Prototyping/wireframing tools are the best communication method between interaction designers, project manager, and website developers. It’s a key step of web or mobile app development process. While in principle, the design of prototypes must be a product of interaction designers, and the user-centered concept shall run through the whole product design progress. The professional perspective and rich user experience of interaction designer will directly influence the usability of the product.

Desktop-based Prototyping Tools

1. Axure RP (Mac & Win) | ($495/user)

40+ Free Mockup Templates to Present Your UI Designs Show off your web designs and app interfaces in style with these free mockup templates. Mocking up your user interface designs can really boost the value of your work by giving clients an insight into how the design will look like for the user. In this compilation below, you’ll find some of the best free iMac Mockup Design PSDs which might handy for your design projects. This is not the traditional long list with all the available PSD templates on the internet but it’s an refined collection of best handpicked PSD templates.

Axure RP is a desktop application that allows designers to create, test, and share interactive prototypes. Been called as the most comprehensive (in terms of functionality) prototyping tools, it’s an ideal desktop software for both static, low-fidelity prototypes and more sophisticated, interactive prototypes. As an extremely professional UX tool, Axure requires a steep learning curve.

Share preview links of the mockup, or record videos with a few clicks (Mac only) to demonstrate the project flow. Wireframing and mockup tools that work smoothly on both Mac and PC. Collaborate across operating systems.
Pencil project is a simple and open-source GUI prototyping tool for Mac UX/UI designers to create mockups. It offers various built-in shapes and components for designers to draw different types of app interfaces. And you can also use it to export the mockup drawings to different formats, like PNG, PDF, SVG and ODT formats, etc.
Unlike many mockup tools, Lucidchart is Mac-compatible. Whether you want to switch machines or use it on a different operating system, no extra work is required. Experience seamless prototyping on the platform of your choice: iPad, Mac, PC, or Linux.

2. Mockplus (Mac & Win) | ($129/year)

Mockplus is an all-inclusive rapid prototyping tool supports for the mainstream platforms of PC, website, and mobile device. The packaged interactions components and creative preview method allow designers to design and preview within minutes. It is a solid prototyping app for professional UI/UX designers who want to produce high-quality prototypes but without too much longer learning curve. More powerful features including:

UI Flow Design Mode— Instant switch between Prototype and UI Flow design modes; Display the UI flow of all or some certain pages; Intelligent connections between pages which can be adjust manually; Display important markups of pages; Export UI Flow at once.

Repeater— Convert any component easily into a Repeater. Drag the border of a Repeater to create repeated elements. Your adjustments made on one component will be applied to all.

Demo Projects and Templates — Demo Projects: Well-structured demos for you to make reference. Templates: Various built-in templates help you to build your prototypes on them, easy and fast.

Sketch Import — Publish selected Sketch Artboards as a Team Project in Mockplus. Insert Sketch Artboards into a Mockplus Team Project.

Table Component— Like using the Excel, you can make any change to this new table component in a visual way. Not only can you insert, edit or delete a cell easily, but also set the styles and the text formats of one or multiple cells freely.

3. Justinmind (Mac & WIn) | ($228/year)

Justinmind is a flexible prototyping tool for web and mobile app prototypes and high-fidelity website wireframes. The rich gestures in Justinmind allow designers to better build gesture interaction mobile apps. Justinmind also requires a deep learning curve, such as value expression.

4. Balsamiq (Win) | ($89/user)

Balsamiq Mockups is a rapid wireframing tool that helps you work faster & smarter. It reproduces the experience of sketching on a whiteboard, but using a computer. By comparison, Balsamiq is more focus on static and low-fidelity prototypes.

5. OmniGraffle (Mac) |($199.99)

OmniGraffle is a powerful design tool, it has extensive options for objects, canvases, templates, inspectors, and stencils to help designers set out to do something well, quickly. It has won the Apple Design Award in 2002.

Some other mockup tools:

Origami — A free tool for designing modern user interfaces (Mac) |

Adobe Experience Design — The first all-in-one tool for UX designers (Mac)

Prott — A new mobile app prototyping tool built for design teams (Mac) | ($421/year)

Principle — An animated design tool for interactive prototypes (Mac) | ($129/year)

So, the problem of how to complete a good prototype design that’s depending on how you choose prototyping/wireframing tools. Below are the most popular mockup & prototyping/wireframing tools& appsbased on the website, desktop, and mobile device.

Web-based Prototyping Tools

1.InVision | ($25/month)

As a web-based collaborative program, InVision is powerful at clickable & interactive prototypes, real-time design collaboration & share. InVison is an ideal choice for high fidelity design which is always impressive. The nice features such as Invision + Sketch, Invision + Adobe could be a great helpful for designers who pursue the high-end product.

2. UXpin | ($44.08 per user/year, starting from 4 users)

UXpin puts everything for designers in a UX design platform, also, it supports to upload file seamlessly on Sketch and Photoshop. Responsive prototypes and wireframes created by UXpin can run on different devices and resolutions. In addition, this software also provides version control and iterative function, you can easily share and preview prototypes by the intuitive and real-time collaboration.

3. Marvel | ($168 per user/year)

Marvel is also a web-based prototyping tool with good real-time collaboration. You can simply import mockup images from Sketch or Photoshop to link into clickable interactive prototypes for different devices. Just simple drag and link, you can bring your idea to life without any code experience.

4. FluidUI | ($99/year)

With built-in iOS, Material Design and Wireframe libraries containing over 2000 customizable widgets and icons, you can design and share a wireframe, mockup or prototype for any device or platform in minutes. FluidUI also features real-time collaboration for teams, video hangouts for user testing, on-device testing and interactive previews with chat/comments to share and iterate your designs with your team.

5. Proto.io

Proto.io is a very strong web app with many functions. Under the web-based environment, it supports rich gestures and touch style, such as slide, touch, zoom, press and other mainstream actions. With it, developers can create interactive prototypes for the iOS, Android and other mobile internet devices, and get feedback from users.

Some other web-based prototyping tools:

Pidoco — Online wireframe and UX prototyping tool | ($660/year for premium)

Mockingbird — Wireframes on the fly | ($40/month for 25 projects)

Mockflow — Great design tools and collaboration services for designers | ($148/year)

Moqups — Mockup, wireframe & UI prototyping tool for creating hi-fi wireframes | ($228/year for Pro)

Gliffy — Mock up web pages quickly & easily with wireframes | ($480/year for 10 projects)

Wireframe.cc — Minimal wireframing tool | ($390/year)

Framer — Design tool for code needed | ($159/year)

Mobile-based Prototyping Tools

1. POP（Prototyping on Paper) (iOS & Android) | ($168/year)

Joined Marvel in the end of 2016.

2. Tapcase (iOS) |

TapCase lets designers create app pro

Best Free Mockup Tool For A Mac