes. But the experience of managing a Wix site will be very different from WordPress.
If you opt for one of the premium plans, you’ll get a fully-managed subscription service. Meaning, Wix takes care of all the technical details around site hosting, back-ups, and security. You can also choose the free ad-sponsored plan, which comes with hundreds of options and templates to choose from.
Wix Core Functionalities
- Web Design
- Collaboration
- Content Management
Bootstrap: Best Prebuilt Web Design Framework
Free
Built originally by the Twitter engineering team, Bootstrap is now the most popular framework in the world for building mobile-first, responsive websites. It’s basically a free library of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which helps streamline the process of building a site from scratch. There are dozens of features — including a grid system, a series of responsive breakpoints, and a rich components library — that make coding easier and faster.
The component library has buttons, navigation bars, forms, headers, alerts, and so forth. You can simply download the current version of Bootstrap, or load it locally with BootstrapCDN, copy one of the sample templates, and begin customizing.
Bootstrap Core Functionalities
- Front-End Web Design
- User Interface Design
MAMP – A local web development solution for macOS and Windows
Pricing: Free, MAMP Pro – ￥229-469
Editorial ratings: ★★★★
MAMP is a good open-source integration software that can be installed in macOS and Windows. It provides three main products, including MAMP Pro 5, MAMAP, and NAMO. MAMP is a free local server, MAMP Pro 5 is a commercial, professional frontend utility that enables Mac OS X users to install Apache server, MySQL, PHP, accelerator and PHPMyAdmin with ease.
Main features:
- Enables professional web developers to manage the development environment easily.
- Simulates real test environment to test PHP script by opening the local mail server.
- A powerful configuration for local debugging.
- Low learning curve.
Photoshop – Best photo, image, and design editing software
Pricing: Free
Editorial ratings: ★★★★★
Because Photoshop is an essential web development tool these days, more people are being enticed to master this software. With its powerful features, it has become an integral part of website building.
Main features:
- Create and enhance photographs, illustrations, and 3D artwork.
- Design websites and mobile apps.
- Edit videos simulate real-life paintings and more.
Novi Builder
Novi Builder is an HTML drag and drop builder that offers free customizable UI templates and plugins. It provides access to the source code of the elements and allows developers to make several changes in the website design at any point in time.Novi Builder comes as a built-in feature for many widely used browsers like Google Chrome and Opera. But it can work as a browser add-on. However, it is a little hard to grasp for people who are new to the web developing business.We would recommend it to experienced developers who have in-depth knowledge, understanding, and experience in making websites and applications.
Conclusion
Modern-day website development wouldn’t be possible without effective use of tools. And even though all web-based tools are free, finding the right one is not that simple. Seriously, just try to figure out how many free tools there are in the business.