10 Best Open Source Tools for Web Designers

Linux, Joomla, XAMP, Apache, and WordPress are some typical open source software that are unbeaten. The benefits of open source are that they can be modified, are free to use, and there is a large community of developers to supervise and back you in executing the software. Another benefit and most significant of all is that thousands of users globally are committed to advancing the applications, and that involves newer releases at more regular periods.

In a similar way, some open source designing tools are also available for making attractive and user-friendly websites and apps. Here are some open source tools for web designers one can try; and if they are interested, they can also transform the source code and customize them if they can write programs.

10 Best Open Source Tools for Web Designers

Krita

Krita is a robust graphics editor with a large focus on illustration and digital painting. A lot of designers are selecting illustrations, and even digital paintings, to put life into their web designs. Certainly, most of it is in vector format for purposes of SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), but if you want a more conventional appearance to your graphics, Krita will support. It also has most of the characteristics you would assume to discover in a traditional graphics editor. It may not be useful for designing mockups as there are other simpler ways.

Visual Studio Code

Microsoft previously had nothing to do with open source software. Now, they have Ubuntu working in a command-line interface mode on Windows, and also a free text editor. When Visual Studio Code began, it has grown a good number of supporters. Since it is fast, it is extensible, and so, it works promptly. The UI of VSCode is profoundly customizable, as users can switch to various themes, keyboard shortcuts, and favourites.

UIkit

A must-have tool for front-end developers for creating responsive designs. It is lightweight and modular front-end framework for quick and effectual web interfaces. Their GitHub repo dispenses a fair bit of effort. Most importantly, it is pretty good by default, which is what most people want out of these structures.

Pencil Project

Pencil Project is a free and Open-source tool that anyone can utilise to design mock-ups in a desktop platform. It is accessible in various platform and simple to Install. Pencil Project is a helpful GUI prototyping tool that provides productive individuals to lay out, sketch, examine and conclude their ideas using a broad array of elements, which includes basic shapes, necessary web elements, Sketchy GUI, stencils and many more. These can then be exported in HTML, PNG, PDF, SVG, and ODT file formats.

You may be recalling Pencil from the time when it was just a Firefox extension. Pencil has changed to a perfected, steady wire-framing/prototyping on its own. It requires some of the extensive collaboration features of online apps in its section, but it’s fabulous for anyone who wants or wishes to work offline. With a large stock of elements and stencils available in the library, you should be handy to pick it up and start prototyping quickly.

kodeWeave

kodeWeave is a unique scheme that seems a lot like CodePen as it primarily assists the same idea and operations with touches of front-end code. The big distinction is that in extension to using it as a web app, you can download it as a standalone app for Android, Windows, Linux, Mac and ChromeOS.

This is useful for offline development, but it’s also good for those designs where you choose not to have project information and code operations in the cloud. It also arrives with CSS pre-processors, and just like every other framework you can label it off.

It can combine with an app called WebDGap to export your code as a local desktop or mobile app, so it’s much helpful for prototyping. It easy for you to use kodeWeave has more than 50 libraries and frameworks combined into its platform and kodeWeave makes it easy to use and free to check the box.

kodeWeave grants you the freedom to develop as many websites, games or even apps as you want regardless of what platform you are utilising.

GrapesJS

GrapesJS is an open-source, multi-utility, Web Builder Framework which blends various tools and characteristics with the aim to help designers (or users of the application) to create HTML templates without any understanding of coding. It’s a comprehensive solution to restore the popular WYSIWYG editors, which are great for content editing but unsuitable for creating HTML structures. You can view it in action with the official demos, but apply its API you’re capable to create your own editors.

GrapesJS is a website builder and more like a site builder framework. You can initiate it up and edit your site designs online. It promotes responsive design, editing the code by oneself, various preview modes, undo/redo, and more. It further has a set of pre-defined page elements that you can pull and drop in.

But surprisingly, GrapesJS is expected to be dropped into other people’s projects. You can combine it in a bigger app, such as site builder assistance, an installable CMS, a newsletter managing app, or indeed anything that might require HTML/CSS templates that can be customized by the end user. And it is pretty simple to use.

KompoZer

KompoZer is also an open source WYSIWYG designing tool. Beginner designers, who have limited experience in writing codes, will find the peculiarities useful. There are still some issues you may have to order out, because KompoZer is weak when it comes to layout designing, because it depends on tables for creating a layout. Users can modify this if they know coding.

Bluefish Editor

Bluefish Editor is one of the most queried editing tools by web designers. It is a lightweight editor, suggesting that it does not hold too much memory. Though it has great characteristics, the designers don’t need that anyway. What you will like most about Bluefish is the search-and-replace capability. That implies you can immediately replace lumps of codes efficiently. Bluefish editor is not a WYSIWYG which you must identify.

Quanta Plus

If you use CSS in your webpage designing, then Quanta Plus can make your web designing work much easier. It is basically a CSS editor able to auto-completing syntax. It runs great for beginner, aspiring and experienced web designers alike. Quanta Plus is extensible and more similar to a visual CSS editor. You will expressly like the code hints it provides even as you start keying in the codes.

Adobe XD, Sketch, etc. are some of the most used designing tools that UI designers use these days. UI/UX web design is more about how something looks, feels, and works. You need to have a great prototyping/wireframing tool.

Emerging architectures are highly expected to be based on open source, as they are now in mobile solutions with the Android platform and web solutions, where a large number of websites are based on open source technology.

NDZ is one of the leading web designing company in Cochin with an an excellent team of UI/UX designers who understand the clients’ requirements to transform it into unique, user-friendly and responsive websites. NDZ also renovates the existing websites that need significant improvements in terms of design, coding, search engine optimization, and so on.