30 best web design tools and resources to try in 2023

Luckily, there are many tools and resources out there to help designers stay on top of web design trends. Whether you need a tool to help you create a mockup, a logo, a full-blown website, or  just give you some inspiration, the web is full of websites that you can use to level up your web design skills.

Some of the best web design tools empower designers to easily bring their ideas to life. Knowing all the principles of design or how to code should not be a barrier to entry to designing and building for the web.

Here’s a roundup of some popular web design resources and tools that you may find handy for your design process. 

Let’s dive in. 

The 30 best web design tools and resources of 2022

A definitive list of web design tools you should try this year:

• Figma
• Webflow
• Coolors
• Design Gradients
• Adobe XD
• Design Principles
• Canva
• Procreate
• Feather
• Fontshare
• Framer
• Remove
• Affinity Designer
• Blush Design

• Cinema 4D
• Simplified
• Bravo Studio
• DesignerUp
• Overflow
• Web Gradients
• Systemflow

• Made in Webflow
• Anima App
• Wireframe.cc
• MarkUp.io
• Checklist Design
• Design Systems Repo
• Dribbble
• Designer News
• Desygner

1. Figma

Figma is a collaborative design tool that lets you design website mockups, prototypes, design systems, and more. It’s pretty much an all-in-one design platform.

The company launched in 2011 with the goal of bringing design tools to the web — enabling anyone with an internet connection to open up their browser and start designing.

Today, companies from all over the world use Figma as an ideation and design tool to create a more accessible web.

• Best for: Designing mockups
• Price: $0-$45/month

2. Webflow

We might be biased, but we couldn’t create this list without including ourselves on it. Webflow is a web design and development platform that allows you to create responsive websites and on a completely visual canvas. Over the years, Webflow has become the go-to for web designers to turn their static (and dynamic) designs into functional websites.

With Webflow, you can design any website in a drag-and-drop user interface reminiscent of Photoshop. As you design in Webflow, the tool writes clean semantic HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.

In the no-code space, Webflow is truly one of a kind in the class of website builders. Mainly because it’s the only web development tool that writes clean code as you design.

In fact, many modern web designers use Figma and Webflow as their main tools to design and build custom websites. The combination of these two tools is so popular that we created a course on how to create a website from scratch.

• Best for: Creating fully custom websites
• Price: $0-$45/month

3. Coolors

Next time you’re designing, and you need some quick color inspiration, be sure to check out Coolors.

Coolors is a color palette generator that lets you easily mix and match colors for any web design project. The tool gives you a palette of five different colors, which are generated randomly. You can also generate a matching color palette based on a specific color of your choosing — making it a great tool for finding a matching or complementing color for your designs.

The tool is used by many big brands like Apple, Disney, Airbnb, and more, making it widely popular among some of the top web designers out there.

• Best for: Generating colors
• Price: Free

4. Design Gradients

Design Gradients is a free design tool that gives you 48 linear gradients — curated by designers.

This is a simple but powerful tool for anyone looking for beautiful gradients to use in their next design project.

The website features a desktop and mobile version. The desktop version lets you copy the HEX or CSS of the gradients, and the mobile version lets you copy a PNG to use on social media or with other apps.

• Best for: Gradient inspiration
• Price: Free

5. Adobe XD

Adobe XD is a familiar name among web designers. Very similar to Figma, Adobe XD is a design mockup and prototyping tool that allows designers to ideate and collaborate on design projects.

As a member of the Adobe creative suite, you’ll need a paid subscription to use the tool. However, because of its popularity among designers, there are tons of tutorials and resources on the web that show you how to design pretty much anything in Adobe XD.

From websites, mobile apps, brand design, and game design, the sky’s the limit with your design abilities in Adobe XD.

• Best for: Prototyping
• Price: $9.99/month

6. Design Principles

Design Principles is an open source collection of design methods and principles. This website is a great resource for web designers of all stages to learn about UX, UI, development, and more.

With over 195 examples of design principles curated from around the web, Design Principles is a resource you’ll definitely want to check out.

• Best for: Learning design principles
• Price: Free

7. Canva

Canva is a design tool that allows you to quickly and easily create anything from thumbnail images to business cards.

The tool sometimes gets a bad wrap among the design community as being a “basic tool.” However, Canva is a powerful platform that makes it easy for even non-designers to make something beautiful.

• Best for: Quickly designing social media assets
• Price: Free

8. Procreate

Procreate is an iPad graphics editor app designed to help you create digital art. With Procreate, you can sketch, paint, and design anything you would with a physical paint brush.

Designers use Procreate to create graphics and animations for websites, books, social media posts, and more. The tool is like taking all of your physical colored pencils, paint brushes, and paint colors, then putting them all on your iPad.

So, if you own an iPad, and are looking for a high-quality graphic design tool, you should definitely check out Procreate.

• Best for: Graphic design on an iPad
• Price: $9.99 one-time payment

9. Feather

Feather is a free library of open source icons. There are over 286 icons you can use for your web design project.

You can find everything from hamburger menu icons to social media icons. The best part is you can customize the color, size, and stroke width (in pixels) of any icon before you download it.

• Best for: Free icons
• Price: Free

10. Fontshare

Fontshare is a great site to find beautiful modern fonts for free. Their fonts are not open source, but are free to use for personal and commercial use.

It’s a great resource to find free fonts that actually look good for your personal or professional projects. And even better, you won’t have to worry about licenses and rights of use when using fonts from Fontshare.

• Best for: Beautiful personal and commercial free fonts
• Price: Free

11. Framer

Framer is a design and prototyping tool that allows you to create interactive products. With Framer, you can design anything from websites, to apps, to UI kits.

Framer is a great tool for design teams looking to validate their ideas faster. It’s no wonder why teams from Microsoft, Shopify, and Hulu use this tool.

Framer also has a suite of tutorials and templates to help you get up and running as soon as possible.

• Best for: Interactive design
• Price: $0-$25/month

12. Remove Background

Remove Background is a free web-based tool that allows you to easily remove a background from any image.

It’s a great tool if you need to turn a JPG of a logo (with a white background) into a PNG with a transparent background. (Not sure which one you need? Read about PNG vs JPG).

Leveraging AI, Remove Background creates a transparent version of your image file in just five seconds. The tool also has different plugins that can easily integrate with your existing design workflow.

• Best for: Removing backgrounds
• Price: Free

13. Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is a vector graphics editor designed for macOS, iPadOS, and Windows.

Similar to Procreate in many ways, Affinity Designer lets you create print projects, concept art, UI designs, logos, and more. Except, this tool is available on more than just an iPad.

Affinity Designer is loved by many web designers, graphic designers, game developers, and illustrators. If you’re looking for a great design tool that only needs a one-time payment, this is it.

• Best for: Illustrations and graphic design on desktop
• Price: $54.99 one-time payment

14. Blush Design

Blush Design is a comprehensive library of illustrations made by artists around the world. 

You can use Blush Design to either create a completely random illustration pack, or give the tool some guidelines like choosing a specific style you’re looking for.

From there, you can customize the art to fit your brand and download PNG and SVG versions of your illustrations.

There are also tons of collections created by talented designers that you can use and draw inspiration from.

• Best for: Ready-made illustrations
• Price: $0-$20/month

15. Cinema 4D

Cinema 4D is a 4D and 3D software suite created by Maxon. It’s a popular tool for designers that want to create 3D computer animations.

Even though it’s a pretty advanced tool, if you’re looking to give your website designs a “wow” factor,  it’s worth checking out.

Combining animations from Cinema 4D with a tool like Webflow can also allow you to create scroll-based animations on a website.

Webflow has a full tutorial on how to leverage Cinema 4D on your website — using After Effects and Lottie.

• Best for: Complex 3D animations
• Price: $94/month

16. Simplified

Simplified is an all-in-one marketing tool that features a free design tool, video editor, AI writer, content calendar, and animation maker.

Their no-code design tool lets you design ads, social media posts, invitations, videos, and more. It’s like Canva, but for designers who want to tell a story using their designs.

Simplified also has a suite of AI marketing tools and templates you can use to speed up the content and design process.

• Best for: Designing ads for social media
• Price: $0-$30/month

17. Bravo Studio

Bravo Studio is a no-code mobile app builder for iOS and Android. Similar to Webflow, their tool allows you to design and develop at the same time.

In combination with a user interface design tool like Figma or Adobe XD, you can use Bravo Studio to import your designs with a real backend and publish an app on the App Store or Google Play Store.

This is a great tool for designers who want to develop prototypes or even full-blown mobile apps without hiring developers.

• Best for: Designing and developing mobile apps
• Price: €49/month

18. DesignerUp

DesignerUp is a platform where designers can learn UI/UX and product design online. This design resource is trusted by students at companies like Asana, Google, Figma, and more.

There are tons of free video courses, articles, podcast episodes, and webinars for designers ranging from beginners to advanced. 

DesignerUp also has a membership plan that gives you access to a private community, a tutorial and resource library, and exclusive member content.

If you’re a UI/UX designer and you’re looking to level up your design skills, this is definitely a resource to check out.

• Best for: Designers looking to gain more skills
• Price: $0-$14/month

19. Overflow

When designing a website or app, it’s important to map out your user flow. Overflow is a design tool that lets you do just that.

With Overflow, you can create user flow diagrams that delight website visitors and users.

Trusted by teams at Shopify, Netflix, Facebook, and more, Overflow is a design tool that should be in every designer's arsenal.

Whether it’s for early stage ideation, high fidelity user flows, wireframes, or user onboarding, Overflow has plenty of integrations that can easily fit into your existing workflow.

• Best for: Designing user flows
• Price: €0-€15/month

20. WebGradients

WebGradients is a website dedicated to curating the best gradients on the web. It’s a great resource for any designer looking to add a gradient to their website or design.

On WebGradients, you can browse through a collection of over 180 linear gradients, and easily copy and paste HEX codes, CSS, or even download a PNG version of any gradient.

Looking to get started? Check out the best color combinations for your next design project — and then head over to WebGradients.

• Best for: Gradient inspiration
• Price: Free

21. SystemFlow

If you’re a designer using Figma and Webflow, SystemFlow might just change the game for you.

SystemFlow is a UI framework for Webflow and Figma that allows you to build websites faster. By leveraging design systems in Figma and translating them over to Webflow, SystemFlow makes it easy to go from a blank canvas to a beautiful website.

They offer over 440 components, 4,400 icons, and 10 live components to help you create websites at scale.

• Best for: Building Webflow websites with a Figma design system
• Price: $149-599 per license

22. Made in Webflow

Staying on the theme of Webflow and website components, Made in Webflow is a great web design resource for designers looking for inspiration and cloneable Webflow assets.

Made in Webflow features some of the best Webflow websites currently on the web. You can browse through different categories of websites, from popular, portfolio, ecommerce, CMS, interactions, and more.

You can even browse through free templates that you can clone and use for your own projects.

• Best for: Finding free assets for Webflow websites
• Price: Free

23. Anima App

Anima App is a design to code platform that allows you to create high-fidelity prototypes. Used by teams at Apple, Netflix, Walmart, and more, Anima App lets you create interactive and responsive prototypes using your existing design workflow.

You can easily integrate with other web design software tools like Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD to quickly build developer-friendly front-end code.

• Best for: Turning designs into developer-friendly prototypes
• Price: $0-$117/month

24. Wireframe.cc

Wireframe.cc is a free browser-based tool that allows you to create free website wireframes and save or share them as a URL.

The tool has options for different design breakpoints, like desktop, tablet, and mobile, and even includes tutorials on how to design wireframes effectively and quickly.

This is a great tool for all web designers as it allows you to share your wireframe ideas quickly with team members or clients, while also allowing others to comment and leave annotations for feedback.

• Best for: Creating wireframes quickly
• Price: $0-$16/month

25. Markup.io

Markup.io is a visual commenting platform that enables designers and teams to give real-time collaborative feedback on websites and content.

Used by companies like Grammarly, Dolby, and more, Markup.io makes it easy to leave contextual feedback on any part of your website.

Whether you’re using Figma, Adobe XD, Webflow, or any other design tool, Markup.io makes it easy for in-house teams and freelancers to iterate quickly based on feedback. You can even invite collaborators to your projects without them needing to create an account — making it a great tool to add to your design stack.

• Best for: Visual commenting for websites
• Price: $0-$15 per user/month

26. Checklist Design

Checklist Design is a website that curates checklists for design best practices for website design, UI components, branding assets, and more.

This website is a great resource for web designers who want to make sure they are following UI/UX best practices. They have tons of great checklists and design guidelines ranging from icon design, navigation menus, blog pages, sign up pages, and many more.

Checklist Design has an impressive suite of checklists, and it’s a great tool for all designers to bookmark and refer to often.

• Best for: Creating a checklist for design best practices
• Price: Free

27. Design Systems Repo

Design Systems Repo is a website that curates some of the best design systems from different brands. You can find examples, tools, articles, and talks related to all things design systems.

Knowing how to create a proper design system is just one of many web designer skills every designer should have — regardless of your level of expertise. Design systems help keep consistency in your web designs and ensure that your website delivers an enjoyable user experience.

• Best for: Design system inspiration
• Price: Free

28. Dribbble

Dribbble is one of the largest websites that curates design inspiration. Whether you need branding, graphic design, typography, web page design, UI design, or product design inspiration — it’s all on Dribbble.

Dribbble is a designer's best friend and allows you to see emerging trends and out-of-the-box designs from individuals around the web.

They also have a marketplace where you can find design assets, a designer hiring platform, and a learning center to learn about all things design.

• Best for: Design inspiration
• Price: $0-$15/month

29. Designer News

Designer News is a Reddit-like platform where the design community comes together to share news and resources about design.

It’s a great place for designers that want to stay in the know and discover cool resources (like the ones on this list).

Besides just curated design content, Designer News also has a podcast called DN FM where they interview respected designers and learn how they make decisions in their professional careers.

There’s also a section on the site where you can find design-related jobs and work — making this website an overall great place for designers to hang out.

• Best for: Discovering news and content about design
• Price: Free

30. Desygner

Desygner is a design tool that allows anyone to create beautiful graphic designs in a drag-and-drop editor. The tool features a user-friendly interface that lets you do anything from web graphics, social media posts, logos, banner ads, and more.

They have a suite of features that include free templates, stock images, a background remover, animator, and more. Trusted by teams at Amazon and BBC, Desygner also has an enterprise plan for design teams looking to streamline their design process.

• Best for: Easily creating graphic designs
• Price: $0-$19.95/month

What are the best web design tools?

At the time of writing this, the best web design tools are Figma, Webflow, and Adobe XD. These tools have a large community of designers, making it easy for anyone to learn how to not only design beautiful websites but actually develop them as well.

However, when deciding which tool to use, make sure you evaluate your current demands and business needs. Sometimes all you really need is a free tool or resource to make a large impact. Other times, you may need a more premium tool to bring your ideas to life.