Wireframing is a critical step in app development, and it’s important to choose the right tool for your needs. We’ve outlined some of the best options available here
Do you want to know the secret to a successful app? Wireframing.
When you begin designing an app, it’s important not to jump right in. You need to wireframe first.
Wireframing is the process of creating a basic structure for your app, sort of like how a skeleton gives your body shape. It helps you define the framework of your app, and also lets you test different components before making any commitments.
Best Apps For Wireframing
Every brilliant design begins as a vague idea.
The design for the Super Bowl trophy was first sketched out on a cocktail napkin. Ditto with the initial ideas for Pixar’s Toy Story. From those primary sketches, the idea can then be revised, iterated, and polished, until it emerges as a finished product. 5 things you should automate todayStart automating
The design world uses the term “wireframe” to refer to the initial sketch or outline of your idea, whether that’s a website, app, or landing page. A wireframe is meant to be visually simple, using basic shapes to indicate text blocks, buttons, and images. This simplicity is intentional: elements are easily rearranged for quick iteration. Once the idea is solidified, a more detailed, high-fidelity prototype can be created.
Since wireframes are such an integral part of the creation process, it should come as no surprise that there are a wide variety of wireframe apps available on the market—and we’ve done hours of research and testing to pull together a curated list of wireframe tools to help you find the one that’s best for your needs.
The 8 best wireframe tools
- Sketch for detailed, vector-based design
- Adobe XD for beginners
- Figma for a free option
- UXPin for handing off design documentation to developers
- InVision Freehand for collaboration on a whiteboard-like canvas
- Adobe Photoshop for detailed pixel-based wireframes
- Justinmind for interactive wireframes
- Mockplus for organizing complex projects
Best wireframe tool for detailed, vector-based designs
Sketch (macOS)
Sketch interface
Since its release in 2010, Sketch has maintained a premier spot as a powerful yet lightweight vector design tool for macOS users. By itself, it can be used for anything from wireframes to modern UI and icon vector design (on a pixel-based canvas, no less) and some interaction design. Its interface is far simpler and more intuitive than vector design heavyweights Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator. Thanks to this simplicity, Sketch can be used to create wireframes quickly with a combination of artboards and vector design shapes.
When you download the Sketch app to your Mac, you’ll notice that there are no built-in UI components. While you could certainly design your own components to use as part of your wireframe process, there is a vast online community of designers that have created and shared many free wireframe design kits. A single click to download, and you have a wealth of buttons, icons, and other design elements that can be used inside your Sketch file.
Like most desktop apps, Sketch makes collaboration a bit tricky, as there’s no way to allow multiple designers to work simultaneously within a design file. However, you can sync your design to Sketch Cloud, which allows you to share a link to the most recent version of your design, collect comments and other feedback, without having to waste time with a lengthy export process.
When it’s time for hand-off, you can use the Export option to save your full designs and/or individual elements. Or, take advantage of the large variety of integrations to send your wireframe further down the design process.
Sketch Price: $99/year for individual users (when the year is over, you can continue to use the tool, but you’ll no longer receive software updates), or $9/month for team members utilizing Sketch Cloud.
If you’re a Windows user, you might want to look into InVision Studio, which was created as a Sketch alternative for designers who prefer to stay within the InVision app suite.
Best wireframe tool for beginners
Adobe XD (macOS, Windows)
Adobe XD interface
While Adobe products are known for being feature-heavy and complicated to learn, Adobe XD really stands out as an easy-to-use option for wireframing and interface design projects. Everything from wireframing to basic prototyping can happen within XD. And compared to other feature-rich Adobe tools, XD’s minimal interface is a breath of fresh air.
The moment you open the app, a set of interactive onboarding lightboxes helps you get oriented quickly with the design tools at your fingertips. The clean interface and quick onboarding are invaluable for beginners who want to use a professional wireframe tool, without spending too much time trying to learn the software.
Basic wireframe vector design tools are easily found in the left-hand navigation. UI elements aren’t included, but you can find a variety of free options with a quick Google search. XD is full of responsive design aids, whether you choose to create multiple artboards, overlay a Bootstrap 12-column grid, or use the responsive resize tool to create variations of each element.
For many apps, the interface design files must be exported into a different tool before you can create an interactive prototype. Adobe XD makes it possible to create the wireframe, mockup, and prototype in the same design file, so you don’t have to integrate multiple tools or re-export dozens of times with each iteration. Then, you can use XD to publish your prototype—whether it’s a basic wireframe or a full interactive prototype—and share the link with others so they can view and make comments.
As a bonus, AdobeXD also keeps track of the basic CSS and HTML for your designs, so you can grab the code directly inside the interface when handing it all off to your programming team.
Adobe XD Price: Free for one prototype and 2GB of storage; from $9.99/month for the Single App plan that includes unlimited prototypes and 100GB of storage.
Sketch, InVision Studio, and AdobeXD have a lot in common. You can’t miss the resemblance in their interfaces: design layers on the left, a toolbox on the right, with the drawing and publishing tools on a very minimal top bar. All three also allow you to create vector graphics and move them around on a canvas that’s measured in pixels. The vector elements can then be anchored to the page so that they resize (or not) as you scale your design up and down to mimic responsive screen sizes.
Best free wireframe tool
Figma (Web, macOS, Windows, Linux)
Figma interface
Figma stands out as a powerful cloud-based alternative to tools like Sketch and XD. And the best part: it doesn’t hold back for free users, offering a suite of features that work well whether you’re a standalone designer or part of a bigger team.
The actual process of wireframing with Figma is straightforward and quick. You’ll have to design your own UI components (or add them from a separate, pre-designed kit), but it’s easy to create your artboards, add shapes and text, and even add some prototyping so you can get a better feel of the flow. The left-hand panel helps you keep everything organized, from layers to artboards to separate pages within the same design doc. For responsive design, you can apply a column overlay (if you prefer the Bootstrap grid system), or you can use the Figma constraints, which tell each element how it should respond when the design is resized to mimic various screen sizes.
Another area where Figma stands out is in its team collaboration opportunities. Because it’s a web-based app, multiple team members can log in and access the design file simultaneously, whether to tweak the design or add content. The most compelling feature is the ability for a team to carry on an entire conversation inside the design file, leaving sticky note-like comments that other teammates can then reply to or mark as complete.
When it comes time for your dev team to take over, developers can grab CSS code from inside the design file and export individual elements to use as needed.
Figma Price: Free for up to three projects; from $12/user/month (billed annually) for the Professional plan that includes unlimited projects.
Best wireframe tool for handing off design documentation to developers
UXPin (Web, macOS, Windows)
UXPin interface
UXPin is a perennial favorite with interface designers, and typically one of the first tools recommended for anyone who’s learning how to wireframe. While its rich feature set can be a bit challenging for a new designer to pick up, the effort spent learning UXPin definitely pays off.
With UXPin, you’re able to start your wireframes with a built-in library of UI elements that you can drag and drop directly onto your canvas. The benefit of this slightly higher-fidelity wireframe is that you can do more fine-tuning of the flow and functionality without spending a ton of time redesigning the screen’s components. And, since UXPin can read Sketch and Photoshop files, you can always use those tools to turn your basic wireframes into high-fidelity prototypes, before importing the polished design back into UXPin to take advantage of the tool’s other features: adding interactions, presenting to a team, and handing off the design specs to a developer.
Despite the great wireframe and interface design features, it’s the live presentation and documentation abilities that make UXPin stand out in a crowded field of wireframe > prototype tools. While many apps allow you to snag CSS, HTML, or even JSON from your design, UXPin makes it easy for you to present a working prototype of your design, collect feedback, and include specs/documentation all at once through the Preview mode.
To use this feature, click the Preview button on the top toolbar, decide what kind of access you’d like to grant viewers (e.g., the ability to view comments, specs, documentation, etc.), then share the link provided. This all-in-one sharing option means that the final review, approvals, and design documentation hand-off can all be done in the same place, so no one is left in the dark when your design hits the home stretch.
UXPin Price: $23/user/month (billed annually) for the Prototyping plan that includes basic wireframing tools; from $39/month for the System plan that includes advanced collaboration features and documentation hand-off.
Best wireframe tool for team collaboration sketches on a whiteboard-like canvas
InVision Freehand (Web)
InVision Freehand interface
InVision Freehand is the most basic app on this list, but it’s worth a try, especially if you prefer creating or marking up your wireframes on a whiteboard where everyone can contribute and revise.
Invite your team to a wireframe collaboration, where you can add images and basic shapes or draw the wireframe with your mouse cursor. Since it’s a cloud app, multiple designers and stakeholders can be signed in and writing at the same time.
By itself, Freehand makes a good, albeit simplistic, wireframe tool that seems like any other whiteboard app. But since it offers real-time syncing with Sketch and Photoshop, your team can opt to draw and annotate directly on polished prototypes, making the iteration design stage much easier. And, since it’s a part of the InVision suite, your collaboration sketches are stored alongside working prototypes and mood boards for quick reference as you move through your design project.
Freehand will work well for designers who want to collaborate with team members on an initial wireframe sketch and/or comment on more refined wireframes/prototypes.
InVision Freehand Price: Free
Best wireframe tool for detailed pixel-based wireframes
Adobe Photoshop (macOS, Windows)
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Photoshop is the industry heavyweight when you’re looking for advanced pixel-based design software. It can handle almost anything, from photo editing to digital painting, and is beloved by the majority of graphic design professionals for that reason alone. The advantage of using Photoshop for your wireframes (especially web-based design, where you will depend more on pixel graphics) is that you can easily create a high-fidelity mockup without switching design systems.
To create a wireframe, you can add any number of artboards that correspond with your screen size dimensions (and add a grid layout that corresponds with your responsive breakpoints, if you want). You can either design UI components yourself with Photoshop or download a kit from online for standard elements like iOS keyboards. And, while the vector design tools (Sketch, Illustrator, Designer, etc.) are great for a lot of design work, no tool beats Photoshop for its raster image editing capabilities, which is invaluable when you eventually turn your wireframes into mockups and start adding photos and other graphics.
Despite the array of features, there are a few downsides to using Photoshop for your wireframes. Not only is the learning curve fairly steep, but it can also be a little clunky to use if you need to wireframe multi-screen flows, site structure, etc. Fortunately, many prototyping tools (like Proto.io, InVision, or Adobe XD, for example) let you import Photoshop files directly, so you can move back and forth between tools to create a more polished design that can be used for prototyping, user testing, or simply passing to developers for implementation.
Photoshop Price: From $9.99/month for the Creative Cloud Photography Plan that also includes access to Lightroom.
If you find yourself in need of a powerful pixel-based design tool but shy away from the Adobe suite (whether because of subscription cost, software “bulk,” or some other reason), check out Affinity Design, which allows you to create both vector and pixel-based designs on your desktop.
Best wireframe tool for realistic, interactive wireframes
Justinmind (macOS, Windows)
Justinmind interface
Justinmind is not only easy to learn and enjoyable to use; it also maintains a focus on empowering you to create a wireframe that can be tested as a working prototype from the start. It does this by including something that other apps just haven’t bothered to develop: interactive prototype elements (text inputs, radio buttons, dropdowns, and so on). Even at a basic wireframe level, a working dropdown would take three or more screens to set up in a tool like Sketch or Figma. Justinmind allows you to add it to your wireframe with a single click.
In fact, the ease with which you can create and share realistic wireframes can save you hours or days of work on any given project. This makes Justinmind a great tool for anyone who wants to get real, in-depth feedback on designs much earlier in the wireframe stage (with minimal effort).
Apart from the content of the elements themselves, the layout of Justinmind is very easy to figure out: all of your design elements are on the left-hand side; the organization elements (like folders, list of screens, etc.) are on the right. It all just feels very intuitive, which we love.
Justinmind price: Free for the desktop app with wireframe capabilities; from $19/month for the Professional plan, which includes unlimited prototypes and advanced prototyping features.
Best wireframe tool for complex projects
Mockplus (Web, macOS, Windows)
Mockplus interface
At this point, we’ve covered a large variety of really solid wireframe design apps that can make your design tasks much easier. But there’s one area of the design process that most of the apps tend to ignore: all of the admin and organizational tasks that go along with designing a new interface.
Which is exactly why Mockplus impressed us enough to merit a spot on this list.
Not only can you add notes and documentation to each element in your design, but your project area in Mockplus also has room for you to create and save documentation in a text editor, save your style guide (so everyone is on the same page), and even create and assign tasks to your team. Since the tasks can be linked to a project (and even dialed down to an individual design within the project), you can really dial in your review feedback process and feel confident that nothing will fall through the cracks as you polish up your wireframe.
Finally, while there is a desktop app available, Mockplus is similar to Figma in that you can do all of your wireframe designing from your web browser and feel confident that you are always working from the most up-to-date version.
Mockplus price: Free for the Basic loud plan with up to 10 users and 10 projects; from $5.95/user/month for unlimited projects on the cloud plan. Mockplus Classic, a desktop prototyping app, begins at $199/year for the Individual plan.
best free wireframe tool
Wireframing is a big part of every UX/UI designer’s daily job. There is an overwhelming number of wireframe tools out on the market that promise to make creating wireframes quick and easy.
But finding which ones will work best for your designs can be a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack, and finding a wireframing software that fits your price range can add even more stress to your search. But don’t worry—we’re here to help!
We’ve rounded up our top picks for the best wireframing tools that won’t break your budget. We’ll give you a price breakdown, the pros, the cons, and a glimpse into what other designers are saying about each tool (all quotes taken from Capterra and G2).
Our top eleven wireframing tools are:
- Adobe XD
- Miro
- Mockplus
- Balsamiq Wireframes
- Wireframe.cc
- Figma
- Pencil Project
- NinjaMock
- FluidUI
- Mockflow
- Cacoo
But before we get to the list: If you’ve only just discovered the wonderful world of UX design and you want an easy introduction to the field, check out CareerFoundry’s free UX design micro course.
Ready to learn about some amazing wireframing tools? Let’s get started.
1. 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.”
2. Miro
Miro is a wildly helpful and popular tool, especially for ideation sessions, interactive presentations, design thinking workshops, and the like. But it’s uses don’t stop there! It’s an extremely versatile tool with wireframing capability!
Price breakdown
- Limited free version for unlimited team members
- Unlimited features, anywhere from $8-16/month for teams and businesses (they also have custom pricing for enterprise-level work)
Why you should use Miro for wireframing
We can’t overstate how versatile this tool is. If you want a free, easy to use tool that’s useful for all kinds of things and has collaboration superpowers, this is a great tool for you to try out. You can drop shapes, draw freeform, type, add digital sticky notes, or insert images and videos (and more) onto the infinite canvas. For teams, there are features for video chats, background music, and “summoning” (so if you need everyone to meet you somewhere on the Miro board, you can bring them to you). And that’s just scratching the surface.
If you don’t want to start from scratch, you can visit the Miroverse, where there are loads of templates (like this mobile app template) that you’ll find useful throughout the UX design process. You can download them or just use them for inspiration.
What’s not so great about Miro
Really, the possibilities are endless here, but if you’re aiming for interactivity (within the wireframe/prototype) or very high fidelity, you may hit some snags and need to find workarounds.
What other designers have to say about Miro
- “It’s intuitive to select and try out several canvas and interact and create relations between them. The design is seamless to understand. It is easy to share globally, and with several team members, of different projects in the free version.”
- “There are still some functionality improvements that can be made but I see that they are introducing new features almost daily. For example, yesterday I found myself trying to make the size of existing shapes to be identical but couldn’t do it so I put a new shape and started from scratch.”
3. 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.”
4. Balsamiq Wireframes
A wireframing tool for creating quick designs, running user testing, and sharing mockups with a design team.
Price breakdown
- Free 30-day trial period
- Pro (single-user license): $89
Why should you use it for wireframing?
One of the many Balsamiq Studios products, Balsamiq Wireframes is a Flash-based wireframing software with an extensive library of UI elements and templates that make wireframing a breeze.
The complexity of the Balsamiq Wireframe library can be a source of great inspiration for designers when producing desktop and mobile wires. Not only does it have many diverse elements, but it’s also easy to learn and use. Most designers describe it as being as simple as dragging, dropping, and arranging elements from the menu onto your canvas until you have the interface you desire.
Balsamiq Wireframes also has built-in presentation tools that make presenting your designs to clients a seamless process.
Where Balsamiq Wireframes falls short
Balsamiq Wireframes is not the best for building larger prototypes and lacks animations or interactive features. Designers wishing to simulate the UX of their software must be able to program interactions themselves and export as an interactive PDF.
This wireframing software is unique in style as the design elements have a hand-drawn appearance to them. This gives your designs a bit of a cartoony feel that may not be desired. Also, it’s important to note that once your free 30-day trial is up, you’ll have to purchase a license to save any of your previous designs.
What other designers are saying
- “Probably the easiest wireframing tool to use. It’s focused feature set is aimed at creating wireframes in the least amount of time possible. Very quick to learn with some depth for power users.”
- “Wireframes can look child-like and unprofessional with some settings.”
5. Wireframe.CC
A simple, minimalistic wireframing tool for mobile apps and websites that’s easy to learn.
Price breakdown
- Basic: free
- Premium: 7-day free trial, $16 per month (single-user)
What does Wireframe.cc offer?
If you need a quick and efficient tool for putting together some simple wireframes then Wireframe.cc is your best choice.
This web-based wireframe tool is super intuitive as the layout is a bit like drawing items on pencil and paper and cutting and pasting them on to your design. Wireframe.cc made it very easy to turn your mouse into a multipurpose tool. Simply draw your shape on a blank canvas and select what you want it to be from the 9 options on the appearing toolbar.
Wireframe.cc’s design templates are simple with the ability to choose from the mobile landscape, mobile vertical, and webpage. This focus on the basics makes Wireframe.cc a great option when you just need something rudimentary done quickly.
Conclusion
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