10 Best Rapid Prototyping Tools of 2023

InVision’s website copy oozes with the term “collaboration.” This reflects their emphasis on real-time collaboration for prototyping and design. InVision has some impressive clientele, such as IBM, Atlassian, Google, Netflix, and others. They even claim that companies partnering with them have realized a 475% spike in ROI across a three-year span.

Why I picked InVision: As a former product manager, I always strive for collaboration. Various stakeholders provide invaluable feedback on product ideas, and leveraging these inputs is critical. InVision helps you remotely brainstorm, collaborate, and plan thanks to its outstanding whiteboard feature.

I love InVision’s Freehand tool that allows you to create a “multiplayer” canvas for collaboration. Furthermore, InVision’s prototyping prowess is relatively rigid with features like hotspots, interactions, transitions, overlays, and floating buttons, etc.

InVision Standout Features and Integrations

Features include rapid prototyping, a drag-and-drop interface, interactive prototyping, screen design, design handoff, developer collaboration, design critique for gathering design feedback, several useful templates, and more.

Integrations include 10+ tools, such as Adobe XD, Asana, Google Sheets, Jira, Sketch, Slack, Webex, Zoom, and others.

Marvel is a staple name in the mockup and wireframing industry. With an intuitive, collaborative platform, Marvel helps product managers and developers to synergize and create great prototypes.

Why I picked Marvel: I find Marvel’s simplicity marvelous because you can easily convert design mockups into realistic prototypes in minutes. Furthermore, Marvel has built-in mockup and wireframing capabilities that enable you to go from an idea to an MVP (minimum viable product) very quickly.

Marvel supports every screen, including all Apple and Android devices and desktops. With Marvel, you can easily embed hotspots and improve user engagement. Hotspots refer to areas where your users can tap or click. Additionally, Marvel helps you link screens with hotspots and impart a feeling of spatial orientation for mobile users.

Marvel Standout Features and Integrations

Features include wireframing, mockup design, rapid prototyping, user testing, real-time collaboration, a developer API, advanced transitions, gestures, offline downloads, user testing, and others.

Integrations include 10+ tools, such as Ballpark, Dropbox Paper, Jira, Sketch, Slack, Userflows, and others.

UXPin endeavors to streamline prototyping and product development. UXPin started with Polish roots and has expanded worldwide. UXPin’s proprietary Merge technology helps build high-fidelity prototypes while simplifying the handoffs in a design process.

Why I picked UXPin: I commend UXPin for its fantastic design handoff capabilities. Design handoff is that stage in the product development process when the design team signs off on a prototype, and developers start the actual coding or development. UXPin helps smooth out the handoff cycle by automating design specs, CSS (cascading style sheets), and style guides.  

UXPin helps developers get a mighty headstart by automatically filling in the CSS details. Moreover, UXPin creates contextual documentation that helps developers inspect designs accurately. Lastly, UXPin’s advanced transitions and navigation flows positively influence the look and feel of your interactive prototypes.

UXPin Standout Features and Integrations

Features include auto layout, component-driven prototyping, UI/UX designing, wireframing, logic-based prototyping with variable definitions and conditional interactions, heat mapping, and usability testing.

Integrations include 10+ tools, such as Asana, Google Sheets, Microsoft Dynamics 365, NPM, Salesforce, Storybook, Zendesk, and others.

Justinmind has swiftly and steadily progressed to a full-blown UI/UX design platform. It’s fascinating to note that developers and designers used Justinmind to develop the entire Justinmind website and product portfolio, showing that the founding team has considerable faith in their technology. 

Why I picked Justinmind: I love the responsive features that Justinmind offers. Liquid layouts are one such feature that allows you to define “liquid” containers for elements to adapt to various screen sizes, aspect ratios, or device orientations. Additionally, the auto-resize feature ensures that UI elements on a mobile or web app automatically resize to deliver a good user experience.

Furthermore, Justinmind features an instant preview feature that is extremely handy for simulating prototype behaviors, while you design a website or application. Justinmind gives you supreme control over responsive designing via breakpoints - predefined “points” for your website’s content to adapt. Lastly, Justinmind also supports exporting into HTML, PNG, SVG, TIFF, and JPG formats.

Justinmind Standout Features and Integrations

Features include responsive prototyping, wireframing, rapid prototyping, smart templates, mobile transitions and gestures, animations, conditional logic, variables, functional fields, data grids, real data testing, design handoff, user management, and others.

Integrations include 10+ tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Azure DevOps, Clicktale, Figma, Jira, Sketch, UserZoom, and others.

Figma took the design world by storm thanks to their revolutionary all-in-one platform that offers rapid prototyping, a wireframing tool, UI/UX design, brainstorming, and so much more. Figma created the very first design tool combining the versatility of the web with a native app’s functionality. Fast forward to the present, and Figma doesn’t fail to impress with excellent features like smart animations and advanced transitions.

Why I picked Figma: I’m a massive fan of low-code and no-code tools, especially in this age and time of artificial intelligence (AI) intervention. Figma helps product managers create impressive prototypes without demanding any innate coding expertise. As a result, you can quickly translate great ideas into incredible functional and interactive prototypes. Figma’s advanced transitions give you a unique touch to prototypes. Throw dynamic overlays into the mix, and your prototypes are responsive and ready for handoff.

With Figma, your rapid prototyping gets faster. You can easily drag and “connect” buttons and elements to apply complex overlays and conditions. Moreover, you can define subtle yet critical interactions like hovers and clicks, etc.

Figma Standout Features and Integrations

Features include UI/UX design, wireframing, diagramming, brainstorming, agile workflows, strategic planning, rapid prototyping, a drag-and-drop interface, real-time collaboration, auto layouts, plugins and widgets, hotspots, transitions, components, and more.

Integrations include tools such as Axure, Bubble, Flinto, Maze, Microsoft Teams, Mixpanel, Pendo, Principle, Sprig, Zeplin, and others.

Webflow’s vision is to create the world’s most robust no-code development tool so that non-technical stakeholders can produce professional designs irrespective of their product design expertise. Founded in 2013, Webflow has evolved into a comprehensive design platform with e-commerce, a CMS, and website editing features.

Why I picked Webflow: As a former product manager from a non-technical background, I strongly advocate for no-code and low-code design platforms. Webflow takes the sting out of writing huge chunks of code for implementing functional prototypes. 

Webflow is a massive blessing for e-commerce website prototyping. With Webflow, you can control criticalities like the online shopping cart, checkout flow, and the overall end-to-end shopping experience. Webflow also helps you master other aspects of an e-commerce business, like transactional emails and product information updates.

Webflow Standout Features and Integrations

Features include a visual canvas, content marketing, website publishing, SEO optimization, immersive interactions and animations, a CMS, and a comprehensive set of courses packed into Webflow University.

Integrations include 10+ tools such as Arengu, Chatwoot, Getform, Monto, Off Script, Pixie, Shopify, Zapier and others.

Sketch was born in 2010 in response to the founding team’s frustration with no tools available for UI design. Since then, Sketch has made tremendous strides in providing amazing design tools for freelancers and enterprises worldwide. Amongst its wide arsenal of design tools, Sketch’s interactive website prototyping is a must-use feature.

Why I picked Sketch: I love the firepower and sheer simplicity of Sketch. With Sketch, you can effortlessly build user journeys by connecting screens and UI elements. You can reuse UI elements and interactions instead of building from scratch every time. I love the multiple start-point feature that allows you to showcase several user flows and ideas to clients.

Sketch helps create authentic interactions powered by hotspots that allow you to make entire sections clickable instead of single elements. As a result, your mobile app rapid prototyping gains a unique edge. To create interactive website prototypes, Sketch ships unique interactions like fade-in and slide-up to improve user engagement. Lastly, Sketch has a native macOS app that allows users to leverage the Apple ecosystem for added productivity and personalization.

Sketch Standout Features and Integrations

Features include A/B testing, overlays, rapid prototyping, user journeys, a native macOS app, and a component web view - a comprehensive view of all colors, symbols, text & layer styles, font embedding, corner controls, and others.

Integrations include 15+ tools, such as Abstract, Flinto, Flow, InVision, Marvel, Maze, Origami, Plant, ProtoPie, Prott, Zeplin, and others.

ProtoPie's tagline is 'Deliver Prototypes Easy as Pie.' The team behind ProtoPie strives to create design tools that everybody can use. Since its inception, ProtoPie has evolved into a robust, rapid prototyping tool catering to various industries, including automotive, gaming, smartphones, smartwatches, and TVs.

Why I picked ProtoPie: Back in the day, I used to game a lot, and my product manager's idiosyncrasies always got me thinking about how developers would test something so intricate, like a whole virtual world and characters and conversations within a game. Enter ProtoPie, which helps with the rapid prototyping of games for desktops, mobile devices, and even consoles like the PS5 and Xbox. 

With ProtoPie, you can create immersive prototypes for any gamepad. ProtoPie enables you to define dynamic interactions like variables, logic, and formulae. Variables help keep track of a game's score or a character's health. 

ProtoPie Standout Features and Integrations

Features include rapid prototyping, interactive text input, AI voice assistant, photo gallery, scrolling and swiping interaction design, UI animation, ping and rotate interactions, draggable drawer, sound triggers, and more.

Integrations include software design tools like Adobe XD, Figma, Sketch and hardware devices like Arduino, Logitech G29 steering wheel, and others.

Proto.io strives to improve product development by creating easy-to-use design tools for wireframing and prototyping. With Proto.io, you can effortlessly and swiftly create Windows, iOS, and watchOS prototypes topped with visually stunning UI elements.

Why I picked Proto.io: Proto.io has staggering numbers as the tool offers 250+ UI elements, 1,000+ templates, and over 6,000 digital assets. Consequently, you can quickly draw inspiration instead of reinventing the wheel. 

With Proto.io, you can create functional prototypes brimming with life thanks to over 80 events like on mouse-over, on-screen show, on tap, etc., to define custom behaviors. Additionally, Proto.io offers great transitions and animations to create realistic prototypes.

Proto.io Standout Features and Integrations

Features include UI/UX design, wireframing, mockup design, rapid prototyping, a drag-and-drop interface, advanced animations and interactions, a great UI component library, customized events, custom font uploads, and others.

Integrations include Adobe Fonts, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Figma, Google Fonts, Sketch, and others.

Framer strongly advocates for building a web platform that enables users to create amazing websites. Starting from a JavaScript library, Framer has quickly become a full-fledged web-based design tool. Framer sports the motto, 'Zero code, maximum speed,' and offers easy-to-use website prototyping features.

Why I picked Framer: With Framer, you have several animations and effects at your fingertips. A popular animation includes the “appear” animation, which lets you animate a specific element while a page loads. Framer also features a Content Management System (CMS), which is particularly helpful if you have a blog on your digital product's roadmap.

Framer's eye for detail amazes me. With Framer's freeform design canvas, you can control minute details like the scroll type and scroll speed to create a stunning interactive website prototype. I love tweaking the 'scale' and 'rotate' attributes from the scroll transform settings to impart a unique zing to websites. 

Framer Standout Features and Integrations

Features include interactive effects, powerful layouts, parallax scrolling, easy linking, overlays, a CMS, rollbacks, custom domains, staging, web page optimization, smart components, and others.

Integrations include tools such as Formspark, Google Optimize, Hubspot, Intercom, Logo, Mailchimp, Typeform and others.