11 best web design software tools in 2023 | Webflow Blog

Internet veterans will fondly remember — or loathe — the time when the only way to make a website was by hiring your friendly neighborhood HTML, CSS, or JavaScript expert to make something custom for you.

Don’t get us wrong — web design is still a massively booming industry. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing businesses of all sizes to pay more attention to their internet presence, there’s never been a greater call for web designers to do what they do best.

Thankfully, entering web design as a hobby or career has never been more accessible. Whether you’re a newbie web designer looking to understand modern web design software tools or you’re an old hat at web design looking to keep up with the modern market, a huge range of resources is available online to help you grow.

What to look for in a web design software tool

When you’re considering downloading or buying a web design software license, there are a few key things you need to bear in mind.

The first thing you need to note is that no tool covers every single aspect of web design, so it’s important to understand if you have the budget for multiple software tools. While some awesome free options are available to help you learn the basics of web design, it’s easy to outgrow them as you improve your skills and start exploring other concepts like user experience, user interface design, and user testing.

Secondly, you should consider whether a web design software tool will fit in with your workflow. Almost every good modern tool will offer integrations with other software tools like Slack, and some will even integrate with other web design tools to make it easy to work on different aspects of your designs.

In short, the best web design software tool for you is one that has all the features and support you need, and one that fits within your budget.

11 web design tools to check out

Let’s take a look at the best web design software tools on the market in 2023 and how they can help you develop your web design skills, learn more about the industry, and even help you advance your career.

1. Figma

• Best for: Low and high-fidelity designs and prototypes
• Pricing: Free to $45/month
• Available for: Windows and macOS, with live preview apps for iOS and Android

Figma is a fantastic platform for any web developer who wants to work on designing and prototyping skills without worrying about how they’d code them. With Figma, you get a bunch of tools to help you create responsive websites and web design elements, reusable components you can copy across different web pages, and even a library of design assets that you can drag and drop into your designs.

As you design your website, you can also build intuitive prototypes to define interactions between elements. The prototyping tools allow you to define transitions, create dynamic overlays, and even generate GIFs to represent how different elements interact.

Plus, Figma is designed for collaboration, which makes this platform awesome whether you’re working in a design team or you want to get feedback from a mentor or friend. It’s easy for collaborators to add comments on your designs or prototypes, as well as work on designs alongside you. Figma offers a full version history so you can roll back changes.

And, when it’s time to share your design with a developer, Figma will even generate the code you need for each of your design aspects. With so many features that both newbies and web design professionals will love, it’s one of the best web design software tools out there.

2. Sketch

• Best for: Low and high-fidelity designs and prototypes
• Pricing: $9/month or $99/year with a 30-day free trial
• Available for: Web and macOS, with live preview apps for iOS

Sketch is another fantastic drag-and-drop web design software tool that helps web designers to build stunning designs and prototypes without needing any coding knowledge.

One of the best features you’ll get with Sketch is the ability to zoom in on any component or element down to the pixel level, so you’re able to align every part of your design perfectly. Whether you’re working alone or with a team, Sketch’s collaborative component library makes it easy to create universal components and even update them universally while you’re designing.

Plus, Sketch has an app library, which is a great way to add extra functionality to the software. Designed by the Sketch team themselves or other community developers, Sketch’s library of apps, plugins, and assistants can help you stay compliant with design standards, organize your work, and even turn designs into animated user flow demonstrations.

Sketch is widely loved by designers because it’s intuitive, uncluttered, and easy to learn. While some features might not be as advanced as other programs — for example, Figma’s prototyping is far more robust than Sketch’s offering — it’s still a great program for learning about design principles and collaborating in a design environment.

3. Adobe XD

Best for: Low and high-fidelity designs and prototypes

Pricing: $9.99/month with a seven-day free trial, or $52.99/month for the full Creative Suite (including Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop)

Available for: Windows and macOS

Because seasoned web designers have been using Photoshop for years to create prototypes and design mock-ups, Adobe released XD in 2019 as a fully-fledged vector-based web design software tool. If you’re already familiar with Photoshop, chances are you’ll get along great with Adobe XD, but surprisingly for an Adobe product, it doesn’t have a massive learning curve for new designers.

Adobe XD has a wide range of tools to help you create low and high-fidelity prototypes and designs on your own and collaboratively. You’ll also get a design asset library where you can specify fonts, colors, and components, and as with most other component libraries, editing these components will update every instance across your design.

One of its most powerful features, though, is that XD works with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sketch files. So, if you’re a web designer who loves using Photoshop for mock-ups, you can quickly import your designs into XD, and vice versa. Plus, if you’re a web designer who prefers using Windows, you can still collaborate with other designers who use the macOS-only Sketch tool.

4. Webflow

• Best for: Designing and developing production-ready websites
• Pricing: Free to $35/month
• Available for: Web

At Webflow, we’re big believers in the no code revolution. That’s why we designed our website builder and web design software with all the tools you’ll ever need to create eye-catching website designs that are fully responsive and consistent.

Our smart intuitive interface is designed to work fully with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, so you don’t need to know how to code them. However, we still support coders. If you need to add any custom code to your web design to get it to work in a way that Webflow doesn’t support yet, you can easily drop in custom code wherever you need it.

If you’re totally new to web design or if you’re looking for design inspiration, we also offer a library of over 100 different responsive web design templates to get you started.

And if you don’t know JavaScript but want to design element interactions, we’ve also got you covered. Webflow makes it easy to design interactions and animations without needing to add any custom code at all.

When you’re ready to export your design for your development team, Webflow will render all of the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files you need for easy handovers. This means you can add in any custom code before you let your developers take the reins, which is great for professional web developers working as part of a team.

Plus, if you’re looking for website design software that also includes web hosting and a comprehensive content management system, Webflow’s got you covered. You can even hire one of our approved experts to migrate your website from other website-building platforms like Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, and WordPress.

5. Framer

• Best for: Collaborative prototyping
• Pricing: Free to $23/month
• Available for: Windows and macOS with live preview apps for iOS and Android

Originally started as a JavaScript library for prototyping, Framer is now its own all-in-one tool that was designed to help design teams create stunning no code prototypes.

What makes Framer different from the other tools on this list is that it has a huge library of visual assets, all of which can be customized to suit your project. It’s easy to customize how different design elements work with each other and transition on screen. While its interface is remarkably similar to Sketch, you get a lot more support in terms of advanced animations and fully responsive designs.

While you don’t need to know any code to create design prototypes in Framer, this tool supports the addition of custom code on every element you work with. Plus, because Framer works entirely on React and JavaScript — and it’s easy to pull up the code editor while you’re working — it’s a good environment to learn how the language works.

When it’s time to start building your website, or when you’re ready to hand your design over to a development team, Framer’s pre-generated React and JavaScript code make it easy for developers to make sure none of your designs are lost in translation.