Web Design software has been in the market for more than 30 years now. Initially, it was designed for text-based pages that used to be built with HTML5 with some hyperlinks. Later came Twitter’s bootstrap which started the mobile-first website approach and is still in use by many websites to date.
Nowadays, you can create a website using many different ways and coding languages. Ultimately, it will all come down to your coding knowledge and the website features you need.
For example, if you have a website for your small business then website builders like Wix can be your best option to start with. Or if you are starting an eCommerce business then the eCommerce platform can help you get started quickly. Plus, if you are looking for your own web hosting to start a blog.
To make your decision easier I have reviewed and ranked the best web design software to use based on their support, pricing, mobile responsiveness, themes, templates, features for newbies, functionalities, overall coding standards, and more.
So let’s get started.
What is the Best Web Design Software?
Here is the list of my top web design software to use this year.
1. Wix
Best Website Builder for Small Business (Starts at $9)
Wix is a Saas website builder that allows you to design your website without writing a single piece of code. It offers attractive templates and website design tools for beginners so that they can focus more on marketing stuff rather than the backend work.
Wix provides a simple drag and drops editor that has options like changing video backgrounds, scroll effects, animations, and more. Plus, it is loaded with over 500 plus designer templates to help you decide better which one fits your branding style.
Apart from the templates, they have over 30 built-in media galleries. These galleries can be used to showcase your autoplay videos, text, and images. Additionally, to make things simpler for you, they ask you some business questions so that Wix can set up the design you want to get tailored.
Wix is also powered to support your eCommerce platform. Moreover, it offers a personalized SEO plan based on your location, keywords, and business.
Key Features
- Wix Corvid – Provides serverless computing with hassle-free coding modules. Additionally, it allows you to manage your web design and code using an integrated database and built-in IDE software. It supports over 100 APIs for your work environment.
- Wix ADI – Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) builds a highly personalized website that is based on the content received from the questions it asked. Plus, you can add or edit any elements present along with editing its features.
- Wix Photo Studio – This allows you to add amazing overlay effects like flares, reflections, and shadows.
Pros
- Offers free images from Unsplash in its own media library.
- Allows collaboration with multiple designers by assigning various roles to each one.
- Provides professional logo maker to build your brand presence
- Allow you to add animation, video backgrounds, and scroll effects to provide an amazing experience to the customers.
- Provides a feature to add alt text for the background images for SEO optimization.
Pricing Plans
Wix provides four paid plans:
- Connect Domain – $4.50 per month
- Combo – $8.50 per month
- Unlimited – $12.50 per month
- VIP – $24.50 per month
All these plans come with a 14-day free trial for you to test. Wix does provide a free plan but does not include custom domain and any branding personalization.
2. WebFlow
Best for Experienced Web Developers and Designers (Starts at $12)
Webflow is an American company headquartered in San Francisco, California that offers an online visualization tool to build, design, and launch websites. The canvas-based tool offers you to design custom and modern designs.
Webflow also allows you to transform the HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript for your designed pages. Plus, it allows you to add unstyled HTML elements to the page. It allows you to build reusable components like sign-up forms, footers, navbar, etc.
Additionally, you can use their pre-built designs to design complex elements like tabs, background videos, sliders, and more. You can also change the structure of the navigation of your web pages through a navigator to access all pages at once.
Webflow also provides a b2b eCommerce solution and integrates your CMS data to easily create a website with real-time content.
Key Features
- SEO Optimization – Webflow editor allows you to update open graph settings, meta descriptions, URLs, page titles, etc.
- Multi-step Animation – This enables you to build a rich, timeline-based animation without any code. Moreover, you can customize the layouts of your product and home page.
- Scroll-Based Animations – This allows you to add scrolling effects like precise reveal animations, parallax, progress bars, and more. Moreover, you can transform element sizes, positioning, and styling of the complete page the way you want.
Pros
- Provides an interactive website having display modals, panels, and more hidden elements.
- Offers 20 prebuilt interactions and advanced animation tools to add a new feature instantly
- Link animation and movement to the cursor pointer to seek user attention
- Provide WebFlow University to learn about animation courses and study interaction.
- You can invite multiple professional editors and collaborate with them on the work of the website while keeping the track of activities.
- Controls the playback effect of the ‘After Effects’ and ‘Lottie Animations’ using interaction triggers without writing a single line of code for it.
Pricing Plans
Webflow offers four paid plans for its web designing suite.
- Basic – $12 per month. For a simple site without an in-built CMS
- CMS – $16 per month. For content-driven websites
- Business – $36 per month. For High Traffic blogs or marketing sites.
- Enterprise – Custom Quote based on requirements.
There are also account plans that are based on individual designers.
- Starter – Free with 2 projects
- Lite – $16 per month with 10 projects and a staging facility
- Pro – $32 per month with unlimited projects and project transfer facility
3. Adobe Dreamweaver
Best suited for Custom Web Design Jobs ( Starts at $21)
Adobe Dreamweaver is a web design platform that offers a fully-featured programming editor for web HTML. It provides a smart coding engine that simplifies and manages your dynamic websites easily.
You can reduce the scope of errors in the development thanks to the aid provided by the HTML, CSS, and javascript hints offered by the Adobe platform.
Additionally, you can easily import from Adobe Stock or your own libraries. Also provides a preview of the real-time look of the website design before you make it live.
Key Features
- Supports Git – This allows you to manage your code with Git support and execute commands directly from the git dashboard.
- Live view Editing – You can edit the text and image properties in the live mode itself instead of switching to the editing mode.
- Intelligent Coding Assistance – Leverage Ajax code, Javascript, and HTML hint through Jquery, prototype, and Spry. Moreover, it offers PHP code hints while working on your web design.
Pros
- Offers a 7-day free trial of their product.
- Offers integrations with Ruby, Xerces, LibCurl, and OpenSSL, among others
- Provides multi-monitor support for the Windows System
- Allows you to easily insert headings, fonts, hyperlinks, colors, and more through the properties menu.
- Offers faster development by providing preemptive code
- Designs a website that fits all screens and resolutions.
- Catches any error while editing using its edit linting feature.
Pricing Plans
Adobe Dreamweaver has two pricing plans.
- Adobe Dreamweaver SIngle App – $20.99 per month. Get this as a part of Creative Cloud.
- Creative Cloud All Apps – $52.99 per month. Get an entire collection of Adobe Creative Apps along with Adobe Dreamweaver.
Adobe offers a discount of up to 60 percent on all of their Creative Cloud apps for students and teachers. Plus, you get a 7-day free trial.
So now let’s cover the basics.
What is Web Design Software?
Web Design is a process of creating a website visualization that offers user-friendliness, attractive features, and an efficient flow of content and execution. This process includes several parts like webpage layout, graphic designing, and content.
A capable web design software allows you to perform the above processes very smoothly and efficiently. Plus, it is designed to swap away from the efforts you put into the coding side of the design.
Some Standard features provided by the web design software include plugins, themes, templates, and drag and drop editor to make web design faster and error-free. Moreover, they offer development tools for websites like a content delivery network, image hosting, and form builder.
What Features Should You Look For in Web Design Software?
Different web design software will have different feature sets and USPs that can be sometimes overwhelming. However, there are some of the benchmark features you should look at in a web design tool no matter whichever it is.
- Integration with third-party apps – The software should provide extensive integration with third-party apps like videos, fonts, social media, widgets, and image libraries, to help you design a website seamlessly in a single place.
- Drag and Drop builder – This should allow you to add various elements like widgets, videos, text, images, and layouts instantly without writing a single line of code.
- Mobile Responsiveness – Whatever you build today has to be mobile-friendly for the users. You should look for a tool that provides mobile responsiveness preview feature for whatever you design.
- Responsive Themes – Using a theme can speed up your website design process. All you need to do then is to add images, content, and branding to align it with your business.
- Ecommerce Facility – Many designed websites basically aim to sell a product or service online to their respective audience. If you are one of them then it is essential to check for the eCommerce feature is provided by the software or not.
- CDN – CDN or content delivery network is generally provided by many software to speed up the loading of the website on the user browser. Thus, choosing a web design platform having this feature is crucial for sales.
- Mobile Editing – You should be able to make changes on the fly using your own mobile. This will help you to complete urgent tasks with ease whenever or wherever you are.
Best Web Design Software – Final Summary
This wraps up my list of the best web design software for your business to use this year. I will keep updating the list with other good web design tools available in the market.
All these tools will help you build a website in your own unique way. However, you need to understand that not all will meet the exact design requirements you might have for your business. Therefore, it’s recommended that you go through each and every tool before making the final purchase decision.
For Instance, Wix is a great option to try for small businesses. And if you are looking to create a content site or highly customized blog then WordPress is an excellent choice.
Which web design software do you use? Let me know in the comments below.
More from Smashitbuck: To check out my other articles on the ERP software, CRM software, and computerized maintenance management software to read this year.
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