Ever envisioned a website overhaul but hesitated due to the cost and effort of implementing changes? Imagine transforming your ideas into stunning, interactive mockups before writing any code. This is the magic of mockup tools.
They help you create wireframes—blueprints for your web project showing how each page’s content, navigation, and user interface elements will be arranged. They also help you communicate your ideas to your clients, teammates, and stakeholders.
Why is creating mockups essential? Simple. Making changes directly on a live website or product can be time-consuming, expensive, and potentially disruptive. Mockup tools offer a safe and efficient environment to experiment, iterate, and perfect your design vision before investing significant resources.
With mockup tools, you can turn your design concepts into reality. You can apply the best practices and principles of UX design that you learn from books and courses to create interactive mockups.
This guide dives into the top 10 mockup tools of 2024, empowering you to improve your design process and bring your design dreams to life. From feature-rich powerhouses to user-friendly options, we’ll explore the perfect tool to transform your static ideas into dynamic mockups and revolutionize your design workflow.
10 Best Mockup Tools for Creating Design Drafts in 2024
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Should You Look for in a Mockup Tool?
Before you choose a mockup tool, you need to know what you want to achieve with it.
Here are some important features that you should look for in all mockup tools:
- Intuitive user interface: The tool should have an easy, smart, and adaptable UI. You don’t want to waste time figuring out how to use it
- Elements and components: Having a variety of elements and components, such as buttons, icons, and fonts, can improve the efficiency of the mockup and save time spent looking for external resources
- Ease of collaboration: It should have features that allow you to edit in real-time, leave comments, and have a record of the version history for higher transparency and better collaboration
- Device compatibility: The tool should be compatible with various devices you use every day and should be available on the cloud for instant access
- Customization features: The mockup tool should offer customization abilities to match your brand design guidelines
With these factors in mind, you’ll be well-equipped to find a mockup tool that becomes an invaluable asset in your design journey. Remember, the ideal tool should complement your workflow and boost your creativity.
Summarize this article for me pleaseTop 10 Best Mockup Tools to Use in 2024
Are you ready to discover the best mockup tools for your web design projects in 2024? Here’s our curated list of the top 10 mockup tools that you can use to create stunning and realistic wireframes and prototypes.
1. ClickUp
ClickUp, the all-in-one productivity tool for design teams, is hands-down one of the best mockup tools for designers looking to spruce up their design projects, including draft documents and presentations.
Whether you are building a website prototype, an app, or a product, ClickUp works perfectly as a design project management tool, website mockup tool, wireframing tool, and a UX design software tool.
It combines visual collaboration tools like whiteboards and mind maps with project and task management capabilities to speed up the design process and boost the project completion rate.
At the heart of ClickUp’s best features for designers lie ClickUp Whiteboards and its extensive template library.
Sketch wireframes, user flows, and layout concepts directly on ClickUp Whiteboards. Use tools like pens, text boxes, sticky notes, and shapes to bring your initial design ideas to life. Whiteboards also integrate with multimedia elements, letting you add images to your boards effortlessly.
Multiple team members can work simultaneously on the whiteboard, fostering a dynamic brainstorming environment. Share ideas, gather feedback, and iterate on your wireframes and draft designs in real time.
Whether charts, diagrams, or presentations, these whiteboards offer the perfect canvas to turn your concepts into actionable tasks. You can add context to your work by linking your boards to tasks, files, Docs, and more in ClickUp. Plus, you get to keep all your wireframes and mockups within ClickUp alongside project tasks and discussions for easy access and reference.
But that’s not even the best part! ClickUp Brain elevates your creativity by automatically generating design personas, components, user journeys, and creative briefs based on your prompts and requirements.
By eliminating busy work from this process, the tool helps designers and individuals involved in the project save cost and time.
Don’t forget that ClickUp also supports commenting and @mentions, fast-paced approvals, quick iterations, mockup annotations, integrations with Figma and Invision files, and collaboration with external contributors.
Additionally, ClickUp’s Website Design Project Plan Template allows you to organize and schedule your design projects in one place, leading to a more efficient and effective design process. This template provides the right balance between your resources and tasks to execute your website design-development plan efficiently.
This template will help you
- Outline the entire website design process from beginning to end
- Divide each task into manageable subtasks for better assignment
- Monitor progress and set priorities to meet deadlines
ClickUp best features
- Manage your entire project lifecycle with a comprehensive set of tools for project management, website design, and document management
- Create and edit your website design projects and documents efficiently with drag-and-drop functionality and ClickUp Whiteboard
- Provide and receive feedback directly on tasks and documents within ClickUp. Utilize comments, mentions, and real-time discussions to ensure clear communication and iterate effectively
- Use ClickUp Automation to streamline repetitive tasks, such as sending notification emails upon task completion or automatically updating documents based on specific criteria
- Store design assets, mood boards, and reference materials centrally within designated ClickUp Docs
- Organize and access all your project assets, such as documents, components, and elements, with 15+ customizable ClickUp Views
- Tailor ClickUp to your specific design process. Create custom fields to track design iterations, utilize forms to gather client feedback, and leverage integrations with design software for a seamless workflow
ClickUp limitations
- ClickUp is more than plain mockup software, so it may take some time to master all its features and capabilities
ClickUp pricing
- Free Forever
- Unlimited: $7/user per month
- Business: $12/user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
- ClickUp Brain: Available on all paid plans for $5 per member per Workspace per month
ClickUp ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (9,200+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (4,000+ reviews)
2. Moqups
Moqups is a popular free mockup tool that enables you to create mockups, wireframes, and prototypes for website or product designs.
The tool offers a wide range of layouts, graphic design templates, and elements, such as icons, stencils, images, and fonts, to readily develop and design a product or website page.
Whether your requirement revolves around creating wireframes, diagrams, or whiteboards, Moqups is a full ecosystem of tools that eliminates the need to switch between multiple platforms.
Moqups best features
- Integrate Moqups with other software, such as Google Drive, Jira, Okta, Slack, and Microsoft Azure
- Collaborate with your team in real time on your design projects
- Access Moqups from any device and platform
Moqups limitations
- Moqups can be time-consuming, as you have to select and edit each element individually using the drag-and-drop editor
- The free version does not let you download your final mockup
Moqups pricing
- Free
- Solo: $12/month
- Team: $24/month
- Unlimited: $65/month
Moqups ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.2/5 (90+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (20+ reviews)
3. Figma
Figma is a website mockup tool popular among designers for creating interactive wireframes and prototypes for websites and mobile apps. It’s suitable for both beginners without a design certification and experienced designers, given that it offers both pre-built and customizable elements and components.Â
The team can easily work together using this tool because designs are created on the same web app. This lets everyone see how the design progresses and share their thoughts right away. They can even leave feedback directly on the design files as comments.
Figma is particularly built to support UI and UX design and offers features such as design systems with UI-linked components, interactive prototyping software, and a vast library full of design styles.
Figma best features
- Connect Figma with other software, such as Trello, Jira, Slack, Zoom, and Asana, to streamline your workflow
- Use various plugins and widgets to simplify and speed up your design tasks
- Give and receive feedback directly on your wireframes for better communication and collaboration
Figma limitations
- Figma does not support many languages, which may limit your global reach
- Figma needs powerful systems with large memory, and may not work well on older or slower systems
Figma pricing
- Starter: Free
- Professional: $12/user per month (billed annually)
- Organization: $45/user per month (billed annually)
- Enterprise: $75/user per month (billed annually)
Figma ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (1000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.8/5 (700+ reviews)
4. Mockplus
If effective team collaboration is a priority for you, Mockplus should be your go-to tool. It’s a mockup tool that helps create interactive prototypes of user interfaces for software designs. The tool has a vast wireframe template library consisting of high-fi, low-fi, and free UI kits.
Known for its complete package of prototyping, testing, iteration, and scaling options, Mockplus offers three products for different design development stages. Mockplus Cloud is focused on boosting collaboration; Mockplus RP is a free plan for designing prototypes; and MockPlus DS is best for making changes to existing designs.
Features like rapid prototyping, vector UI designing, customer codes, and remote collaboration make it a popular choice among beginners. Further, Mockplus also supports other design software, such as Adobe Photoshop, allowing designers to export files in different formats.
Mockplus best features
- Customize your design with pre-built elements, such as icons, fonts, and other components, and save time and effort
- Integrate Mockplus with various software, such as Slack, Jira, Photoshop, Confluence, Lark, and Adobe XD, to enhance your design workflow
- Track your project progress and collaborate with your team members easily with Mockplus
- Connect product managers, developers, and designers effectively to coordinate projects better, right from the start
Mockplus limitations
- Mockplus requires plugins for uploading files of different formats, which may be inconvenient or incompatible
- The availability of many features may be overwhelming or confusing for beginners
Mockplus pricing
Individual
- Free
- Annual: $99 (billed annually)
- Perpetual: $499 (one-off payment)
Team
- Free
- Ultimate: $29.50/user per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Mockplus ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
5. Marvel
If you’re looking for a free mockup tool that helps streamline the feedback process, Marvel is the one for you. The tool essentially reduces any friction in getting timely approvals at different stages and for the various versions of a design prototype.
Marvel’s Handoff feature facilitates a smoother collaboration and handover process between designers and developers.
It provides detailed design specifications, assets, and an inspection mode for developers to extract information. Comments, annotations, and efficient asset exporting enhance communication.
Marvel has a repository of pre-loaded images with an easily navigable drag-and-drop design interface and team libraries that help maintain consistency in branding requirements.
Marvel best features
- Design and prototype your website or product mockups with Marvel’s intuitive and powerful tools
- Test and validate your mockups with real users and get feedback and insights
- Export and share your mockups with your clients and stakeholders in various formats, such as PDF, PNG, HTML, and Sketch
Marvel limitations
- Has a limited library of components and elements, which may restrict your design options
- Has some features that are not smooth or easy to use, which may affect your user experience
Marvel pricing
- Free
- Pro: $10/month
- Team: $30/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Marvel ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.2/5 (200+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (80+ reviews)
6. UXPin
The UXPin prototype tool is code component-driven, which allows you to use existing UI components to build mockups. The Merge technology enables designers to design with the same UI code components that developers used to build the product.
This allows you to build a customized UI mockup that aligns with your brand guidelines. Integrate with Storybook, Git repo, or NPM package to use the same code components from your design system, app, or website.
You can get creative with the tool’s predefined design tool or multiple built-in UI elements. The tool focuses on user journey and process mapping and also features a heatmap option that tracks the user’s clicking and scrolling behavior.
UXPin best features
- Simulate color blindness and check for contrast while testing your prototype
- Create logic-based prototypes that let you define your own rules and conditions
- Try UXPin for free before paying for a subscription plan that suits your needs
UXPin limitations
- Allows just one undo action, which makes it hard to undo unwanted changes
- Has a smooth but slow user interface, which may increase your turnaround time
UXPin pricing
- Free
- Essentials: $8/editor per month
- Advanced: $39/editor per month
- Professional: $83/editor per month
- Company: $149/editor per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
UXPin ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.2/5 (110+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.3/5 (20+ reviews)
7. Sketch
Sketch is a mockup tool for macOS users. It’s useful for designing prototypes, user interfaces, and even icon designs, courtesy of a pixel-based canvas.
Given that Sketch allows for simple vector designs and complex prototypes, you can quickly assemble a layout using individual vector graphics and a combination of pre-built artboards.
You can control every pixel on the page and draw using a pen tool or create shapes of your choice.
Sketch has a vast community of designers who have created design kits accessible for free to all users of Sketch.
Sketch best features
- Download a vast library of designs, icons, buttons, and other elements with a single click
- Collaborate in real-time with designers and other stakeholders across devices using shared workspaces
- Track team members’ progress, feedback, and comments with fun color-coded cursors with names
Sketch limitations
- Sketch has a steep learning curve, as the design options and elements are not easy to find
- Sketch is only for Mac users and can only be accessed via the web
Sketch pricing
- Standard subscription: $12/month per editor
- Mac-only license: $120/seat
- Business subscription: $20/editor per month (billed annually only)
Sketch ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (1200+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (800+ reviews)
8. Wondershare Mockitt
Wondershare Mockitt specifically aims to create UI mockups and AI-boosted prototyping. With this one tool, you can develop wireframes, flowcharts, and actionable mind maps.
The easiest part about using Wondershare Mockitt is designing life-like workflows, multiple artboards, and smooth interactions using built-in elements.
But it’s not only for the designers. When it comes to inspection, developers can examine the design and easily convert pixels into code without having a design degree.
Mockitt AI also offers effortless intelligent design to bring your design ideas to reality accurately and instantly. This feature is still new but worth a try.
Wondershare Mockitt’s best features
- Learn from a large library of resources and improve your productivity
- Share, edit, and get feedback on your mockups in real time and collaborate effortlessly with your team
- Use AI-powered technology to create and test your prototypes
Wondershare Mockitt limitations
- Does not integrate with other software, which may limit your workflow
- Requires a steep learning curve, as it relies on AI-powered technologies
Wondershare Mockitt pricing
- Starter: Free
- Professional: $12/editor per month
- Enterprise: $15/editor per month
Wondershare Mockitt ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
9. InVision Studio
InVision Studio is a design and UI mockup tool for building prototypes with vector-based designs, flexible layers, and an infinite number of canvas pages.
InVision Studio offers you a suite of tools to store and share your product design workflow and a library to store all your brand UX components.
It’s a highly collaborative mockup prototyping tool that can create responsive prototypes without writing code. The designs created can be shared with the team and clients for real-time feedback.
InVision Studio’s best features
- Create and use complex animations for your videos
- Test your prototype on your phone with a simple click
- Download files from software such as Sketch and import them to InVision Studio
InVision Studio limitations
- No plugin options
- Can often get slow and glitchy
InVision Studio pricing
- Free
- Starter: $15/designer per month
- Professional: $25/designer per month
- Team: $99/month
InVision Studio ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4/5 (670+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (740+ reviews)
10. Balsamiq
Balsamiq is a mockup tool that creates prototypes by recreating the experience of designing on a whiteboard or paper. It goes back to the basics of creating layouts using a pen and paper, just on a screen.
While the prototype may look like it was sketched on paper, the design can switch to a more professional look for presentations. Naturally, it supports low-fi and high-fi prototyping.
The focus in Balsamiq is on the design’s content and structure, which also shows in its pre-built templates. It allows you to place elements using its drag-and-drop features to reduce overall completion timelines. Additionally, Balsamiq offers a vast component library and lets you export and import data.
Balsamiq best features
- Learn and use Balsamiq easily, as it has a simple and intuitive interface
- Save time and improve your delivery rates with customizable templates for your mockups
- Work with your team members and share notes and feedback on your prototypes
Balsamiq limitations
- Has a simple black-and-white screen, which may be boring or limiting for some designers
- Does not support conversion from low fidelity to high fidelity wires, which may require additional tools or steps
Balsamiq pricing
- 2 projects: $9/month
- 20 projects: $49/month
- 200 projects: $199/month
Balsamiq ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.2/5 (490+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.4/5 (380+ reviews)
Summarize this article for me pleaseDesign Your Mockups Effortlessly
A mockup or wireframe design project requires collaboration between designers, developers, and product managers. This is why ClickUp is the right mockup tool for any design project.
It has project management capabilities and a dedicated whiteboarding tool to help bring the prototype designs to life. Unlike other tools that may be limited, difficult, or isolated, ClickUp has everything you need in one place.
Having everyone on the same page is essential for maintaining a coherent vision and delivering your projects on time.
With ClickUp, you can bring your designs, mockups, and wireframes from the whiteboard design stage to the development stage with all stakeholders on board.
Sign up to ClickUp today!
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