Best website development freeware

There are over 1. Here's where free web design software comes in handy. Luckily, you can use free software to create a stunning website. What critical features does website design software need to offer?

Web design primarily focuses on the visual aspect of websites as opposed to the content management side. As such, good web design software should include a visual editor that allows you to design visually — no need to touch actual code unless you want to. A piece of great web design software will offer you a point to work off of. The software should offer various templates for you to create a site that looks and feels the way you envision it. Instead, you should have access to the fonts and graphics you need to create a stunning prototype or wireframe.

Some web design tools will also include hosting services , SSL certificates, content management tools, and domain names. Others will only offer tools for wireframing and visual design. Others still are only designed for writing code. With hundreds of tools available, it can be confusing and overwhelming to decide which to use. CMS Hub is a website builder and content management system that includes a visual drag-and-drop editor, a collection of templates, and an SSL certificate.

Because it requires zero coding and includes everything you need to launch a website, it comes out on top as the best all-in-one design software for beginners. CMS Hub is also integrated with all other products in the HubSpot platform, including our CRM , marketing software , sales software , and service software.

WordPress is an open-source content management system that makes it easy to set up a website in minutes. There are thousands of free plugins available to download and install so that you can extend the functionality of your site. It's important to note that WordPress is free to use, but there are other costs associated with building and running a site on the platform. We break down the cost of building and launching a website here. Best defined as an interface design tool, Figma enables multiple designers to collaborate in real time.

As such, it's ideal if you have various project stakeholders involved in the design process. The free version includes unlimited drafts, unlimited commenters, and unlimited editors.

The one limitation is that it only includes up to 30 days of historical changes. Sketch is one of the most if not the most well-known and used tools for web designing. It comes with an advanced vector tool, which aids in a collaborative development of interfaces and prototypes. This tool was built particularly for making websites and web apps. Its prominence among the designer community is at least partially due to its clean interface and high performance; however, it only works on Mac.

Since many designers work on Windows, you might be better off with a web-based option such as CMS Hub or a Windows-based option such as Lunacy. A couple of years ago, all it could do was open Sketch files on Windows.

Today, it offers all the standard features of a UI and screen design tool and a library of free, high-quality graphic assets. The service lives up to its reputation as a simple web design tool due to its drag-and-drop interface and intuitive menus. The level of complexity depends on the skills and priorities of a user.

Regardless of your web development experience, you can create a high-quality website. Apart from a rich library of templates, Squarespace has all the necessary tools for effective work. It is the best website editor for photographers, digital artists and anyone who want to showcase their creativity. Verdict: The name of this software may give the impression that it is an average web design tool.

Google Web Designer lets you incorporate animation and interactive elements in your work to show off your unique style. The distinctive feature of this software is that it comes with pre-installed templates for creating advertisements. There are three different types of ads: banner simple fixed-size ads , expandable small banner-size ads that expand when clicked and interstitial suitable for mobile devices, since the vertical and horizontal position of the page is automatically determined.

Moreover, you can create an advertisement without a code of a particular platform. Verdict: Wix is a popular program with a free plan that allows you to test out this service. Using its rich functionality, you can create a stylish and visually interesting website. Wix has an ADI Artificial Design Intelligence mode which has an intuitive interface to make the design process as simple as possible. This service is a perfect choice for beginners as you can put together your website just following simple guidelines.

Besides, Wix offers an array of beautiful templates to make your website even more appealing. This website creator is so user-friendly and well-thought-out that designing your website turns out to be an interactive game. In addition, Wix has great support for different media and responsive customer service even for free-plan users. Verdict: Figma is an excellent web design tool that is aimed at real-time collaboration. It allows several people to view and edit the same web template simultaneously.

Using this powerful design tool, you can share the project with your clients and make changes in real-time. This is a whole new level of interaction for the web site creator software. Figma has an editing panel with fonts, colors and other useful settings. It comes with all the necessary tools and functions to create icons and amazing web templates.

To check whether Figma is a winner in Figma vs Adobe XD battle, you can use a trial version and then buy a subscription if you like it. Verdict: Webflow is a feature-rich web design tool that is a great alternative to WordPress. Despite the fact that Zyro's free option is good, simple to use and covers the basics needed for a website, it's paid option is even better and extremely affordable. It's cheapest plan offers free email for three months, security with SSL, blogging tools, and free web hosting.

Read our Zyro website builder review here. Weebly offers you two ways to build your website. Both involve creating it online, and both are as quick and painless as possible. The simplest option is to use the basic editor builder which will guide you through a series of questions before automatically creating a site for you. There is scope for customization, but the focus here is really on fast results for anyone who is terrified of designing websites.

A more hands-on approach is available if you decide to use the standard Editor. There are literally hundreds of stylish templates to choose from — and, yes, they are genuinely impressive — which you can tweak and tailor to your needs using a beautiful WYSIWYG editor. Despite being a cloud-based website builder, Weebly gives you a great degree of control over the look of your site and placement of page elements.

You can also liven it up using additional features such as a newsletter and live chat. This power and flexibility make Weebly a good, free website builder to consider.

Read our Weebly review here. Causing a slight degree of confusion, there are actually two different versions of WordPress. The more complex variant can be downloaded from wordpress. You can then customize the templates and use add-ons to make the site your own.

The hosted version of WordPress lets you create your own site on wordpress. You can create everything from a blog or photo site, to a fully fledged online store, and there are a number of templates to choose from. Additionally, Mailchimp users have a benefit of adding a Mailchimp block, which can grow your mailing list among other things. Whether you're creating a static site, or a blog-style site with regularly updated content, the online editor is a joy to use and allows just about anyone to create an impressive, professional-looking site.

The only downside is the limited range of plugins and templates compared with the desktop version, and other free website builders. Read our WordPress review here. Incomedia WebSite X5 received an overhaul in April with new templates, an updated interface, new paid versions, and more. Webflow is a cloud-based service which has been created specifically to allow people with no coding knowledge to get started with web design.

Aside from being truly cross-platform, as it's web-based, Webflow emphasizes the concept of 'smart codelessness'. In the first instance this means a crisp drag and drop interface allowing you to drop elements such as text and images seamlessly onto a page using one of the freely available templates.

Unlike many WYSIWYG editors, the code produced is very clean and well-written even if you choose the 'I have no coding experience' option during setup.

You can make granular changes to individual elements using the panels on the right. Webflow offers a free demonstration of its features via the website, and you can also subscribe for a free Starter package which allows you to create up to two projects.

Read our full Webflow review. Bluefish is among the smallest web design tools available today. The tiny installer takes only a few moments to setup. While the interface is text-only, it's clearly designed with novices in mind as it employs clear-cut toolbars, user customizable menus and syntax highlighting. Bluefish has an excellent search function, allowing you to find text across multiple projects.

The tool also has no trouble juggling hundreds of documents at the same time. Although Bluefish supports working with remote files, the varied and useful dialogs and wizards don't currently support direct upload of web pages via FTP. Despite the best efforts of the developers, Bluefish may take some time to get used to. The tool is available free of charge, however, so you have nothing to lose by giving it a try.

It offers a variety of packages and free extensions that can be downloaded from its marketplace to add additional features — and the code editor itself can be customized.

While a lot of people may be intimated by the idea of coding if they have no programming experience, at some point in the web design process it can be important to be able to edit code directly. This is particularly helpful if you want to customize code for existing software add-ons in order to get the features you want for your website. Visual Studio Code can help make the process less painful by providing a dedicated platform for coding. Visual Studio Code sports its own terminal and debugger, supports linting, and has integration with all manner of source control tools.

It especially offers good support for Javascript and Python, making it potentially useful not just for coding the frontend of a website but also potentially some backend functions as well.