In this blog, we are going to discuss web design tools that are both free and paid. We will first start with the free web design tools, then move on to the paid ones.
Free Web Design Tools
There are many free web design tools available online, but some of them can be very useful for beginners who want to learn how to create websites. Here are some of the most popular free web design tools:
- W3C Markup Validation Service – This is a tool that validates your website’s HTML and XML code so that it can be checked for errors before being uploaded onto your server. It also tells you what kind of errors exist in your code so that you can fix them before uploading it onto your server.
For Web Design Tools Free
There are plenty of free tools and resources to help with your website design, whether you’re looking for a little flare or you want to build a new site from scratch.
Here is a list of free website design tools and resources. There are helpful design apps, platforms to create full sites, and resources for font, icon, and image freebies.
Design Resources
Adobe Color CC. Adobe Color is a free online app to try out, create, and save color schemes, each in five variations.
Adobe Color CC.
Adobe Color CC.
Google Fonts. Google Fonts is a quick and easy way to find and add quality fonts. With hundreds of free, open-source fonts available, browse and compare font families, then simply grab the code to add to your collection.
WhatFont. WhatFont is a useful extension to identify fonts. On any web page, just click your WhatFont button to find out.
Type Genius. Type Genius is a simple web app to find nice font combinations. Just select a start font, and instantly get a suggestion for a complementary font pairing.
Type Genius.
Type Genius.
Iconfinder. Iconfinder is an icon search engine to search through 900,000 icons. Browse both premium and 100,00 free icons.
Vectr. Vectr is a free design app for web and desktop to create vector graphics. Share Vectr document URLs for visual feedback. Annotate an image, and share changes in real-time.
Unsplash. Unsplash in a website for free dynamic images. No stock photos here, you are free to modify and distribute the images all you want. The site posts 10 handpicked photos every 10 days. It also has a gallery of example websites that have used the images.
Unsplash.
Unsplash.
Stock Up. Stock Up is a search engine that aggregates stock photos from 26 different free stock photo websites. The site currently indexes over 13,000 free images.
Lost and Taken. Lost and Taken is a design blog that provides free texture images. The site has textures from a wide variety of categories, including film, smoke, paper, watercolor, paint, plaster, light, smoke, motion blur, and nature.
TextureKing. TextureKing posts free stock textures to enhance your design. With hundreds of free textures available, the site includes textures from concrete, wood, fabrics, liquids, dirt, glass, and metals.
TextureKing.
TextureKing.
Design and Development Tools
Skitch. Skitch is an application from Evernote to visually communicate ideas, share feedback, and collaborate. Clip from anywhere on the web. Make your point with shapes, arrows, and quick sketches. Use Skitch on your desktop, tablet, and phone to give feedback and share ideas. Basic plan is free. Paid plans start at $24.99 per year.
Canva. Canva is an online graphic design platform. Non-designers can easily create graphic designs and layouts with drag-and-drop features. Design with free stock photos, icons, and shapes. Create menus, banners, social media graphics, and more. Canva’s basic platform is free. Premium elements are never more than $1.
Canna.
Canna.
Pixlr. Pixlr is a free photo editor from Autodesk to enhance images with free effects, overlays, and filters. Choose from a pool of effect packs to give your image the look you want. Stylize images to look like a pencil drawing, ink sketch, poster, and more. Use the Editor, O Matic, and Touch Up web apps to create stunning images.
Google Web Designer. Google Web Designer is an advanced web app that lets you design and build HTML5 web content. Create using drawing tools, text, and 3D objects. Animate objects and events on a timeline. Add image galleries, videos, maps, and more.
Webflow. Webflow is an all-in-one design platform to create responsive websites. Start with a blank canvas for total creative control, or pick a template to get started fast. Drag and drop to build animated and interactive design without writing code. One project is free. Premium plans start at $16 per month.
Webflow.
Webflow.
Themify Flow. Themify Flow is a framework to build responsive themes within WordPress. Simply drop in the layout modules, and configure the options. Style everything with a live preview of the design. It comes with Google Fonts, color picker, image upload, and more.
Mobirise. Mobirise is an app to create small and medium websites, landing pages, promo sites for products and services, and more. Drop the blocks you like into your page, edit content in-line, and publish. Choose from a large selection of pre-made blocks, such as content slider, responsive image gallery, and video background.
Marvel. Marvel is a web app to design interactive prototypes. Design in your browser or add images using Photoshop, Sketch on pen and paper. Turn your designs into interactive mobile and web prototypes in just a few clicks. Import your team from Slack and Asana. Free with commenting on three projects. Paid plan starts at $15 per month.
Bootstrap. Bootstrap is an open-source, front-end framework for creating websites and web applications. Bootstrap comes with dozens of custom HTML and CSS components, and templates for forms, buttons, typography, and more.
best web design tools
The best web design software makes it simple and easy to build a website, either by offering a coding platform, or a drag-and-drop interface.
It used to be the case that the only option was to code a website directing, using HTML & CSS and even JavaScript. However, these days drag-and-drop editors have become much more commonplace, making it a breeze for anyone to customize or even build their own website.
Whichever option you prefer, all of them make it easier to build in the elements you require on your website, and can work with additional tools such as form builders, image hosting, and even content delivery networks (CDN).
In this guide we have focused on the best web design tools currently available on the market. Similar to the best website builder services, when weighing up which to include, we focus on ease of use, supported web languages, cost, and how easy the tools make it to upload the finished project once you are done.
These are the best web design software services of 2022
Website screenshot for Wix
(Image credit: Wix)
- Wix
The best web design software for beginners
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
Wix Pro
$23/mth
Wix Connect Domain
$3.54/mth
VISIT SITE
at Wix
REASONS TO BUY
+Very easy to use
+No coding required
+Huge range of powerful features
+Yet still highly user-friendly
Wix is more of a website builder than a coding platform, but it is one of the most popular online website creators, offering a range of plans and products. The free version has Wix branding, limited storage space and bandwidth, but move up to the most popular plan (unlimited) and there’s no Wix ads.
An excellent collection of 500 plus templates gets the design process off to a quick start. The drag-and-drop editor gives you all kinds of tools and features to explore – an image editor, video backgrounds, animations, social buttons, an integrated site blog – and just about everything can be tweaked, tuned and restyled. Furthermore, as of recently, Wix introduced Wix Turbo, which increases the speed and performance of websites substantially.
All the core editing functions are really smartly designed, and operate more like a native app than your average website builder. Wix does have some weaknesses, with tech support seeming a little sluggish and limited in some respects. But there’s no denying that the superb editor and range of top-notch templates make it easy for web building novices to create something impressive.
Read our full Wix review to find out why it’s the best web design software on the market.
Website screenshot for Adobe Dreamweaver
(Image credit: Adobe)
- Adobe Dreamweaver
The best web design software for professionals
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Customize your design
+Build a responsive design
+HTML5 support
REASONS TO AVOID
-Not cheap
Adobe Dreamweaver is a long-established app that allows you to code your website design directly, without having to know too much about programming. The software works through a mix of visual editing and HTML editing, which means it shouldn’t have too steep a learning curve for most users.
Additionally, while coding your own website design requires you to put in more effort than simply using an existing ready made template, at least you have the chance to ensure you get the look you actually want, rather than trying to work around someone else’s design specifications.
A particularly good feature of Dreamweaver is that it allows you to produce a responsive design, which means your website can be optimized to display on desktops as well as mobile devices, without limiting the user experience.
However, if you are a more advanced user you may be pleased to note that Dreamweaver provides multi-monitor support for Windows. It also supports the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) to work with HTML5 elements and CSS grids. Additionally, there’s also support for Git to allow you to edit source code directly from within Dreamweaver.
Dreamweaver is available as part of Adobe’s mid-range packaged app subscription service, Creative Cloud, which also includes Photoshop.
Read our full Adobe Dreamweaver review
Website screenshot for WordPress
(Image credit: WordPress)
- WordPress
The best custom option for beginners
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Easy to install and use
+Many available features
+Pre-built website templates
REASONS TO AVOID
-Watch out for spam
WordPress is an alternative way to set up and design your website, being rather different to the other offerings we’ve highlighted here because it’s actually a content management system (CMS). The power here is that it is a simple matter to set up a website in minutes. Indeed, many web hosting packages include a one-click install of WordPress from their Control Panel, but even without that, WordPress is relatively easy to install.
Once installed, the backend for administration and management is very user-friendly. You can use the existing WordPress design templates for your website, but more likely you will want to download and install an existing free or premium WordPress template – all of which can be done with just a few clicks.
Even if you would prefer to work with your own design, you can often do so using drag-and-drop functions, usually from a downloaded design with an in-built framework. This can allow you to create a professional-looking website without having to learn programming or coding at all.
Better still, there are so many free add-ons available to download and install, often requiring nothing more than a few clicks. This makes the whole process of customizing your website very simple, and it does not require any professional skills.
Overall, WordPress is a very easy CMS to use, and can provide a very quick way to get any form of website online fast. The huge variety of template designs and additional community supported features mean that getting something which is near the mark of what you want isn’t hard at all. Just ensure that in the settings you select to turn off comments so as to avoid spam.
Read our full WordPress review
Website screenshot for Weebly
(Image credit: Weebly)
- Weebly
The DIY e-commerce website
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
Weebly Starter
$5/mth
Weebly Pro
$12/mth
Weebly Business
$25/mth
VISIT SITE
at Weebly
REASONS TO BUY
+Professional look
+Mobile-friendly
+Easy to personalize
Weebly is another online CMS, this time targeted at people with little or no coding experience, by providing easy to use drag and drop tools for creating a website. Weebly also provides the ability for users to create online stores using existing templates to work with their simply website-building framework.
The number of themes available for Weebly is somewhat limited, but the designs are clean and professional-looking, plus there are options to personalize accordingly. Additionally, the themes are responsive, which means they are optimized to work with mobile devices, plus they have in built SEO, analytics, and even a feature for posting ads directly to Facebook.
There’s a free tier available for basic use, and allows you to get used to the service. However, to use your own domain and get rid of ads, you’ll need the Professional plan.
Read our full Weebly review
Website screenshot for Webflow
(Image credit: Webflow)
- Webflow
Cloud-based offering that needs no coding knowledge
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Drag and drop GUI
+Truly cross-platform
REASONS TO AVOID
-Interface takes time to master
Webflow is a cloud-based service which has been created specifically to allow people with no coding knowledge to get started with web design.
Aside from being truly cross-platform, as it’s web-based, Webflow emphasizes the concept of ‘smart codelessness’. In the first instance this means a crisp drag and drop interface allowing you to drop elements such as text and images seamlessly onto a page using one of the freely available templates.
Unlike many WYSIWYG editors, the code produced is very clean and well-written even if you choose the ‘I have no coding experience’ option during setup. Webflow’s automation tool will create the necessary HTML/CSS code for you. You can make granular changes to individual elements using the panels on the right.
Webflow offers a free demonstration of its features via the website, and you can also subscribe for a free Starter package which allows you to create up to two projects.
Read our full Webflow review
Website screenshot for Bluefish
(Image credit: Bluefish)
- Bluefish
Lightweight and easy to use web coding platform
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Lightweight and quick
+Use advanced code via wizards
REASONS TO AVOID
-No visual interface
Bluefish is among the smallest web design tools available today. The tiny installer takes only a few moments to setup. While the interface is text-only, it’s clearly designed with novices in mind as it employs clear-cut toolbars, user customizable menus and syntax highlighting.
While the main focus is on HTML, Bluefish supports a huge range of other languages including PHP, Java, JavaScript, SQL, XML and CSS. Unlike visual WYSIWYG web design tools, the text interface makes for much cleaner code.
Bluefish has an excellent search function, allowing you to find text across multiple projects. The tool also has no trouble juggling hundreds of documents at the same time. Although Bluefish supports working with remote files, the varied and useful dialogs and wizards don’t currently support direct upload of web pages via FTP.
Despite the best efforts of the developers, Bluefish may take some time to get used to. The tool is available free of charge, however, so you have nothing to lose by giving it a try.
Website screenshot for Visual Studio Code
(Image credit: Microsoft)
- Visual Studio Code
A text editor from Microsoft
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Customizable
+Loads of integrations
+Source control tools
Visual Studio Code (or VScode) has become popular among developers – the ones who aren’t put off by the fact that it’s a Microsoft product, anyway. It offers a variety of packages and free extensions that can be downloaded from its marketplace to add additional features – and the code editor itself can be customized.
While a lot of people may be intimated by the idea of coding if they have no programming experience, at some point in the web design process it can be important to be able to edit code directly. This is particularly helpful if you want to customize code for existing software add-ons in order to get the features you want for your website. Visual Studio Code can help make the process less painful by providing a dedicated platform for coding.
Visual Studio Code sports its own terminal and debugger, supports linting, and has integration with all manner of source control tools. It especially offers good support for Javascript and Python, making it potentially useful not just for coding the frontend of a website but also potentially some backend functions as well.
Read our full Virtual Studio Code review
Other web design tools you might find useful
If you’re involved in web design, the chances are you’ll also need some graphic design skills and assets. Here we’ll look at a couple of other resources and assets you’ll properly need to help with your website design process:
- Graphics program
You don’t need anything too expensive or fancy unless you’re chasing a career in graphic design or illustration. However, you’ll probably find yourself wanting to create simple logos, headings, text features, as well as manipulate photos, all as part of your website design.
There are a lot of different packages out there, from GIMP which is a completely free software platform, to older software such as Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro which remains a competent program that can be bought on the cheap at Amazon.
Alternatively, check out these other features for the latest in best, and sometimes free, software you might want to use:
Best drawing and painting software
Best graphic design software
The best free photo editor
- Stock photos
On top of creating your own graphics, there’s also a good chance you’ll want to use stock photos to really give your website a professional look.
Stock photos are available on almost any subject matter, and on top of that there are also an increasing number of stock video websites, in case you want to add video media.
Even better is that there are a number of free stock image and video websites, but be advised that these tend to be much more limited than paid-for stock image sites.
Here you can check out some of our features on these, to help you choose the best ones:
The best free stock photo sites
The best free stock video sites
Conclusion
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