21 Best Website Design Software Tools To Help You Build Amazing Websites!
Web design has changed a lot over the years. From simple text-based websites to dynamic, state-of-the-art, mobile-responsive, specialized websites, we’ve come a long way.
These days, the best web design software has made it possible for anyone to design a fully functional website in a short time.
With the latest web design tools, such as a drag-and-drop editor, a website builder has become a handy tool for web designers and small business owners to create beautiful websites that serve their purpose well and help businesses grow.
For example, eCommerce software such as Shopify or BigCommerce would offer you all the functionalities you need to build an online store. And if you want to start a blog, WordPress would be a great choice.
In today’s post, I will briefly review 23 different website builders based on their ease of use, key features, mobile responsiveness, and pricing.
Disclaimer: If you buy something using the links in this article, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Know that I only promote stuff that I use and trust for the sake of my readers and the reputation of this site.
Best Web Design Software In 2021
1. WordPress
WordPress is a popular web design tool – around 40% of websites are powered by WordPress.
WordPress offers a high level of customization along with thousands of pre-existing themes that help you get your site looking beautiful and functional in no time! Just pick a WordPress theme and customize it to suit your brand.
Key Features:
- As a content management system, it offers a wide variety of features for the web development of content-based websites and blogs
- WordPress.com is free to use while WordPress.org offers more in terms of functionality, but you need to pay for web hosting
- Thousands of attractive customizable themes including free and premium themes
- Supports over 70 global languages
- Create web pages that are optimized for mobile devices
Pricing:
WordPress itself is completely free open-source software, but you will need to pay for web hosting through a web hosting company.
Recommended Reading:
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2. ClickFunnels
Although Clickfunnels is primarily a sales funnel builder, you can use it as an all-in-one tool for web design.
Using Clickfunnels funnel builder as a web design software is as easy as selecting a pre-made template, and using the intuitive drag-and-drop editor to design your sales process for your website.
Key Features:
- Simple and intuitive drag and drop webpage editor and sales funnel builder
- Allows you to quickly build high-converting sales funnels
- Create smart shopping carts with 1-click upsells
- Integrates with email and Facebook marketing automation tools
- Clean and user-friendly single dashboard
Pricing:
Clickfunnels’ paid plans start at $97 per month for 3 domains, 20 funnels, and 100 pages. If you want to choose ClickFunnel’s paid plans with unlimited domains and funnels, it will cost you $297 per month for the Clickfunnels Platinum plan.
You can read my complete ClickFunnels review here.
3. Canva
Canva is the best web design software if you want a reliable tool to design all your website graphics or even graphics for your podcast. With millions of graphics, vectors, and stock images, Canva gives you all that you need to make your website and your social branding look appealing.
Canva offers tons of templates for everything from social media graphic design to logo design, and with its intuitive drag-and-drop editor and digital design toolkit, you can make your website look amazing in no time!
Key Features:
- User-friendly drag-and-drop editor
- Library of over 50,000 customizable templates and free and premium graphics and stock photos
- Create engaging graphics for your website even if you do not have any deigning experience
- Design anything from logos to social media graphics to infographics for your website
- Edit your photos by blurring, texturing, cropping, adding text, and much more
Pricing:
Canva has a free plan for individual and small businesses to work on basic designs. Canva also offers two paid plans – Pro at $9.95 per user per month billed annually, and Enterprise at $30 per user per month billed annually.
4. Webflow
Webflow is a modern, web design software that allows beginner and experienced web designers to build professional, custom websites in a completely visual canvas with no code.
Webflow acts as an all-in-one platform that combines features of managed web hosting, a CMS, and web design software. You can build your site with the free version and add a site plan for more pages, a custom domain, and web hosting.
Key Features:
- Build websites using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript in a completely visual canvas. Webflow converts your design into clean semantic code with simple drag and drop elements
- Design responsive websites. You can easily preview and adjust layouts for different devices with the graphic design tools
- Create reusable CSS classes to make changes across multiple elements simultaneously
- You can choose to publish your website directly to the web or hand off your code to web developers
Pricing:
You can start with Webflow for free – design two projects and publish them to webflow.io.
Paid plans are of two types – Site plans start at $12 per month paid annually, and Account plans start at $16 for 10 projects.
5. Squarespace
Squarespace is a popular web builder that allows you to create professional websites, online stores, portfolios, and blogs. The site builder offers a ton of customizable templates that you can use to get your site up and running in no time.
Key Features:
- Choose from over 130 website templates that are customizable and fully responsive
- Access to Unsplash image library (royalty-free images) for graphic design
- Select from a huge range of Adobe and Google web fonts
- A simple menu of styling options to customize your templates
- Robust eCommerce and CMS features
- The web designer features a drag-and-drop interface for website building
Pricing:
Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial and 4 paid plans:
Personal at $12 per month billed annually
Business at $18 per month billed annually
Basic Commerce at $26 per month billed annually
Advanced Commerce at $40 per month billed annually
6. Wix
Wix offers a perfect platform for creating websites even if you are just a beginner. With Wix, you can create your own design using over 800 templates and the drag-and-drop elements that help you in customization.
Wix is ideal for freelancers and small businesses who want a well-designed website created easily.
Key Features:
- A flat learning curve makes it easy to use for beginners
- An intuitive drag-and-drop editor that helps you create the layout and design that you want
- Pre-built website templates for any industry
- The website builder is extremely flexible, allowing you to place all your elements exactly where you want them to be
- You can animate text and other elements as well
- Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) helps you automatically configure your website based on your preferences
Pricing:
Wix offers four pricing plans depending on your needs:
Combo at $14 per month
Unlimited at $18 per month
Pro at $23 per month
VIP at $39 per month
7. Shopify
Shopify has become one of the best website builder platforms with more than a million users worldwide.
Shopify offers you all the features you need to set up a high-converting online store, including a custom domain name and SSL certificate.
Key Features:
- You can sell unlimited products on your Shopify store
- Unlimited bandwidth and online storage
- Shopify Point Of Sale (POS) allows you to sell your products and accept payments from a physical store or pop-up setting using the iOS or Android app
- Sell through multiple online sales channels and keep track of customers, products, and orders across all platforms
- Built-in fraud analysis feature when you use Shopify Payments
Pricing:
Shopify has a 14-day free trial. Shopify also has multiple paid plans:
Shopify Lite at $9 per month
Basic Shopify at $29 per month
Shopify at $79 per month
Advanced Shopify at $299 per month
Shopify Plus for customized enterprise-grade solutions
Recommended Reading:
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8. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is yet another powerful eCommerce platform that helps you build your own website for eCommerce in just a few clicks.
BigCommerce also offers some of the best design tools that help you create graphics for your eCommerce sites without the need for graphic designers.
Key Features:
- Powerful eCommerce features to build your online store
- Flexible design tools to help you craft beautiful store experiences for your customers
- Easy-to-use, secure platform
- Drag-and-drop page builder and visual editor
- Fully customizable and mobile-responsive templates
Pricing:
BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial. BigCommerce offers the following paid plans:
Standard at $29.95 per month
Plus at $71.95 per month billed annually
Pro at $269.96 per month billed annually
You can also contact their sales team for custom pricing.
9. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a customizable, open-source eCommerce platform for sites built on WordPress.
All you need to do to get started is add the WooCommerce plugin to your WordPress site and set up your eCommerce store in minutes!
Key Features:
- Free, open-source, customizable WordPress plugin
- Edit anything from the buy button to your homepage layout to create a unique site for your eCommerce business
- Embed your products, checkout page, and more to your blog posts and landing pages
- Use categories, tags, and attributes to help customers find your products more easily
- Offer your customers 1-click refunds that can be managed from your WooCommerce dashboard
Pricing:
WooCommerce is a free, open-source eCommerce platform. You will only have to pay for a custom domain name and web hosting through a web hosting company.
10. Weebly
Weebly by Square is a powerful drag-and-drop website builder that offers you all the tools you need to set up your eCommerce site in just a few minutes.
Weebly gives you a wide range of website templates to use, along with a user-friendly editor to help you build your website just the way you want it.
Key Features:
- Set up a beautiful website, online store, or blog with Weebly’s drag-and-drop website builder, integrated eCommerce platform, and responsive themes
- Cutting edge mobile app helps you keep track of performance, interact with your customers, and manage your store orders on the go
- Advanced design features that help you create mobile-responsive websites
- Brand your site with a custom domain name
- Use the powerful SEO tools to make sure that people find you online
Pricing:
Weebly offers a free plan with basic features. Weebly also offers the following paid plans:
Connect (Connect a custom domain) at $5 per month paid annually
Pro (For groups and organizations) at $12 per month paid annually
Business (For small businesses and stores) at $25 per month paid annually
11. Adobe Dreamweaver
Adobe Dreamweaver is website design software that helps you create multiple projects from templates or from scratch. Adobe Dreamweaver is a full-featured HTML web editor that helps you manage dynamic websites with a smart coding engine.
Key Features:
- HTML web and programming editor
- Access code hints help you edit CSS and HTML
- Wide range of customizable templates that help you build eCommerce pages, blog pages, landing pages, and more
- Import assets from Adobe Stock or your own library
- Live view editing helps you instantly preview changes without having to switch between editor mode and preview mode
- Git support helps you manage your source code
Pricing:
Adobe Dreamweaver offers users a 7-day free trial. You can get Adobe Dreamweaver as a part of the Creative Cloud at $20.99 per month.
12. Google Web Designer
Google Web Designer helps you create HTML5-based designs and motion graphics that can run on any device.
Google Web designer is free to download and allows you to design your website by editing CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.
Key Features:
- You can set up events to make your creatives react to a user’s actions
- Create responsive ads that look perfect on any device
- Create and manipulate 3D content using CSS3
- Google Web Designer integrates with other Google products such as Google Drive and Google Fonts
- Supports a wide range of display and video ad formats across its advertising platforms
Pricing:
Google Web Designer is free to download and use.
13. Adobe XD
Adobe XD is a powerful design tool that helps you create prototypes, animations, and wireframes for your websites.
With Adobe XD, you can quickly sketch mockups of your website and create high-fidelity designs for any screen.
Key Features:
- Showcase your work in a new dimension with 3D Transforms
- Create different components like reusable buttons and resizeable cards that you can edit in one place and see changes all across
- Create interaction, hover, and toggle for any scenario
- Import files from Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sketch
- The vector-based interface helps you create elements and layouts
Pricing:
Adobe XD offers a 7-day free trial for users. You can get Adobe XD as part of the Creative Cloud at $9.99 per month.
14. Figma
Figma is a vector graphics tool that allows you to UX and UI designs for your websites. Figma offers collaborative and cloud-based features that enable you to work together with your team.
Figma has a simple, intuitive, vector-based interface that helps you beautifully designed prototypes to show your clients.
Key Features:
- The modern Pen tool helps you draw in any direction using Design Networks
- The auto-layout helps you design responsively
- Upload your design systems to the cloud and easily access them from there
- Advanced font features to make your brand stand out
Pricing:
Figma offers a free forever plan for 1 team project. Figma Professional costs $12 per editor per month billed annually and Figma Organization costs $45 per editor per month.
15. Sketch
Sketch offers you the web design tools you need to create everything from pixel-perfect icons to your entire website.
With Sketch, you can collaborate with your team members in the macOS app in real-time.
Key Features:
- Intuitive interface that allows you to design and create web graphics
- Collaborate with your team in real-time so that all your ideas are in one place
- Browser-based free tools allow you to get feedback from stakeholders, share prototypes for testing, and handoff to your developers
- Customize your workflow with the hundreds of available plugins and integrations
- Create reusable styles and responsive symbols that automatically scale to fit their content
Pricing:
Sketch offers a 30-day free trial. Sketch also offers paid plans that start at $9 per editor per month.
16. InVision Studio
Invision Studio is regarded as the world’s most powerful screen design tool. Invision Studio allows you to collaborate on a design by using Invision Freehand to brainstorm with your team and create wireframes.
Other features that Invision Studio offers are tools for prototyping, animation, and designing – all in one place.
Key Features:
- Available for macOS and Windows
- Vector drawing tool that helps you draw faster
- Create responsive pages with an adaptive layout
- Interactive design helps you in rapid prototyping with fluid interactions
- Real-time updates and global syncing
- Offers private cloud options (SSO and 2FA)
Pricing:
Invision Studio has a free forever plan for individuals and small teams. The Pro plan is for cross-collaborative teams and costs $7.95 per user per month billed annually. Invision Studio also offers custom pricing for organizations with advanced needs.
17. LeadPages
LeadPages is primarily a landing page builder, but you can use it as web design software. LeadPages offers a ton of mobile-responsive templates that will help you increase conversions.
With LeadPages, you can easily build web pages, landing pages, pop-ups, and more that will help you engage your audience and improve your sales.
Key Features:
- A website builder that enables you to build websites, landing pages, alert bars, pop-ups, and more
- User-friendly drag-and-drop editor to customize your pages and forms
- Image library helps you easily upload and manage images and other graphic design elements
- LeadPages checkout is powered by Stripe and it allows you to easily make sales, accept recurring payments, and deliver your digital products from any web page
- Real-time analytics helps you instantly decide whether a page is performing well
- The built-in library helps you create icons and edit them
Pricing:
LeadPages offers a 14-day free trial for its users. LeadPages has a Standard plan at $27 per month billed annually and a Pro plan at $59 per month billed annually.
18. InstaPage
InstaPage is a powerful and advanced landing page platform that gives both beginners and experienced users the web design tools to design high-converting websites and landing pages.
InstaPage makes it easy for you to test and optimize your landing pages for higher conversions.
Key Features:
- Create relevant, customized, high-converting web pages with this web design software
- Build, optimize, and iterate your web pages with detailed heatmaps, A/B and multivariate testing, and robust analytics
- Create unique landing page experiences for every ad and target audience while tracking metrics at an audience level
- Simplify collaboration with instant feedback, real-time edits, and secure sharing with outside stakeholders
- Have your pages load at lightning speed with the proprietary AMP & Thor Render Engine® technology
Pricing:
InstaPage offers a 14-day free trial after which its “Building” plan starts at $199 per month billed annually. InstaPage also offers custom pricing based on your needs.
19. Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is one of the best web design software that helps you create amazing graphics and designs for your web pages. Adobe Photoshop makes advanced photo editing and designing simple for web designers and graphic designers.
Key Features:
- Create what a camera cannot capture with one-click selections, easy masking, and unlimited layers
- The world’s largest collection of brushes helps you paint and draw what you want to create
- Remove objects and background images, retouch, remix, and recolor images with powerful editing tools
- Simple sliders and AI technology allow you to colorize scenes, remove scratches, and more
- Collaborate with your team members by inviting them to edit your cloud documents
Pricing:
Adobe Photoshop has a 7-day free trial after which you can get it as a part of the Creative Cloud at $20.99 per month.
20. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)
GIMP is a free, open-source editor that allows you to design websites and graphics. GIMP offers you many powerful editing tools that help you in photo manipulation and customization.
With GIMP, you can enhance your productivity with its high-quality framework.
Key Features:
- High-quality photo manipulation that helps you retouch and restore images, and create composites
- GIMP gives you the power and flexibility to transform images into unique creations
- GIMP offers graphic design elements that help you design icons and artwork for user interface components and mockups
- High-quality framework for scripted image manipulation, with multi-language support such as C, C++, Perl, Python, Scheme, and more
- GIMP provides top-notch color management features for high-fidelity color reproduction across digital and printed media
Pricing:
GIMP is free open-source editing software.
21. Divi
Divi is one of the best web design software and WordPress theme in the world. Divi helps you build beautiful and functional websites with its visual interface and drag-drop editor.
Developers can easily combine Divi’s visual design controls with their own custom CSS to create unique web pages.
Key Features:
- Visual builder with a drag-and-drop editor
- You can combine the visual design controls with custom CSS
- Responsive editing gives you full control over how your website looks on different devices
- Dozens of unique page elements and thousand of design options
- Inline text editing makes editing your web pages a breeze
Pricing:
Divi offers a 30-day free trial. Yearly access is at $89 per year and lifetime access is priced at $249 (one-time fee).
What Is Web Design Software And Why Do You Need It?
Web design software is software that allows you to design your websites to be beautiful, functional, and mobile-responsive.
Website design software helps you to design the main components of any successful website:
- Aesthetics
- Web content layout
- Mobile responsiveness
- User-friendliness
- Graphics design
The best web design software allows you to design your website just the way you want it to be – even if you don’t know how to code. Most web design software has an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that helps you place your desired web page elements in their layout without much effort.
What Are The Features Of A Good Web Design Software?
The best web design software has the following features:
Intuitive Editor
A user-friendly drag-and-drop editor helps you make your website look great and functional. You can add elements like widgets, text, images, and videos easily without having to write a single line of code.
A drag-and-drop editor also makes it easy for you to update certain aspects of your website without any hassle.
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A CDN is a distributed group of servers that work together to make your website load faster. Choose a web design software that offers a CDN.
Mobile-Responsive Themes And Templates
Most people are on their phones these days as they go about their day. Making your website mobile-responsive plays a crucial role in giving your customers a good user experience while they access your site using their mobile devices.
Choose a web design software that allows you to make your website mobile responsive, along with helping you preview these features while editing.
Third-Party Integrations
Third-party integrations with social media, widgets, and image and video libraries will help you design your website on a single platform.
eCommerce Functionality
If you are planning to build an eCommerce site, then choose a web design software that offers eCommerce functionalities such as adding product pages in different layouts.
What Are The Best Web Design Software For Online Stores?
Shopify, Squarespace, Weebly, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce are some of the best web design software for online stores.
Conclusion
So here are my top choices for web design software. Each of these options has great features that allow you to build the website of your dreams!
However, it is crucial that you first determine the types of features you want in your website before you choose a website design software tool. Each software offers different tools for different web functionalities, so you need to go through the features to see which one suits you best.
Which website design software do you use to build your website? Let me know in the comments below.
Don’t forget to share this post with those who are looking for the perfect web design software to build their own website! 🙂