The 5 best prototyping tools for 2018

Can't find the best prototyping tool for you? Don't worry! We did all the searching to help you find the perfect prototyping tool for your needs.
When selecting a prototyping tool you should consider the following topics:

• Adaptation: You should always choose the tool that you can easily adapt. This is an important factor while choosing as it can consume a good amount of time to learn the new tool.
• Usage: When selecting a tool you should first list out the things that you want to perform on that tool & then check if the tool or software you are choosing is able to check that wishlist or not.
• User-friendly: The tool should be user-friendly. It should decrease the steps to save you some time and effectively help you to get the best output in less amount of time and work.
• Sharing: You should be able to share your work with your colleagues. Also, the software should be available in the operating systems that you and your colleagues use.
• Price: This is an important factor since not every software is affordable. Not every high priced software is good sometimes the one in your budget might be the one you need.  

So now that we have the list of criteria to find the best prototyping tool, let's get started with the list.

 UXPin - The premier UX design platform

UXPin is a prototyping software. Actually, it is an end-to-end designing software. It is cloud-based and supports multi-device usage. So that solves the sharing aspect of our criteria list. It is user-friendly as it has built-in UI libraries and custom animations. It also supports sketch and photoshop so you can just drag and drop your photoshop files and start working. This tool also supports Slack, Jira & Github. If you want to use UXPin to its full potential you'll have to pay 49$/mo in which you'll get support for up to 10 users and access to all advanced prototyping tools. But cheaper plans are also available.

Webflow - Design and develop at the same time

Webflow is not just a prototype designing software, it also allows you to host and manage the site. It's like an all in one platform to create and develop or showcase your designs. This is the best tool if you are an upcoming designer who wants to design and also want to show it to the world without going through the hassle of handling two software or two individual software. Some of the biggest clients of Webflow are NASA, CBS, MTV, DELL etc. It's 42$/mo if you want to access all the features.

Adobe XD - The future of experience design

This is the company's latest addition to the suite of software that helps the content creators. This software was launched in 2016 in beta version. It has some free UI kits which include some useful templates and elements which will help you to get started. As this is an Adobe product like every other Adobe product this also has an iOS as well as an android app. Which doesn't offer the whole website experience but it's worth noting. It also supports both MacOS and Windows so sharing will not be a problem. As it comes in the Adobe ecosystem of products it will be very efficient to do the projects with photoshop files. For Rs.676/mo it also offers cloud storage of 100GB.

Axure RP - Design the right solution

It says powerful prototypes without coding, but you do need some coding prerequisite to blend into this software. So if you don't have any coding knowledge you are better off with this software. Sharing might be the biggest selling point for this software as it has support for chrome, firefox, Microsoft edge, safari, iOS & Android. Creating prototyping designs is the main motto of the creator but protecting it is another whole problem but in axure, you don't have to worry about design theft because it gives you a safe sharing link of your project which will only open when somebody inserts the password that you decide. It offers two payment options. Either a monthly per-user payment or a lifetime payment. For pro version, you'll have to pay 29$ or 495$ respectively.

Marvel - The all in one platform powering design

Let's just clear one thing - this marvel has nothing to do with marvel studios. Neither they promote this nor they use this. So now that we have cleared that from the way let's just talk about the marvel aka marvel app. If you are a beginner in this prototype designing field or you just want to keep things simple then this is the software for you. Best because no code is required to use this software. BuzzFeed is the main client of the Marvel app. The pro subscription costs only 16$/mo but with only one user support. 

There are so many prototyping tools available in the market, we might have missed some popular ones but we hope you will find the most useful tool with the help of this list. I hope this article at least gave you a good overview of the current prototyping software available in the market.

Summary 

There is no and never will be a universal "best prototyping tool". It always depends upon personal preferences. Every designer has his own style of working and he shall choose the best suiting option from this list. Before deciding which tool to get, knowing what your requirements are is very important because available tools are infinite but the execution of your idea is unique & for that, your preferences should be sorted.

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