12 Best UI Prototyping Tools for Designers in 2022

A UI prototype gives us a solid representation of how a design will behave and feel. With the right prototyping tool, designers can better weave the visuals, navigational elements, and interactions to fine-tune the details. In this article, we will share a comprehensive list of 12 of the best UI prototyping tools to help designers design and iterate faster.

What is a UI prototype?

UI prototyping plays an important part in the design process, where designers create a high-fidelity prototype to test a feature, application, or website before they are fully developed and to develop a better user interface experience. A UI prototype is a visual representation of a final digital product or website, including layout/hierarchy, color, typography, icons, and other UI elements. It enables designers to explore the problem space with their stakeholders and the solution space of their design system. It can also serve as a vehicle for designers to communicate the possible UI design(s) of the design system. 

Therefore, a UI prototype is essential because it helps to remove misunderstandings, increases user involvement, perfects functionality, and creates a strong link between your customers and your product.

The four different methods of UI prototyping

1. Rapid prototyping

Rapid prototyping, also known as throwaway prototyping, refers to the ease and speed with which a prototype can be modified to try different ideas with the users and audiences. This method helps to find defects within the proposed prototyping by making a makeshift prototype, especially for feedback. With the help of this method, developers can test as many prototypes as possible to figure out the best one before proceeding with the other steps in developing the prototypes.

2. Evolutionary prototyping

An evolutionary prototype is a continuous, working prototype that can be refined and iterated after collecting customer feedback. After receiving initial feedback from the customer,  designers will produce subsequent prototypes, which means that each prototype is not started from scratch, and designers can save time and effort by using this method. 

3. Incremental prototyping

This kind of prototyping method breaks the concept for the final product into smaller pieces, and then designers create prototypes for each small piece. All the stakeholders will evaluate the prototypes and give their feedback to help designers refine each prototype, making all these prototypes merge into the final product. 

4. Extreme prototyping

The reason why it is called extreme prototyping is that the user interface is designed and developed before any of the underlying technology is implemented. It is more about web application development. Product teams create extreme prototypes in an HTML format with a services layer and then make them into the final product.

Why do you need prototyping tools?

Prototyping helps you to communicate and justify the value, look, and feel of your product to stakeholders before it’s been built. By using prototyping tools, this process can be much easier. 

Prototyping tools can help you:

• Better depict the intent of the final design
• Get other stakeholders involved to collaborate better in the same context rather than having conflicting perspectives
• Build understanding and remove barriers between designers and clients
• Validate things that work, iterate and improve your design at an early stage

A prototyping tool helps product teams streamline the whole design workflow and improve work efficiency. It is a must-have tool for any design team who wants to be confident that what you present has a strong product-market fit.

12 best UI prototyping tools for designers in 2022

1. Adobe XD

Source: Adobe XD 

Adobe XD is a one-stop app, from wireframes all the way to hand-off to developers. It covers all the tools a designer needs, from conceptualization to high-resolution prototypes. Designers can create elements and add artboards in the Design mode, and then with a simple function switch to the Prototype mode, they can add animations to create transitions between artboards. After completing the prototype, designers can share an interactive preview in real-time with teammates and stakeholders for testing the design.

Key features:

• Create scalable and dynamic interactive prototypes with its drag & drop editor to test your ideas before development.
• Simulate actual product flow from one screen to another by connecting artboards with a single link.
• Provide gestures, interactions, animations, micro-interactions for UI prototype to mimic button taps and screen transitions.
• Assets from other designs can be directly reused or duplicated with a single click.
• Integrate with tools like Photoshop, After Effects, and others to help import/export designs easily.

What do customers like?

• Its interface is very slick and simple.
• As a vector capable application, it allows designers to work faster with UI design components.
• It provides many lovely features like Grid Layout, Reusable Components, Color Assets, and Artboard Management.

What do customers dislike?

• The application gets laggy when too many artboards are used.
• It does not have a built-in animation timeline.
• It’s pretty expensive.

Price:

It offers a free trial for 7days. Its paid plans start at $9.99/month, only including features of 100GB of cloud storage and XD on desktop and mobile. If you want to enjoy more exclusive features, you need to pay $54.99 per month to buy Creative Cloud All Apps with 100GB.

System compatibility: Mac, Windows, Android & iOS app

2. Figma

Source: Figma

Figma is one of the leading prototyping tools for UX/UI designers to build prototypes and design together. It is an all-in-one tool that streamlines the entire process from brainstorming to developer handoff. It has a drag and drop editor and plenty of interactive elements to animate your prototypes. With little to no learning curve, an intuitive editor, and a clean UI, Figma is one of the best prototyping tools in the market.

Key features:

• Simple drag and drop editor with pre-added interactions, animations, advanced transitions, and dynamic overlay to help easily and quickly make interactive prototypes.
• Animate elements and add interactions to make life-like prototypes.
• Live preview your prototypes on any screen with a shareable link.
• Web-based platform allows team members to collaborate on projects easier.
• Integrate with other tools like Maze and Confluence to create seamless workflows.

What do customers like?

• It supports a variety of plugins that help to increase productivity.
• It helps to create Android App Icons, Design Logo and Assets easily.
• It allows multiple team members to collaborate, access and download all the assets from anywhere and edit quickly for whatever is needed.

What do customers dislike?

• Some elements, including the images or lines will be missed when being previewed.
• Managing and sharing the boards is not as intuitive and designers tend to make mistakes when sharing boards, projects and granting access to other team members.
• Component designs in Figma are a bit slow and the new project opening functionality can be further enhanced.

Price:

It offers a basic free plan. With this plan, you can have 3 Figma and 3 FigJam files, unlimited personal files, and unlimited collaborators. You can also use its plugins and templates for free forever.

Its paid plans start at $12/editor/month billed annually. With this plan, you can use unlimited Figma files and create shared and private projects. What’s more, you can reuse the assets in the team library and collaborate with others via audio conversations.

System compatibility: Mac, Windows, Android & iOS apps

3. Mockplus

Source: Mockplus

Mockplus, another all-in-one product design platform, has everything your product teams need from ideation to execution. It transforms the way your team prototype, design, and collaborate by connecting the entire product design workflow. With Mockplus, you can export designs from Sketch, Figma, Axure, Adobe XD, and Adobe Photoshop, handoff designs with accurate specs, assets, code snippets.

Key features:

• Offers tons of ready-made components, UI library, and reusable assets to help create high-fidelity prototypes.
• Provides intuitive drag-&-drop builder to add pre-built UI components, animations, and interaction effects.
• Gets all stakeholders involved and keeps them up-to-date by syncing the project to the Cloud.
• Add comments in the context of your design, gather instant feedback, and move projects forward.
• Check the design assets and visual specs (CSS) of the prototype components for developer handoff.
• Integrated with many tools like Figma, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Sketch, and Axure.

What do customers like?

• A web-based platform where you can collaborate with your team remotely anytime.
• Real-time collaboration function to help remove misunderstandings between designers and developers.
• Its unique Task Management feature is so innovative and greatly helps to improve work efficiency.

What do customers dislike?

• It needs and can only be used with a high-quality network.
• New activities are not informed via email, the notifications are inside the web app only.

Price:

It offers a basic free plan with limited features. You can create 10 projects, 100 pages per prototype project, have 10 team members and 1 design system library. 

For a paid plan, you can enjoy more advanced features, like an unlimited number of projects and 30 users in your team. You can create 600 pages for your prototype and co-edit in real-time and HTML prototype. The paid plan only starts at $5.95 per user per month. It is cost-effective, with many outstanding features for you to check out.

System Compatibility: Web-based application

4. Sketch

Source: Sketch

Sketch is also a vector-based design tool for UI/UX designers to create interactive prototypes for websites. It gives all the tools you need for a truly collaborative design process, from early ideas to pixel-perfect artwork, playable prototypes, and developer handoff.  It’s like a more advanced and widely supported version of Figma. The only reason why we ranked it below Figma is that it’s not cross-platform.

Key features:

• Design hi-fi prototypes by adding layers to the artboards with links and hotspots.
• Offers draw and editor vectors or use pre-made component libraries, making prototyping and design faster.
• Has transitions and interaction effects like scrolling, button tap, swipe, and scrolling;
• CSS & SVG code from one or more layers can be exported.
• Integrate with tools like Maze, Flow, and Droplr for user testing, developing handoff, and streamlining processes.

What do customers like?

• It has all the essential vector design tools like pen tool, move tool, brushes, grids, and billions of clean RGB colors for great color accuracy.
• It offers great integrations with websites like Pixabay, Icons8, and many more.
• It provides a massive library full of plugins and composites to run projects.

What do customers dislike?

• It has no Windows support and can not be edited in the browser.
• It gets very slow if you open more than 2 or more documents.
• It has a relatively high price and should ideally work on a freemium setup.

Price:

It offers a free trial for 30 days. Its paid plans start at $9 per editor per month. With this plan, you can easily access all of your documents and projects, with version histories, shared libraries, and unlimited Viewers and Guests. You can also collaborate with others in real-time, view projects and documents, inspect designs, and download assets.

System Compatibility: Mac, Web App, Mirror App for iOS devices

5. Invision

Source: InVision

InVision is a digital product design platform that focuses on repeatable and streamlined design workflow with design and prototype products before writing code. With InVision, you can quickly produce design layouts complete with embedded assets for easy developer handoff. It is easy for teams to stay connected in InVision and work together throughout the course of a project.

Key features:

• Better organize your projects with setting columns, including to-do lists, in progress, needs review, and approved.
• Numerous gestures, animations, and interaction styles help you build interactive prototypes.
• Drag and drop design feature to promote rapid prototyping.
• Compatible with multiple file types, including JPG, PNG, GIF, AI, and PSD.
• Integrates with apps such as Dropbox, Box, JIRA and Trello.

What do customers like?

• Develop user interfaces based on feedback, specifications, and collaboration.
• Allows designers to communicate with clients and coworkers in real-time.

What do customers dislike?

• Customer service is polite but very slow to resolve tickets.
• It often gets quite slow and buggy.
• It is difficult to share the new design changes with people without InVision account.

Price:

It offers a free plan that includes features like up to 10 active users, up to 3 documents and unlimited freehands and public spaces. 

For more advanced features, you need to pay $9.95 per user per month. With a paid plan, you can have up to 15 active users, unlimited documents and archiving and unlimited public and private spaces.

System Compatibility: Mac, Windows, Android & iOS app

6. Proto.io

Source: Proto.io

Proto.io provides a prototyping solution for UX designers, entrepreneurs, product managers, marketers, and anyone with a great idea. With its tons of assets, fully customizable templates, and UI Components, you can easily create high fidelity(hi-fi) interactive prototypes without writing a single piece of code.

Key features:

• Libraries full of UI components, customizable templates, icons, sound effects and more.
• Get comments from reviewers via hotspots to collect feedback.
• Export the prototype to HTML, PNG, PDF, or any other format.
• Integrates with other user testing platforms to conduct usability tests.

What do customers like?

• Its spaces is an amazing place to get help, find new ideas and reuse existing projects.
• Designers can upload an image of any size onto the platform for processing

What do customers dislike?

• Some of the color pairings available in Adobe PS/IN/ILL are not possible in Proto.io.
• The learning curve is quite high and it’s occasionally slow with the Sketch import.
• It does not offer a free plan and is pretty expensive for individual freelancers.

Price:

You can only try it for free for 15 days. After the free trial, you need to pay $24 per month if you are a freelancer who does not have many team members and reviewers. The most popular plan is $40 per month and you can have two users and 10 projects within this plan.

System Compatibility: Web-based application

7. Justinmind

Source: Justinmind

Justinmind is a design and prototyping tool for web and mobile apps. It provides more than 4000+ components to add animations, transitions, effects, and other real-life elements to your prototype.   With Justinmind, you can create the simplest to most sophisticated apps and web prototypes. 

Key features:

• Assets and layouts can be directly reused to reduce repetitive work.
• Provides web interactions and mobile gestures to simulate the behavior of the actual product.
• Prototypes can be previewed and tested on any device using interactive HTML.
• Developers can access layout assets like CSS, colors, and measurements.

What do customers like?

• Ability to create scrollable and clickable mockups to help intuitively demonstrate the features.
• It works great for user testing complex user flows where the client required data entry and no developers were available.

What do customers dislike?

• It does not have a web version, and you need to download the app to your desktop;
• The general look of the interface needs to be improved.
• Import from Photoshop and illustrator could be more friendly and needs improvement.

Price:

It offers a free plan with unlimited projects, screens and viewers. To enjoy advanced interaction design for individuals and teams, you need to pay $9 per user per month.

System Compatibility: Mac, Windows, Mobile App for Android & iOS devices

8. Fluid UI

Source: Fluid UI

Fluid UI provides a lightning-fast prototyping solution for UI/UX designers. With its pre-built UI Kits for iOS, material design and gestures, you can quickly get your prototypes created. You do not need to download an app on your desktop because it is a cloud-based service for easy access from anywhere.

Key features:

• Add interactions, gestures, and animations like taps, swipes, clicks, Pop-in, fade-in, flip, and more to make lifelike prototypes.
• Co-edit with team members and get their feedback to improve collaboration.
• Import existing graphic assets to your prototypes and reuse them directly.
• Present the prototype by using reviewer mode and arrange video calls with team members and clients.

What do customers like?

• It has an easy-to-use interface and even those who are not designers can use this app.
• It is a fast UI and wireframe tool with great interaction functions.

What do customers dislike?

• It is great for early-stage prototypes, but not for higher-fidelity mockups.
• It is often slow and would not automatically save designs.

Price:

It offers users three different plans. The basic plan starts at $8.25 per month billed annually, with 5 active projects and unlimited reviewers. If you regularly make prototypes for sharing, you can choose a Pro plan, letting you export and print your projects, plus reviewers have the option of adding comments. For design teams, you need to pay $41.58 per month, which is a little bit expensive.

System Compatibility: Web-Based, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android & iOS App

9. Framer

Source: Framer

Framer is a free prototyping tool that allows designers to build interactive prototypes extremely fast. With its drag & drop builder and list of extensive features, it earns its place among the top prototyping tools. With Framer, you can even create completely functional prototypes with 3D effects. 

Key features:

• Provides pre-made components, elements,UI Kits and resources for rapid prototyping.
• Add transitions, interactions, and delightful animations to make interactive prototypes.
• Get comments and feedback directly into the prototype template for enhanced collaboration.
• Has an in-built handoff tool to help developers access design assets and code of screen layouts.
• Integrate seamlessly with user testing tools to validate the prototype.

What do customers like?

• Its flexibility and logic-based interactions.
• The auto-generated codes help to save time for developers.

What do customers dislike?

• The interface and workflow are a bit confusing for new users.
• Its coding part is kind of challenging while using this application.

Price:

It has a free plan with limited features. Its paid plans start at $15 per month, including exclusive features of custom coding, password protection, custom domain and more.

System Compatibility: Mac, Windows, Web-based, Android & iOS app

10. Marvel

Source: Marvel

Marvel is another free web and app prototyping tool. In Marvel, you can go from wireframing to prototyping in minutes using the intuitive interface and build your products faster. Its handoff tool gives developers all of the code and assets for different prototype elements, helping to create a live website automatically.

Key features:

• Add screens and layouts in JPG, PNG, or GIFs format to the Marvel canvas with a drag and drop.
• Make prototypes for multiple screens using transitions, interactions, and gestures.
• Ability to add collaborators for simultaneous work with your team members.
• Share the web and mobile prototype to collect feedback and user testing.
• Integrate with tools like Sketch and JIRA to improve productivity.

What do customers like?

• It is very friendly for beginners who are new to wireframing and designing.
• Its built-in handoff tool helps to optimize the design-to-development process.

What do customers dislike?

• It doesn’t allow designers to position layers by specific pixels.
• Hiding on-screen buttons at a prototype level is really annoying.

Price: 

It offers a free plan with only one project can be created and only one member can be added to the team.With a plan for individuals that starts at $12 per month, you can have unlimited projects, three active user tests and download prototypes or designs. For Team plan, you need to per $42 per month billed annually.

System Compatibility: Web-based

11. Mockflow

Source: Mockflow

Mockflow is an easy-to-use prototyping tool that helps to create high-fidelity prototypes that look like the actual product. It provides various outstanding features like UI prototyper, UX storyboarding, heatmaps, change log creator, and many more. You can use MockFlow for a complete product design experience to bring teams, assets, and tools together for your next big project.

Key features:

• Power-up tools help to turn wireframes into hi-fi interactive prototypes.
• Ability to build prototypes for multiple screen sizes and devices.
• Use gestures, animations, and transitions to create prototypes that simulate the behavior of the product.
• Ability to share for collecting feedback, to preview and test your prototypes and wireframes.
• Integrate with tools like Slack, Trello, and Google Docs to import/export data across various apps.

What do customers like?

• The interface is easy to use and intuitive.
• Its design packages help to keep a coherent style thorough the pages and components.

What do customers dislike?

• The copy and paste function does not work very well.
• It can not be used without an internet connection.

Price:

A free plan comes with 1 UI drawing project and 5 reviewers. With a paid plan that starts at $14 per editor per month, you can design your product, not just UI, with design spaces that include files, embeds and powerups.

System Compatibility: Mac, Windows, Web-based

12. Webflow

Source: Webflow

Webflow is a no-code prototyping tool that aims to make your website a marketing asset. With its features of built-in CMS, prototyping editor, SEO management, and hosting solution, you can easily develop new ideas, create prototypes, and test them to build a professional website.

Key features:

• Add animations, micro-interactions, and transitions to build interactive prototypes without writing any code.
• Developers can easily access actual HTML, CSS, and other assets directly from the prototype.
• Ability to design & preview the prototype for any screen size and device.
• Integrate with workspace tools like Slack, Zapier, and others to streamline workflow.

What do customers like?

• It has a good API for integrating external tools and services.
• It gives you all of the backbones and core components that are possible with HTML and CSS.

What do customers dislike?

• It limits static pages to 100 per project.
• It is impossible to duplicate anything with collection lists across pages.

Price:

It has a free plan with only 50 CMS items being offered. To get the essentials to launch a simple site, you need to pay $12 per month billed yearly.

System Compatibility: Web-based

How to choose the right prototyping tool?

With so many UI prototyping tools out there, it could never be easy to choose the right to fit your needs. Here are the few factors you need to evaluate to check whether the tool fits your needs or not.

1. Learning curve

At the very beginning, we need to analyze how easy the prototyping tool is to adopt. Just take some time to figure out how long it will take designers to get a complete hold of a tool. Different prototyping tools provide different features, some are for professionals who know about coding while some are created for beginners. The easier to learn to use the tool, the more time it will save for product teams.

2. Collaborative capability

Collaboration is of great importance in the whole design process. As there are so many members and stakeholders, we need to use a prototyping tool to collaborate with them and get their feedback to make a better design. A tool with collaboration ability allows multiple people to be in sync with each other. It is another factor that you need to consider when choosing a prototyping tool.

3. Usage

How many people can use the prototyping tool at the same time and how regularly your team will use it? These are the questions you need to answer when you choose one. If you use tools like Mockplus Invision, or Sktech , you will not need to export assets because you can directly use the files produced by these apps to build interactions for your prototypes.

4. Pricing

What’s the pricing structure of the prototyping tool?  What features are included at no additional cost with the tool, and what will cost extra? Do not be blinded by all these features. Ask yourself how much you can afford to pay for that. Whether it fits our budget or not is the last factor to consider while choosing tools.

In Conclusion

Prototyping is indispensable for large-scale projects with many moving parts. Prototypes can let you gather feedback, test usability, and tweak a design along the way. Here we have compiled some of the best prototyping tools to help improve your product design work. Take some time to check their features one by one to identify which tool can meet your business requirements.