Are you looking for the best free web design software? Whether you’re a pro or a beginner, there’s something for everyone on this list.
Updated for 2018, We’ve collected some of the best free web design software that will help you make beautiful and functional websites. With these tools, you can create anything from a simple website to a professional web development project.
If you’re just starting out and want to learn more about the basics of web design, check out our guide on how to create a website. And if you’re ready to start building your first site, don’t forget to check out our guide on how to choose the right domain name.
Best Free Web Design Software 2018
Website design tools for complete new beginners
Wix.com
Price: Free for basic use
Starts from $4.5/month for domains
Target people: Non-technology people
Wix is a website building platform with freely drag and drop. It offers a complicated website building services including registration，website design，website administration and modification. Users only need to operate the GUI interface to create a site, but no need to study the DNS，website program language, server building or renting. Everything can be done automatically on Wix. So the users could completely focus on the visual design and content presentation of the website.
Personal experience: I think the most convenient side of Wix is that users can drag components freely and easily. You can locate buttons, images, or texts with any size in the site. But the disadvantage is that if you made a change on the template, you have to restart the design. Because the content and layout are not suitable anymore. Moreover, the mobile mode also needs to restart the edit of the website content. If it updated frequently, the mobile website should also be re-designed every time. So I think it’s more suitable for the small well-design websites.
Squarespace
Price: Sign up for free
Target people: the most suitable non-technical personnel (no code, design skills)
The self-service station began in 2004 which has taken ten years to develop into one of the most widely used station building. Squarespace supports to quickly build an elaborate responsive website without design or programming fundamentals. It provides three pricing models, the first is free to register and build stations. However, to publish a website, there are two options of $12 to $40 per month depending on the type of website.
Personal experience: The biggest feature of Squarespace is it pays high attention to details. Learning from some of the public information of founder Anthony Casalena, Squarespace smart building products are very suitable for personal websites, because many of its template performance patterns and background plug-in experience are biased toward the small station owners, based on their own station into a detail Rich website.
“Creating something out of thin air is easy. It’s finding the air that’s hard. ”
— Asher Trotter
Essential website design tools
1. Web prototyping tool – Mockplus
Price: Basic – Free
Pro Edition – $199 / Year
The purpose of web prototyping design is drawing out of the sketch based on users’needs. There are some good application prototyping tools on the market, such as Mockplus. As a prototype tool for the international market, Mockplus not only has excellent performance in mobile App production, but also good on web design.
So, how to create a web prototype on Mockplus? Please refer to Mockplus sample project: StyleXstyle – a fashion site prototype.
Step 1: Download Mockplus and log in your account;
Step 2: Open Mockplus and select the type of web project, setting the web page width and height. Please note that the maximum page height is 6000 pixels.
Step 3: Drag and drop from the left side of the software library to add the necessary page elements: buttons, icons, text boxes, pictures, etc .; the right panel supports adjusting the page background, font, font size.
Step 4: Add interaction for specific components: page jump links, component jump links, etc .; the right side of the property panel supports a variety of properties, interaction, page settings with rich content.
Step 5: Preview or publish HTML online preview via F5. PS: Mockplus offers 8 kinds of preview methods.
StyleXstyle Online Preview Address: http://run.mockplus.cn/yYoEMZcBxFGdhfYW/index.html
2. Versatile design tools – Photoshop
Price: 9.9 USD / month
Although it’s not free, as a web marketing leader in web design, this software should not be overlooked. So about Photoshop itself: in short, it’s a very versatile tool for any type of design project, not just web design. Its main purpose is to help you use raster graphics.
In addition to adjusting the color, saturation, blur, sharpness, etc. of your images or graphics, Photoshop lets you create fully customizable graphics (such as site layout and visualization) from scratch. For example, you can combine multiple images as part of a project and ensure that they are all grouped together by using various filters or performing some conversion.
Photoshop is a very manual tool. If you want to explicitly use it to achieve the purpose of website design, then you should have some design skills and knowledge can really make full use of it.
Photoshop Website Design Tutorial: How to design Website in Photoshop
3. UI design tool – Figma
Price – Free for personal use
– $12 per person per group/month
Introduction: Figma is the first interface design tool for real-time collaboration. It has three commendable features: real-time collaboration, vector networking, and version control. Simply, Figma is like a browser-based Sketch with real-time collaboration.
Personal Experience: I was initially skeptical of Figma’s user experience because it is a browser-based interface design tool. But later I found it still very sensitive to use. What’s more, browser tools have the advantage that the recipient does not need to install anything, just need to open the browser on the computer to participate in the project. Figma files are available on Mac, Windows, Linux and mobile devices (view only).
“There is only one type of designer — the type that cares about type.”
— Rohan Nanavati
Helpers of website building
Canva (Free)
Ideal for designing custom design cards, blog images and various social media images (for Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Perfectly worked.
Zeplin (Free)
Zeplin is a tag, Style Guide, memo document, and easy-to-use teamwork tool for designers and front-end engineers.
best professional web design software
1. WordPress
Source: WordPress
WordPress powers 40% of websites around the world, and no wonder. This web builder offers thousands of pre-made themes and a high level of customization (thanks to its functionality and 50,000+ plugins), making it a perfect choice when building a website to fit your brand. WordPress also has an excellent content management system (CMS). It’s easy and straightforward to publish content in the blink of an eye. And word has it that it’s the best CMS for SEO.
WordPress offers a free plan. Paid plans start at $4/month.
2. Webflow
Source: Webflow
Webflow is an all-in-one responsive web design tool that folds a CMS, managed web hosting, and free SSL certificate all in one no-code platform. Build interactions and animations into your website, drag-and-drop unstyled HTML elements. Or make use of pre-built elements like sliders, tabs, and background videos. The tool features a master component library of core layouts, components, and patterns. Plus, Webflow gives you the ability to prototype and export code to hand off to developers if you don’t want to launch a site on its native subdomain.
Webflow starts free, with plans going up from $12/month on an annual basis.
3. Wix
Source: Wix
Wix is a user-friendly web design software for complete beginners. Don’t know where to start? Choose from over 800 templates or answer a few questions from Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI). ADI will automatically build a website based on your responses. To customize it, drag and drop elements on the screen and edit as you see fit.
Wix offers a free plan. Paid plans start at $4.50/month.
Additional options of a drag-and-drop website builder include Boxmode and Webwave.
4. Statamic
Say hello to Statamic, the CMS of the future. Built by developers for developers, this laravel-based and open-sourced CMS handles everything without any plugins. And by everything, we mean everything. Custom fields, navigation builder, search, you name it. Compared to other CMS, it’s easy to customize Statamic from the frontend. Its flat-file mode reduces complexity and makes maintenance a piece of cake. This is one cool web builder.
It’s free to use Statamic. Paid plans start at $259/site with an additional $59 for updates (free for the first year).
5. Ghost
Source: Ali Abdaal
Ghost is a simple professional publishing platform. In addition to the blogging tool’s standard features, Ghost also offers built-in memberships and email newsletters. Other great features include the minimalistic and powerful editor, site speed, and user-friendly and lightweight CMS. If you want to set up a membership website with zero hassle, look no further!
Ghost offers a 14-day free trial, with plans going up from $29/month when billed annually.
Conclusion
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