Wireframes help you quickly ideate and test your ideas. While paper wireframes are the fastest to create, digital wireframes look more polished and presentable. If you are looking for a pocket-friendly wireframing tool, look no further.
Whether you prefer browser-based apps or offline desktop tools, are working on a small or large project, or need to collaborate and share your work with others, there are plenty of free wireframing tools available. We’ve compiled a list to help you choose the right one, along with advantages and use cases for each one.
For the most part, you'll be able to work comfortably using the free versions. However, as your project grows, you may need to upgrade to unlock additional features or create more documents. If you are unsure which tool to choose, try a few of them to see what works best for you, your team, and your UX project.
Figma
All-in-one design tool
© Figma, Fair Use
Product Type: Browser-based app
Free Tier Limitations: One team with one project; 3 Figma Design files
Figma ranks among the most popular design tools in the market. The all-in-one platform allows you to create everything from clickable wireframes to high-fidelity prototypes and supports 30-day version history and unlimited cloud storage, all in the free plan. Figma offers both browser-based and desktop applications. You can also mirror and preview your designs on mobile devices in real time.
The Starter (free) plan provides one team with one project that includes 3 Figma Design files, plus unlimited personal drafts for private work. The plan places no restrictions on the number of editors or collaborators who can view, comment, or edit within these file limits.
Paid plans unlock unlimited files and projects, team libraries, and advanced prototyping features. Higher-tier plans offer organization-level design systems, centralized admin controls, and plugin management for larger teams.
Penpot
All-in-one design tool
© Penpot, Fair Use
Product Type: Browser-based app
Free Tier Limitations: None for core features
Penpot is an open-source project that involves the entire product team in the design process. It includes all the tools designers need to create pixel-perfect UIs and interactive, shareable prototypes. The platform supports flexible layouts with CSS Grid and Flexbox, design systems, components, variants, custom fonts, and animated transitions. Real-time multiplayer editing and code inspection features bridge design-to-code workflows for seamless collaboration between designers and developers.
You can host the application on your own server to maintain complete control over the software and your data. The cloud-hosted version offers a free plan with full features that supports small teams and unlimited viewers.
Penpot commits to keeping its core platform and self-hosted option free forever for individuals and small teams. The project sustains itself through paid cloud-hosted plans for larger organizations that need additional storage, extended version history, advanced security features, and premium support. Organizations can also purchase add-ons for specialized capabilities and compliance requirements.
Miro
Collaborative whiteboard
© Miro, Fair Use
Product Type: Browser-based app
Free Tier Limitations: 3 editable boards
Miro is an AI-enabled virtual whiteboard where teams collaborate and design in real time. The platform features realistic sticky notes, a built-in wireframe library, and a mind-mapping tool. It's essentially a supercharged whiteboard for design, brainstorming, and wireframing. It offers extensive built-in templates and integrations with popular tools like Slack, Google Drive, Adobe Creative Cloud, Trello, and Zapier, among many others.
The free version supports unlimited team members but limits users to 3 editable boards at a time. You can create additional boards, but they become view-only until you archive or delete an active board.
Paid plans unlock unlimited editable boards, private boards, advanced meeting tools, and additional frameworks like Kanban for project management.
Wireframe.CC
Wireframing tool
© Wireframe.cc, Fair Use
Product Type: Browser-based app
Free Tier Limitations: Single-page wireframes only, no export or interaction features
Wireframe.cc appeals to designers who favor ultra-minimal and sleek interfaces. You can use the free version without any user account to create single-page wireframes with shareable URLs. The tool focuses on rapid, low-fidelity wireframing for quick concept sketches.
Premium accounts unlock clickable wireframes, multi-page projects, private wireframes with a dashboard, master pages, and export capabilities to PNG and PDF formats. Premium plans accommodate various team sizes, with higher tiers supporting unlimited users and projects. New users can access a trial period to explore premium features before committing to a paid plan.
Unlike other design tools, Wireframe.cc's interface lacks immediately visible toolbars. Instead, it provides context-sensitive tools that appear only when you click on an element or drag the mouse, which creates a distraction-free environment for focused wireframing work.
Cacoo
Diagramming tool
© Cacoo, Fair Use.
Product Type: Browser-based app
Free Tier Limitations: 6 sheets, PNG export only
Cacoo is a diagramming application that allows you to present your ideas visually. The platform stands out as one of the few products that support unlimited users in its free plan, which makes it valuable for team collaboration. Cacoo offers an extensive template library that includes wireframes for websites and apps, flowcharts, mind maps, and more. The tool integrates with several applications like Google Docs, Adobe Creative Cloud, AWS, Slack, Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, and Atlassian Confluence, among others.
The free plan limits users to 6 sheets and restricts exports to PNG format only. Paid plans unlock unlimited sheets, multiple export options including SVG, PDF, PowerPoint, and PostScript formats, revision history, and premium templates for more advanced diagramming needs.
Jumpchart
Website planning and project management tool
© Jumpchart, Fair Use
Product Type: Browser-based app
Free tier limitations: 1 project, 10 pages, 2 users, 10MB storage
Jumpchart helps you plan websites through sitemap creation, content management, and project collaboration. The platform focuses on information architecture and content organization before visual design begins. You can export your project to WordPress, Drupal, HTML, PDF, and CSV formats, which streamlines the handoff from planning to development.
The free plan limits users to 1 project with up to 10 pages, 2 collaborators, and 10MB of storage, suitable for testing a single small site or exploring the platform's capabilities.
Paid plans offer cost-effective options that expand project limits, increase page counts per project, add more users, and provide greater storage capacity. Higher-tier plans unlock additional features like version history and prioritized export options for professional workflows.
MockFlow
UI / screen design tool
© MockFlow, Fair Use
Product Type: Browser-based app (desktop apps for Mac and Windows available only with paid plans)
Free Tier Limitations: 1 project, 3 pages
MockFlow allows you to collaboratively create user interfaces with real-time editing and a large library of components. The platform provides tools for wireframing and whiteboarding, with a component-rich editor that focuses on UI design for websites and applications.
The free Basic plan limits users to 1 project with 3 pages total, which suits very small tests or single proof-of-concept ideas. This restriction makes upgrades necessary for most practical design work.
Paid plans unlock unlimited projects and pages, team component libraries, advanced UI templates, business integrations with tools like Slack and Jira, and full offline access through desktop applications. Editor plans provide the complete feature set needed for professional collaborative UI design work.
Wirefy
Functional wireframes
Product Type: Browser-based app
Free Tier Limitations: None
Wirefy helps you build functional wireframes through a content-first approach. Unlike browser-based design tools, this open-source framework requires you to download the files from the GitHub repository and work with them locally in your browser. You edit HTML and CSS directly to create responsive wireframes.
The philosophy behind Wirefy focuses on content structure and development speed. You need basic HTML and CSS knowledge to create wireframes with this tool. The advantage of this approach is that once you settle on the wireframes, the journey to the final deliverable becomes faster. Your base UI structure and content exist in code, ready for you to add the visual layer without translation from a design tool.
As an open-source project available under the MIT license, Wirefy provides a foundation for developers who prefer to wireframe directly in code rather than use visual design applications.
Draw.io
Diagramming tool
© Draw.io, Fair Use
Product Type: Browser-based app
Free
Draw.io is an open-source, browser-based diagramming application. It has a large library of shapes and templates to start with. If you are tired of creating new accounts for applications, you will love this tool: you do not need to register or log in. Draw.io prioritizes privacy and data ownership; it allows you to save data where you'd like to, and the app owners won't have access to it. You can save your files in XML format on Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or GitHub and open them with the application later.
Whimsical
Diagramming and wireframing tool
© Whimsical, Fair Use
Product Type: Browser-based app
Free Tier Limitations: 3 collaborative boards
Upgrade: Starts at $10 per editor/month
Whimsical is a browser-based collaborative brainstorming application equipped with built-in components and an icon library that you can use to create wireframes. It also has an AI-enabled mind-maps feature to help you get unstuck. It offers unlimited personal boards that you can export to high-resolution PDFs—a feature many tools often lock behind a paywall. The free version provides 3 collaborative boards with unlimited view-only guests, which might make this clean-look application good for small projects. You unlock more AI prompts and unlimited boards for $10/month.
More Tools
This list is by no means exhaustive. While we are certain that one of the tools above will fit your requirements, here are a few more that you can explore:
Pencil Project is an open-source GUI application you can download and use offline. You can download pre-built stencils and templates to help you create quick wireframes.
Mydraft.cc is an open-source wireframing tool that runs in a browser and does not require you to create an account. Your files live online, and you will need to save the URL of your projects to retrieve them.
You may have noticed that some major names are missing from this list (Balsamiq, Axure, Gliffy, UXPin, Moqups, Adobe XD, Sketch—to name a few). This round-up looked at 10 free wireframing tools. If budget isn’t a constraint, then you can certainly give one of the paid applications a shot—each has a limited-duration free trial so that you can evaluate the product before you purchase it.
If you think there are any others we’ve missed, please let us know on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We’d love to know what you’re using at the moment.
Images
Hero Image: Aurimas, CC BY-ND 2.0
