Are you looking for the best web design software to make beautiful websites? Most experienced web designers have their own preferred software for different design tasks.
However, if you’re just starting out, then it can take some time to find that perfect combination.
In this article, we will show you the best web design software for different use-cases, so you can make the right decision for your need.
Why You Need The Best Web Design Software?
Due to common misconceptions about web design, many beginners feel that it would take them years to make decent and professional website designs.
While it’s true that you get better overtime, the right web design software can help you easily create beautiful designs with minimal skills.
That’s because some web design software automate the entire process which allows even absolute beginners to create beautiful websites.
Let’s take a look at some of the best web design software that will help you design like an expert web designer.
Different Types of Web Design Software
There isn’t a single web design tool that would do all the tasks related to web development and design. As a designer, you will need to choose a combination of different software to make your own toolkit.
We have divided our selection into different categories, so you can evaluate the best available options for each task.
- Best web design software for building websites
- Best web design software for eCommerce
- Best web design software for graphic designers
- Best web design software for marketers
- Best web design software for HTML sites
Let’s start with the basics first.,
Best Web Design Software for Building Websites
Many beginners ask us if they need to learn coding to make a real website.
While knowing how to code gives you an extra advantage in creating websites, many website builders like WordPress has made it easy for anyone to create custom websites without learning how to code.
This is the reason why WordPress now powers over 34% of all websites on the internet.
1. Beaver Builder
Beaver Builder is a user friendly page builder for WordPress. It allows you to simply drag and drop design elements to create your own custom design without writing any code.
To get started with Beaver Builder, you’ll need a WordPress website.
We recommend using Bluehost. They are an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider and one of the biggest hosting companies in the world.
The best part is that they are offering WPBeginner users discount on hosting and a free domain name. Basically, you’ll be able to get started for $2.75 per month.
→ Click Here to Start with Bluehost ←
For details, see our guide on how to make a website with step by step instructions.
Once you are up and running, you need to install and activate the Beaver Builder plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After that, you can edit WordPress posts or pages using the Beaver Builder.
Simply point and click on any item to edit it or load from dozens of ready-made templates to use as a starting point. For instructions, see our guide on how to create custom layouts using Beaver Builder
Beaver Builder also comes with a Theme Customizer which allows you to create custom WordPress themes using the same drag and drop interface. Unlike editing pages, you can create a complete theme with your own design.
For more information, see our tutorial on how to create custom WordPress themes without writing any code.
2. Divi
Divi is another excellent option if you want to design a WordPress website. It is one of the best WordPress page builders and comes with dozens of ready-to-use templates to choose from.
After you have setup your WordPress site, simply install and activate Divi on your website and start editing. It works with almost any WordPress theme, and you can also use the Divi theme which comes with enhanced features for the builder.
It is a drag and drop tool which means you can simply point and click on any item and change its appearance. You can add images, videos, sliders, contact forms, widgets, and more.
Most importantly your design changes are fully responsive and would automatically adjust for mobile devices.
3. Constant Contact Website Builder
If you are looking for a fully-hosted website builder, then Constant Contact Website Builder is a good WordPress alternative for beginners. This smart website builder comes with beautiful website designs that you can edit using a simple user interface.
Simply start by answering a few questions, and the website builder will pick up design, images, and demo content for your site. You can then just point and click to replace it with your own images, text, videos, and more.
4. Gator by HostGator
Gator is another website builder that allows you to design complete websites without any coding. Gator is made by HostGator, one of the best web hosting companies in the world.
It is a fully hosted platform, which means you don’t need to worry about updates, security, or backup. It not only includes the builder and website hosting, but you also get a free domain name for your website.
The builder software itself features an intuitive drag and drop interface with more than 200+ professional web design templates. Each template is fully customizable using a simple point and click tool.
You can edit any item on a page or drag and drop commonly used items like images, videos, photo gallery, text, columns, maps, and contact forms.
Gator also comes with a built-in stock photo library, so you can find and add beautiful photos on your website.
Best Web Design Software for Ecommerce
The eCommerce industry is expected to reach $4.9 trillion by the year 2021. There is an enormous demand for eCommerce web design in the market.
Following are our top picks for the best web design software for eCommerce that will allow you to break into this market without any coding skills.
5. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the best eCommerce platform in the world. It runs on top of WordPress, which means you’ll need a WordPress website to design an eCommerce website using WooCommerce.
You can sign up with Bluehost to get started. They are offering WPBeginner users discount on hosting + free domain name. Basically, you can start with $2.75 per month.
For detailed instructions, see our complete guide on how to start an online store.
6. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a popular eCommerce platform. It is available as a fully-hosted solution and the best part is that it can be easily integrated into a WordPress website.
Creating an online store with BigCommerce is quite simple. It comes with beautiful storefront designs and fully customizable themes for your online store. It automatically handles product images, crops them, and displays them in beautiful gallery layouts.
Wondering how it stacks up against WooCommerce? See our article on BigCommerce vs WooCommerce for side by side comparison of the two platforms.
7. Shopify
If you are looking for a fully hosted eCommerce solution, then Shopify can be a good fit for you. It comes with professionally designed templates to create almost any kind of online store.
All eCommerce design tools are highly intuitive and allow you to just drag and drop items to create beautiful pages. You can easily upload custom logos, images, videos, and more.
Shopify takes care of hosting, software, and backups, so you can just focus on creating a beautiful online store.
For more details, see our detailed comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce.
Best Web Design Software for Graphic Designers
A big part of web design consists of graphics to create custom logos, background images, featured images, and more. For all these, you will need graphic design tools.
These tools require some basic know-how of how to use them. Luckily, there are tons of online resources to quickly get you up to speed.
8. Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is the industry leader in photo editing and graphic design software. It is available for Mac and Windows operating systems.
It is one of the oldest and the easiest to use graphic design software on the market. Due to its massive popularity, there are plenty of online resources to learn Photoshop for free.
Adobe Photoshop is a bit more expensive than some other software. It is available on a subscription basis and each plan comes with different apps and addons.
9. Sketch
Sketch is a powerful vector design tool which allows you to create scalable high-quality designs. Sketch makes it super easy to create icons, illustrations, prototypes and mockups for apps, websites, and print.
It comes with an intuitive design that’s easy to learn for beginners. It also comes with tons of learning resources to help you quickly familiarize yourself with the software.
10. Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is an incredibly easy to use and powerful graphic design tool. Suitable for beginners and advanced users alike, Affinity Designer is packed with all the tools you would want in a graphic design tool without any of the complicated stuff.
It also allows you to easily switch between raster and vector modes. This makes it easy to design illustrations with a powerful combination of tools.
Affinity Designer is available for simple pricing of $49.99 one-time payment.
Basically Affinity is a perfect combination of both Adobe photoshop and illustrator.
11. Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is Adobe’s vector graphic design tool. Popular among graphic design professionals, Illustrator lets you create logos, icons, drawings, typography, and illustrations for print, web, video, and mobile.
It is easy to use but comes with a slight learning curve to take full advantage of the software. However, Adobe offers plenty of resources to help you get started. You’d also be able to find free tutorials online.
Adobe Illustrator is available on monthly subscription plans, which makes it a bit more expensive than other software.
12. Gimp
If you are looking for a free web design software, then Gimp is an excellent free option. This open source design software is a good alternative to Adobe Photoshop and allows you to easily edit images and create graphics for your websites.
Gimp is available for MacOS, Windows, and Linux. It may not look as polished as some other paid software, but it is a full-featured and powerful design software with much to offer.
Best Web Design Software for Marketers
Web design doest not just end with the launch of a website. Marketers regularly need to design graphics, social media images, icons, infographics, banners, and more.
There are plenty of tools that allow you to design professional-grade marketing material with very little effort and skills. Here is our pick of the best web design software for marketers.
13. Canva
Canva is a graphic design tool for marketers and bloggers. It is a web-based tool and doesn’t require installation of any additional software.
It comes with many ready-made design templates for different types of graphics. You can pick a template and then use Canva’s drag and drop tool to edit those images for your own website.
4. Balsamiq
Balsamiq is a powerful design tool to create mockups, wireframes, and websites. It comes with an easy to use interface that helps you learn UI design as a beginner. Advanced users would find it immensely helpful in quickly building mockups for products pages, marketing material, and more.
15. Moqups
Moqups is another wireframe and mockup design tool. It allows easy sharing and team collaboration without downloading any files.
The intuitive user interface makes it easy to use for beginners and powerful enough for advanced users. It comes with a built-in library of thousands of icon sets, fonts, and style library.
16. Piktochart
Piktochart is an easy design tool to create presentations, infographics, flyers, and posters. It comes with dozens of templates to use as a starting point.
You can use it in your browser, so there is no need to install any software. Simply drag and drop to add icons, elements, photos, shapes, lines, and arrows. Rearrange items and add your own text to create professional designs for your marketing campaigns.
Best Web Design Software for HTML Sites
Need to quickly design static HTML sites? These web design software will help you easily design HTML sites without writing any HTML at all.
17. Adobe Dreamweaver
Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the most beginner friendly web design software. It allows you to easily create mobile-friendly static HTML websites, stand-alone landing pages, or quick HTML docs.
It is easy for beginners to simply drag and drop to create web pages. Advanced users would find it equally useful with smart coding, autocomplete, compilers, git support, and more.
18. Google Web Designer
Google Web Designer is another intuitive and easy to use tool to create HTML-5 based designs, motion graphics, and animations. It can also be used to design banner ads, video ads, and other marketing materials.
You can start from scratch or choose from dozens of templates available in different layouts. Google Web Designer is available as a free download for Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems.
We hope this article helped you find the best web design software for your design toolkit. You may also want to see our list of the best CRM software and the best business phone services for small businesses.
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Nice list guys, however including Adobe AI an PS, which are for vector and raster graphic design, and not including Adobe XD, which is specifically for Web and Mobile design is quite strange…
Adobe XD is a great software as well, and if you have the whole suite, then definitely worth using XD.
Majority of our team now uses Affinity suite because its far more affordable and gives you the best of both world.
Hi guys – thanks for another great post!
If the editors might still have the energy, Adobe XD is a really good (FREE!) option and has many of the features of Sketch but is available for both Windows and Mac users. Perhaps it would qualify as official website design software?
Also, with Beaver Builder & Divi listed for WordPress, it felt like something was missing without Elementor. That said, perhaps all that is needed is a link to WPBeginner’s other post “6 Best Drag and Drop WordPress Page Builders Compared” to let those in your audience who are truly new to this know that there are some other great (Grade: A) WordPress options. We, personally, love using Elementor and easily recommend it to others designing with WordPress.
No worries if both are still left out! You can only include so many. Congratulations on WPBeginner’s steady contributions to the WordPress/Website/Design world!
Hi Caleb, we do have a link to the best page builder article in the description for Beaver Builder. Unfortunately we couldn’t list every single design software or builder, so we picked the two that our team uses the most.
This doesn’t discredit other software that exist in the market though