Best Free and Open Source Web Design Software Solutions

Stats say that over 90% People Judge a Website’s Credibility by Its Web Design

Good website design is one of the most crucial of any website’s success and this fact has been proven statistically several times. The design is the first impression on your prospective clients, making it your ‘virtual business card’. Further, most people have the misconception that designing a site is an expensive affair. However, with digitalization on the rise today, there are several website design softwares in the market that require no coding or technical expertise. You can build a fully responsive website with the help of these tools. The article will list the most popular website designing softwares that are ruling the industry today.

Web Design Principles

A website is designed and developed with a belief and purpose. It fulfills the need to communicate, needs to justify the business, must be optimized, carries a typeface, has colours, images, effective navigation, an effective layout, “F” pattern design, must take less time to load, and should be mobile friendly.

Web Design Elements

A design combines various elements – size, shape, contrast, line, thickness, type, pattern repetition, motif illustration, fonts, textures, graphic concepts and spatial relationship.

Additionally, Drag-and-drop, Templates, Element libraries, Syntax Highlighting, Auto-completion, Plugins and Integrations, Cross-platform support, Collaborative editing, Content Management and Language support.

• Interactive Design: A website needs to have a simple design with an interactive user interface. A user-friendly website needs to be mobile compatible, accessible to all users, must have a well-informed information architecture, well-formatted content, easy to scan content, fast load time, browser consistency, effective navigation, advanced search, custom 404 pages, good internal linking, informative header and footer, various ways to explore content.
• Valid Markups: Websites should adhere to design best practices and have clean code and valid markup. A contrasting colour scheme makes the content readable and an effective overall appearance.
• The Usable Form: The business forms should be usable, allowing users to interact with the site, and very essential to generate leads. It involves making use of correct labels for all fields, following best design practices, having a minimum number of fields, offering tooltip and suggestions, displaying an on-screen message on completion and making use of correct validation.

Web Design Challenges

Download SVGPerfect for when you want to use just one icon as a vector on the desktop or in your own icon workflow.
Web design applications often pose some challenges:

• Creating something new
• Changing colours and themes
• Copying a complicated layout
• Designing and coding a site using new tools
• Trying new methodologies
• Refining an old design
• Applying UX design principles to your SEO

The new design software is built to croak such challenges, and this can be laid-off to the scope of upcoming web design software solutions.

Best Open Source Web Design Software

An effective website needs to be user-friendly. It is mobile compatible, accessible to all users, well-planned information architecture, well-formatted content that is easy to scan, have fast load times, is browser consistent, has effective navigation, and handles errors effectively. Here are examples of the best open source web design software:

GIMP

GIMP is a free, open-source software to design websites. It is user-friendly and contains tips and tricks for beginners. It makes it easy to produce alterations and revisions that the image requires.

Features of GIMP

• Useful to design the best website
• File handling
• Animation
• Advanced Manipulation
• Extensible
• Tile-based memory management

Brackets

It is a free and open-source source code editor useful for front-end developers. It features hot reloading to view live changes.

Features of Brackets

• Live HTML development
• CSS hinting
• Extracts design information from a PSD file for the convenience of coding in CSS

openElement

openElements is a free and open-source authoring program to design web applications. Professionals use it to write necessary codes, functions, displays. It is lightweight, has built-in functions, ready to use elements, graphics that maximizes productivity. It supports HTML5, CSS3, jQuery and responsive design. It is compatible with XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Vista. It is completely free to use.

Features of openElement

• Intuitive Interface
• Customizing Tools
• Managed Code
• Page Layers
• HTML5 and CSS3
• Cross-Browser Compatibility
• Multilingual Websites
• SEO
• Web Design
• Customizable CSS
• Free Plan
• WYSIWYG Interface
• Dedicated How-to Page
• Elements

Adobe Dreamweaver

Adobe Dreamweaver software uses HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript. It provides a WYSIWYG interface. It is the defacto software solution for website design. It offers a free trial.

Features of Adobe Dreamweaver

• Integrated CMS Support.
• Intelligent Coding Assistance
• Comprehensive CSS Support
• Developer Workspace
• Multi-Monitor (Windows Only)
• Starter Templates
• Code Collapsing
• Code Themes
• Code Introspection
• HiDPI (Windows Only)
• Syntax Highlighting

Mobirise

Mobirise builder comes with some free and premium HTML themes, templates, sliders, galleries, articles, countdowns, counters, full-screen intros, images, videos, data tables, features, pricing tables, progress bar and cycles, tabs, accordions and timelines. It also provides 4000+ website blocks in free and premium HTML themes.

Features of Mobirise

• No Coding Mobile Friendly
• Unique Styles
• Mobile Friendly
• Unique Styles
• Unlimited Sites

Webflow

It is built upon HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. It is a free design tool that translates your design into clean semantic code that is ready to publish to the web. This software is W3c compliant, does not bring in messy code inline classes. It comes with drag-and-drop site builders. It allows exporting HTML, CSS and images in a handy ZIP file.

Features of Webflow

• It is good for beginners in web design
• Allows building with raw ingredients – drag and drop
• with sliders, tabs, background videos etc.
• Create reusable symbols like navbars, footers, signup forms
• Manage element structure
• Create reusable CSS classes
• Design responsive websites
• Edit and update site content right on the page
• Define your content structure, and design with real data
• Build website interactions and animations visually
• Hosting

Webydo

This design tool offers a free 30-day trial. It allows dragging and dropping elements onto the design canvas to create beautiful custom websites down to the last pixel. It provides content management. It is good to design responsive websites.

Features of Webydo

• Design without code
• Suggest new features
• Report bugs
• Create pixel-perfect responsive websites with unique custom design – launch responsive websites
• Designs are similar to Photoshop
• Designs are SEO Friendly
• Central Dashboard
• White Label Branding
• Client Billing

Google Web Designer

Custom software development companies use Google Web Designer (GWD) as one of the responsive web design service programs to create interactive HTML5 website. This free web design software is easy to learn and use for beginners. It creates cross-screen compatible content, design and builds HTML5 advertisements using an integrated visual and code interface.

Features of Google Web Designer

• Fluid Layout
• Event System
• 3D Authoring Environment
• HTML with Pages
• Publish Directly to DoubleClick Studios
• Integration With Google Drive
• BYOC (Build Your Own Component)
• Animation Modes

InPixio

InPixio helps companies edit, improve digital images, fix photo defects, and automate color detection to streamline photo retouching procedures. Using the auto correction feature, photographers can enhance the quality and colors of their images by removing undesired objects and backdrops from their shots.

Features of InPixio Software

• A built-in library of artistic effect
• Automatic background change
• One-click automatic enhancement
• Support for RAW format files
• Removal of unwanted objects

Web.com

Web.com offers the greatest social media & marketing automation tools, email and brand protection, website design, and hosting services to companies. With a uniform appearance and feel across all of your online assets, the platform will assist you in developing an online identity that complements your business objectives. The tool also assists in protecting your brand through the use of SSL certificates, analytics, trademarks, and domain name registration.

Features of Web.com Software

• AI-powered Website Builder
• SSL Certificate – 1 Month Free
• 1 hour of expert design support
• Social & email marketing tools
• Store with secure checkout

Adobe XD

Adobe XD is an on-premise prototyping solution that assists companies of all sizes in designing websites and applications using real-time animation features. It enables wireframes and mockups to be created by graphic designers and tested across a range of platforms, including tablets, desktops, and smartphones.

Features of Adobe XD

• Create Prototypes With Keyboard and Gamepad
• Create And Manage Plugins
• Back Up Or Transfer XD Assets
• Create Perspective Designs With 3D Transforms
• Import or Open Photoshop Designs

In Conclusion: Which web design software should you choose?

Web design tools discussed here are free and open-source. These offer layout, colour, monochrome, complementary and typography as primary features. These focus on the fine arts, research different designs before use, keeps the design simple and intuitive, bring in the best UI/UX design experience, and make the best web designers understand the user interface (UI) basics. We hope this list helps. We use both free and paid versions. Let us know if you want web design services or wish to create a web design software solution.

Hope this discussion on Web Design software will help you in making decisions wisely. Please share your suggestions at [email protected]

Top FAQs – Web Design Software

What are the top features of web design software?

Website design software enables even non coders to develop a web application. The tools are interfaces that aid in building sites with easy to use options & feature rich customization options for robust UI/UX. Some of the things you can consider in web design software tools include –

• Drag & Drop
• Element Libraries
• Pre-built Templates
• Syntax Highlighting
• Content Management
• Collaborative Editing
• Language Support
• Cross Platform Support
• Plug-ins & Third Party Integrations

What are the top 5 web design software tools in the market today?

There are several web design tools that offer their services for subcription, paid, or on a freemium model. Below are the top 5 web design software solutions that are available in the market and offer robust services –

• Wix – Free Plan Available
• Adobe Dreamweaver – $20.99/Month
• Webflow – Starter Plan is Free
• WordPress – Starter Plan is Free
• Google Web Designer – Free

How to choose the right web design software?

There are dozens of web design software tools available in the market today and choosing the right one is an overwhelming task. Below are some of the things to consider that you can use to choose the right web design tool –

• Check Collaboration Features
• Consider Customer Support
• Alignment with your skills
• Check for Responsive Design