Office Web Design Software

A good website design software is essential for any small business. It allows you to create a professional-looking website that showcases your brand and helps you to connect with customers. But with so many options available, it can be tough to find the right one for your needs.

We’ve put together this guide to help you choose the right web design software for your business. We’ll cover some of the most popular options, as well as a few lesser-known ones that are worth considering. We’ll also give you tips on how to choose the right one—along with some warnings about what to avoid!

Office Web Design Software

Best Overall: Adobe Dreamweaver CC

BUY ON AMAZON

Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite includes go-to programs for content creators of all types, so it may not be much of a surprise that its web development tool is a popular, powerful one as well. Dreamweaver, available for Windows and Mac operating systems, incorporates both a “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) visual interface and a clean, color-coded text editor to work directly on the code. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other programming languages are supported. 

One of Dreamweaver’s main strengths is its live preview functionality. With it, you can see exactly how your site will look and function, across a variety of platforms, before it’s published. It is compatible with just about any commonly used browser, and support for responsive design means your site adjusts to the size of the screen it’s being viewed on, whether that’s on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone. There is a learning curve to the software, but once you’re familiar with it, the process of building a website is simple and streamlined.

As it’s part of Adobe’s cloud-based services, a subscription is required. You can pay monthly or yearly, slightly discounted with the longer commitment. But this also means you’ll automatically get the latest updates, features, and support. Many design professionals need other related Adobe apps anyway, so a bundle of some or all Creative Cloud programs is a smart investment, both for cost-efficiency and seamless integration of tools.

Best Free Software: WordPress.org

BUY ON WORDPRESS.ORG

In a lot of ways, WordPress occupies a world of its own. As a full content management system (CMS), it’s ideal for websites or blogs where content is regularly posted or updated. You will need to have your own web hosting account to install the WordPress software, which is usually painless since most hosts offer one-click WordPress installation. But part of what makes it so popular is that it’s available as a completely free and open-source download from WordPress.org. In contrast, WordPress.com is a more hands-off solution with paid plans, where your site or blog is hosted on WordPress itself with no access to the backend files or code.

With the WordPress.org software, you have complete flexibility to customize your site by uploading themes created by yourself or other web designers. There’s a huge community of developers who create WordPress-specific themes and custom plugins, available for free or for purchase. This includes robust drag-and-drop page builders to make customizing the design and layout of your site even easier. You could create your website without touching the code at all, but now you have the option to modify as much or as little as you would like.

Best HTML Editor: Atom

BUY ON ATOM.IO

When it comes down to it, web design still centers around a bunch of lines of code — letters and numbers and symbols that tell a browser what to display. That’s why text-based editors are, to this day, an important tool for many developers. But you don’t need to code in plain Notepad, especially not when full-featured HTML editors like Atom exist. Open-source (and free), Atom is billed as a “hackable” text editor that anyone can iterate upon. It was developed by GitHub, and it connects to a community where contributions and support are encouraged.

Atom runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it includes features to make programming more efficient for a lot of different coding languages. It gives you project organization, multi-pane views, smart autocomplete, and more. Visually, it makes things much easier on the eyes with customizable colors, styles, and formatting for the text and background. You can use any of the pre-installed themes for the interface and adjust the look to your preferences. You can install thousands of free user-created packages as well.

Best Web-Based Software: Webflow

BUY ON WEBFLOW.COM

Webflow offers the general ease-of-use of a WYSIWYG online website builder, but with extra layers of complexity to it. It brings together a lot of tools, integrating a CMS, forms and data, SEO tools, collaboration for teams, and some e-commerce functions for online stores and payments. Webflow also has its own hosting service, and you can use the limited free trial version as long as you like only hosting with Webflow. 

When you begin creating your new site, you’ll find a large, varied collection of free templates to start from, with even more available for purchase. These templates are geared toward different types of sites you may want to set up, from blogs to portfolios and e-commerce sites. 

Within Webflow’s Site Designer interface, you can drag and drop boxes that contain the page’s design elements, content, and even interactive/animated effects that typically require JavaScript. On Webflow, these elements have more detailed customization options built-in than most other simple site builders, letting you fine-tune everything from fonts and colors to border sizes and spacing. Everything stays within the parameters of HTML and CSS, so some coding experience is preferred. As a result, the code Webflow creates is impressively clean, with less clutter than in other, “code-free” builders out there.

Best for Interface Design: Sketch

BUY ON SKETCH.COM

While many designers use Adobe Photoshop to establish the visual foundations of their websites, Sketch is an alternative with a stronger focus on user interface and digital design. Available as paid software exclusive to Mac, Sketch is a vector-based graphics editing tool for designing, wireframing, and prototyping websites and mobile apps alike. Working with vectors makes responsive design easy, and you can mirror your work on iOS to preview what it would look like on a phone or tablet. Collaborative features for sharing artboards and mockups with team members or clients are included, too, since smooth workflow is an important part of what Sketch provides. 

Unlike with full website builders and HTML editors, extra steps are required to turn your Sketch designs into actual websites, but the program exports code and other files in a way that they’re optimized and ready to be converted to HTML and CSS. You’ll also find a wide assortment of plugins and extensions available to help streamline the process to meet your needs.

Best Online Website Builder: Wix

BUY ON WIXSTATS.COM

Thanks to affordable, easy-to-use online website builders like Wix, website development has never been more accessible. It doesn’t require a whole lot of effort or expertise to create an impressive-looking, decently customized web presence on Wix, so it’s not hard to see why the platform is so popular. The core tools are free with no time limit, but you can subscribe to monthly premium plans to unlock more advanced professional features.

The process starts by asking if you want to use Wix’s Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI), which asks a few basic questions and automatically builds a website based on your answers. Or, you can choose from one of the hundreds of elegant, artist-designed templates. Once you’re in the innovative drag-and-drop editor, you can add, move, resize, and customize modules, all without touching the code. There’s also a vast market of free and premium functionality you can add to your pages like photo galleries, calendars, social media feeds, and music players. You can even access site traffic analytics, get insights from an SEO wizard, and manage a database of your contacts and subscribers. 

open source web design software

• Adobe Dreamweaver

Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the most popular free web design software. It ensures fast and flexible coding with code hints and visual aids to help beginners create professional websites.

However, Adobe Dreamweaver is available on a free trial, only for seven days. After that, you have to get its paid version to continue using its amazing features. 

Core Features of Adobe Dreamweaver: 

• Site previews with real-time editing 
• Flexible and fast coding 
• CEF integration & Git support 
• IDE environment 
• Dynamic display for every device 
• Multi-monitor support 

Deployment Type: On-premise 

Suitable for Business Size: Small & medium businesses, large enterprises 

Pricing Mode: Plans start from ₹ 1675 per month for a single app. The monthly plan for all apps costs around ₹ 4230. Also available is a seven days free trial version.

Reasons to Buy:  

• Easy to customize starter templates for building blogs, portfolios and HTML emails.  
• Timely bug and security vulnerability fixes.  
• Compatible with the latest Windows & mac operating systems.

Supported OS: Windows 10 & above, Linux, Mac OS 10.12 Sierra & above 

Here’re a few free and open-source web design software like Dreamweaver, which provides equally amazing features and support. 

• Brackets (Free and Open Source Web Design Software)

Best for: Visual tools for live previews

Brackets website builder provides pre-processor support and visual tools for writing codes and building websites. The open-source and free web design software is ideal for designing in the browser using live previews.

It provides visual tools along with editors to help web developers and front-end developers with error-free coding.

Brackets Core Features:

• Live preview
• Inline editors 
• Indent guides 
• Pre-processor support 
• Auto prefixes 
• Git integration 

Deployment Type: Cloud-based and desktop 

Suitable for Business Size: Small businesses and medium enterprises 

Pricing Mode: Brackets is a free and open-source web design software.  

Reasons to Buy: Brackets is ideal just not for web designers but also for front-end developers. It is simple to use and provides free extensions and syntax colouring.

Supported OS: Windows, Linux and Mac

Suggested Read: 11 Best eCommerce Website Builders for Small Businesses [Free & Paid]

• WordPress (Free and Paid)

Best for: Customizable templates

WordPress is one of the best professional web design software. The web design software offers plugins and addons for building professional quality landing pages in minutes.

Thus, you can create websites easily without the advanced knowledge of coding. In addition, it provides Pro layouts to create professionally designed websites.  

Features of WordPress: 

• Online store builder & booking tools 
• Electronic form 
• Full-text searching option 
• Document classification and data export/import 
• Auto file management 
• Customizable templates 

Deployment Type: On-premise and cloud-based 

Suitable for Business Size: All business types 

Pricing Mode: Starting plan costs around ₹ 292 a month. You can also get started for free with limited features.

Reasons to Buy: Best for building fast websites and blog pages. WordPress can be easily integrated with plugins from third-party apps. Several instances are also available for live hosting and testing.

Supported OS: Windows and Mac, Android & iOS

• CoffeeCup HTML Editor (Free and Paid)

Best for: Creating prototypes and mobile-friendly emails 

CoffeeCup HTML editor helps businesses create an online presence with the help of professional web development tools. Implementing SEO strategies or adding web firms, all is easy with this website design software.

The best part is its HTML editor that can be used to design websites and edit the code and build mobile-friendly emails.

CoffeCup HTML Editor Core Features:

• Components’ library 
• Live previews 
• Custom web forms 
• Custom email solution 
• Visual code selector 
• Semantic web-ready 
• Responsive and customizable themes 

Deployment Type: On-premise 

Suitable for Business Size: Medium and small-sized businesses 

Pricing Model: Single package with a free trial available at the cost of ₹ 2119. 

Reasons to Buy: Easy to use the HTML editor to create custom web forms and share them via custom emails.

Supported OS: Windows 7 and higher

• Joomla (Free and Paid)

Best for: Powerful SEO features

Joomla is a website maker software and content marketing system, which offers command-line applications for building websites. The software’s graphical user interface offers customizable templates in varied layouts, colours and fonts to develop interactive websites and online applications.

 Joomla Features:

• Cache and user management 
• Publish tools and editor buttons 
• Custom fields with categories 
• Media manager with WYSIWYG editor 
• Content versioning with CMS management 

Deployment Type: On-premise 

Suitable for Business Size: Small, medium and large enterprises 

Pricing Mode: Joomla 3.9.26 is available for free download with premium upgrades available.   

Reasons to Buy: Joomla has a smooth learning curve with various video training materials and documentation available.

Further, you can use Joomla or its metadata management capabilities and powerful search engine optimization capabilities.  

Supported OS: Windows and mac OS, Linux, iOS and Android

Try Now: Designing Solutions | Graphic Design Software | 3D Design Software

• Bootstrap (Free and Open Source Web Design Software)

Best for: Grid typography and fonts

Bootstrap open source web design software offers mixins and SaaS variables and responsive grid systems for creating responsive websites. The web design software provides essential features and colours for styling webpages and making webpages behave as per their screen size.

Also available are side features like popovers, modals, tooltips, glyph icons and pagination. 

Bootstrap Core Features:

• jQuery plugins 
• Basic style definitions 
• Various layout components 
• Grid typography and fonts 
• Predefined libraries 

Deployment Type: Web-based 

Suitable for Business Size: Small and medium businesses

Pricing Mode: Monthly plan available at ₹ 1097. Bootsrap also offers a free plan for up to 10 users and 2GB storage.

Reasons to Buy: Bootstrap free website builder is compatible with multiple browsers like Opera, internet explorer, Chrome, Safari, etc., thus making website building easy and simple.

Pre-styled customizations and components are the added advantages of using Bootstrap. Web styling is easy and doesn’t take very long.  

Supported OS: Web-based 

Top 12 Designing Software for Beginners Without Code 

• Mobirise (Free and Paid)

Best for: Image sliders & popup builders

Mobirise is a free web design software, which is best for creating landing pages and high-ranking websites for non-profit and professional use. The web design software offers thousands of beautiful templates, blocks and website blocks to help you start quickly with the web designing process.

Non-techies highly prefer Mobirise to create Google and mobile-friendly websites without any coding knowledge.

Core Features of Mobirise:

• Bootstrap builder 
• Trendy website blocks 
• Form builder 
• Image sliders 
• Popup builder 

Deployment Type: SaaS, cloud and web-based 

Suitable for Business Size: Small business, mid-market professionals and freelancers 

Pricing Mode: Mobirise paid plan to start at ₹10k approx 

Reasons to Buy: No coding is required for building websites. The free website making software is best for beginners with not much knowledge of coding.

Supported OS: Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and Mac 

• openElement (Free Web Design Software)

Best for: Customizing web objects

openElement is a website editor offering a WYSIWYG interface for building websites. The website design tool helps automatically generate a code for displaying a website and its functions correctly.

openElement Core Features:

• Custom CSS 
• Database management 
• Search engine optimisation 
• Element editor

 Deployment Type: Desktop 

Suitable for Business Size: Small businesses and mid-market firms 

Pricing Mode: It is a completely free web design tool.  

Reasons to Buy: Easy drag and drop functionality can be used to customise, insert, and modify web objects onto pages. This process is hassle-free and easy for beginners.  

Supported OS: Windows 7,8, 10/ XP/Vista 

• GIMP (Free and Open Source Web Design Software)

Best for: Photo enhancement & digital retouching

GIMP or GNU image manipulation program is a free web design tool offering professional features for image manipulation purposes. This web design software can also be used for designing graphical elements by changing the source code and distributing the changes.

GIMP Core Features:

• Photo enhancement and digital retouching 
• Support for USB and MIDI controllers 
• Channel mixer 
• Advanced graphic design elements 
• Support for photo manipulation 
• Ensures extensibility & flexibility 

Deployment Type: Desktop-based 

Suitable for Business Size: Small and medium-sized businesses  

Pricing Mode: GIMP is a free and open-source web design software. 

Reasons to Buy: GIMP web builder helps customize your company’s logo, images and vectors for advertisement purposes. Simple interface along with various options for filtering and effects make GIMP a convenient website designing tool.  

Supported OS: Windows XP SP3, Vista and 7/8; mac OS 10.6 & above 

• Webydo (Free Trial)

Best for: Responsive breakpoints

Webydo is one of the best professional web design software trusted for creating responsive websites that are pixel perfect without deploying any code. What makes Webydo unique is its content management capabilities, something that makes it possible for clients to update or edit the content anytime they want.

Webydo Core Features:

• Parallax scrolling animator 
• Drag & drop control 
• Web fonts 
• Video tools 
• Design without code 

Deployment Type: Cloud-based

Suitable for Business Size: SMBs and large enterprises

Pricing Mode: Free trial available for all paid plans. The start cost of the paid plan is ₹ 5473 per month.

Reasons to Buy: Intuitive drag and drop interface besides visual tools that require no static mockups.

Supported OS: Windows, Mac and Linux, Android

• Webflow (Free and Paid)

Best for: Integrations for creating custom and flexible custom code

You can create professional websites with Webflow website builder software. This no-code website design software is best for developing animations, creating immersive interactions & building dynamic content custom databases.

It uses visual canvas to create attractive websites. Webflow further helps launch websites on a hassle-free hosting network.

Webflow Core Features:

• Editor for creating & updating pages 
• Integration with marketing tools 
• Inbuilt SEO tools 
• Optimized images with CSS filters 
• Supports immersive animations 

Deployment Type: Open API with cloud hosting 

Suitable for Business Size: Freelancers, large enterprises and SMBs. 

Pricing Mode: Free trial available for starter plan that begins at ₹ 1094.  

Reasons to Buy: Various online resources available that make it easy to navigate through Webflow. Plus, it is quite simple for beginners and user friendly.  

Supported OS: Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS and Android 

• Wix (Free and Paid)

Best for: Innovative design templates and features

Wix is a website maker software helping businesses make their online web presence felt through high-quality websites. The website design tool supports site customization capabilities for getting the best websites designed for them.

In addition, Wix free web design software provides the best hosting facilities along with unlimited pages.  

Wix Core Features: 

• Custom domains 
• Logo maker 
• SSL certification 
• Site boosters 
• Visitor analytics 

Deployment Type: Cloud-based 

Suitable for Business Size: Small businesses 

Pricing Mode: Free trial available for fourteen days. The paid plan starts at ₹ 325 per month. 

Reasons to Buy: Wix is a business-friendly tool providing free, suitable domain names for building attractive websites. The software also offers supportive website hosting services through search engine optimization.  

Supported OS: Windows and mac OS, iOS and Android 

• Figma (Free and Paid)

Best for: Creating responsive designs

Figma website design software offers robust design modules and custom workflows for building attractive websites.

The software provides plugins for icons, charts, sticky notes, stock imagery and flow diagrams. This free website builder supports various flexible styles too for website development.

It also includes an online whiteboard, FigJam, that teams can use to brainstorm new ideas.

Features of Figma Web Design Software:

• Arc tool for creating pie charts and watch screens
• OpenType font features
• Vector networks with sophisticated pen tool
• Auto layout components for responsive designs
• Space settings for design development

Deployment Type: Desktop and cloud-based

Suitable for Business Size: SMBs and large enterprises

Figma Pricing Mode: Figma is a free website design software for starters, and this plan has unlimited cloud storage capacity.

Paid plans includes Professional for ₹885 and for Organization ₹ 332.

Reasons to Buy: Figma makes file sharing an easy process through its live link option. Plus, cloud support makes file access faster & secure.

Supported Platforms: Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows

• Lunacy (Free and Paid)

Best for: Editing the vector graphics

Lunacy is a free website builder that offers a centralized repository for creating and sketching website designs. The web design software is ideal for creating prototypes for testing user experience and measuring distances between cardboard borders and grouped objects.

The dashboard module is another convenient option for editing digital asses for layers, symbols, vector images and text styles.

Features of Lunacy Free Web Design Software:

• Symbols, overrides and library content
• Code export
• Innovative shapes with cloud sharing option
• Reporting analytics with data import & export
• Customizable templates
• Data transformation and synchronization

Deployment Type: Cloud-based (for sharing files) and desktop-based options

Suitable for Business Size: Large companies and small & medium businesses.

Pricing Mode: Lunacy is free when design software for Windows. Price of paid plans would vary depending on your requirements for plugins for illustrations, photos and icons.

Reasons to Buy: The website design software has quite a simple user interface for beginners. The updates are regular as per the latest sketching and website editing requirements.

Supported Platforms: Windows

• InVision Studio (Free and Paid)

Best for: Vector-based prototyping

InVision Studio is an all-in-one tool, supporting multiple website building processes such as prototype, animate and design. The website builder is quite popular in preparing pixel-perfect layouts, doing flexible layer styles and completing vector editing.

You can also use InVision Studio website design software for advanced pinning and percentage-based geometry.

Features of InVision Studio:

• Collaborative connections for syncing workflows
• Shared design library for teamwork
• Interactive designs through rapid prototyping
• Adaptive layouts for responsive designs

Deployment Type: Desktop-based

Suitable for Business Size: Small business owners and medium enterprises.

InVision Studio Pricing Mode: InVision Studio is a popular free web design software for small teams and individuals with limited features. Monthly plans start from ₹ 586 per month.

Reasons to Buy: InVision Studio is a reliable platform for collaborating with teams over multiple tasks and assets. Additionally, you can manage the access rights for project viewing and access. Another wonderful feature is its designing mechanism for finishing archival artifacts.

Supported Platforms: Windows and Mac

• Vectr (Free Web Design Software)

Best for: Online vector graphic editing

Vectr free web design software is a powerful tool for doing graphic designing on websites. The best free web design software lets you undertake collaboration in real-time besides creating crisp vector graphics.

Vectr is an ideal website builder for preparing blur-free website mock-ups, and it also provides powerful desktop and web-related cross-platform tools.

Features of Vectr Web Designing Software:

• Image editing and powerful collaboration tools
• Pen and shape tools
• Fills, strokes and pathfinders
• Gradients for alignments

Deployment Type: Desktop and web-based

Suitable for Business Size: Small, medium and large businesses

Pricing Mode: Vectr is an entirely free website design software

Reasons to Buy: Vectr software is available for free, suitable for all user types. It allows you to share Vectr documents easily and facilitates real-time collaboration.

Supported Platforms: Mac, Linux, Chrome, Windows and web-based

• Marvel (Free)

Best for: Sketching and wireframing

Marvel is a web design software platform, providing a centralized workspace for creating app prototypes. This web design software has a unique design mode for mock-ups and interface assets based on sketches or photoshop.

You can also use the software for link sharing and real-time team collaboration.

Features of Marvel:

• User testing
• Developer handoff
• Rapid prototyping
• Wireframing
• User testing support
• URL based sharing of web designs
• Offline downloads
• Transitions & gestures
• Sketching and interactive designing

Deployment Type: Cloud-based web design software

Suitable for Business Size: SMBs and large companies

Pricing Mode: Marvel is a free website design software with limited features. Monthly paid plans include:

1. Pro Plan:₹589
2. Team Plan:₹1769

Reasons to Buy: Integration with Slack and regular software updates. There is no coding required here and making interactive drawings is so easy. Create presentations, edit them as per your client’s preferences and see your business reach new levels of success.

Supported Platforms: It’s a free prototype software for desktop, Android & iOS devices.

• Visual Studio Code (Free & Open Source Web Design Software)

Best for: Git integration & extensions

Visual Code Studio is a powerful web design app supporting VS code tools for website debugging and customising workspaces. This software supports various options for web design colours, fonts, icons and layouts. You can also depend on VS Code software for installing extensions.

Features of Visual Studio Code:

• Interactive console for debugging codes
• Inbuilt Git commands
• Editor for reviewing stage files
• IntelliSense for smart completion
• Code debugging directly from the editor
• Built-in Git commands
• Customized & extensible features

Deployment Type: Web-based and desktop

Suitable for Business Size: Large businesses and SMBs

Pricing Model: VS Code is a free and open-source web design software.

Reasons to Buy: The software is ideal for all types of coding projects. You get access to multiple plugins for customizing the website’s environment. Prototyping for individual components is easy, and the integration with Git is convenient.

Supported Platforms: Windows 7, 8, 10, Mac OS, Ubuntu.

Conclusion

Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

Check out other publications to gain access to more digital resources if you are just starting out with Flux Resource.
Also contact us today to optimize your business(s)/Brand(s) for Search Engines