Is the expense of constantly having to update your web design software getting you down? Are you sick of waiting for massive updates to download, interrupting your workflow and causing you delays?

You aren’t alone! This is a common problem for web designers.

Fortunately, for the modern web designer these constant time and money wasters no longer have to be part of everyday life. There are scores of excellent, free web design programs, which negate the expense of updating your software. There are also many web-based tools you can use in lieu of programs you must download to your computer, which eliminates the frustrating wait for updates to download and install.

Today’s post features a few examples of free web design software and web-based applications that will help you make your creativity a reality and do so without money out of your pocket or time spent waiting for those endless software updates to download.

Let’s get started!

Never Pay for Image Editing Software Again

For 25 years, Photoshop has been the standard bearer of image editing quality. However, as we discussed in a previous post, there are a lot of great Photoshop alternatives out there, many of which are free. Now that Photoshop is a cloud-based, monthly subscription service, free software is an especially good deal.

Pixlr

Pixlr is a great option for web designers that just need to occasionally fine-tune photos and graphics for their designs. There are iOS and Android versions for on-the-go editing convenience. With intuitive tools, vast editing capabilities, and a layout that is similar to Photoshop, it is an excellent program to try. Want to know the best part?

Pixlr is free and web-based, so it offers the best of both worlds!

Cost: Free
Compare to: Adobe Photoshop
Format: Web-based, iOS, and Android

Sumopaint

An incredibly lightweight and fast browser-based program, Sumopaint is highly versatile for painting as well as image editing. There are a variety of tools and adjustments available, from colors and gradients to brushes and pencils to shapes and text. It is an excellent option for editing images for web use, as its only output is RGB. The option to save your work to the cloud is a handy feature as well.

Cost: Free for the basic version
Compare to: Adobe Photoshop
Format: Web-based, but requires Flash

GIMP

Most designers would identify GIMP as their go-to Photoshop alternative. While you have to download it to your machine, and thus deal with updates from time to time, it is a free program, which is nice. GIMP is offered in multiple platforms (Mac, Windows, and Linux) as well, and offers all the essential tools you need to edit photos and graphics for your website.

Cost: Free
Compare to: Adobe Photoshop
Format: Mac, Windows, and Linux

Make Amazing Graphics for Free

Just like with image editing, there are dozens of excellent, free web design programs and web-based apps out there to help you make graphics for your website designs, from buttons and icons to header images and infographics. But it gets better:

These programs can easily replace standard (and expensive) graphics programs like Photoshop and Illustrator.

Canva

Canva is a web-based application with many free features. You can create various sized graphics, from those perfect for the square-shaped world of Instagram to images flawlessly sized for a Facebook cover photo. There are thousands of free photos, graphics, icons, and fonts for you to use in creating your designs. Thousands more fee-based elements are available as well. The best part about Canva is that in addition to being free, it is web-based. No pesky updates or expensive software to purchase here!

Cost: Free (with other fee-based features)
Compare to: Adobe InDesign
Format: Web-based

Inkscape

Free to download on Windows and Linux, Inkscape is an excellent alternative to expensive web design software like Adobe Illustrator. Inkscape offers some advanced tools that other free graphics design software lacks, such as cloning, markers, and alpha blending. It also includes full support for different color modes, traceable bitmaps, and native support for Illustrator files. The simple and straightforward interface is a nice touch as well.

Cost: Free
Compare to: Adobe Illustrator
Format: Windows and Linux

Blender

If creating 3-D graphics is your specialty, consider the free, open-source program Blender. This powerful program allows you to create 3-D components from start to finish, including modeling, rigging, simulation, animation, and motion editing. Ultra realistic rendering makes your graphics photo-quality. It’s intuitive, and fast modeling tools make the workflow a breeze as well. You can even use Blender create games and videos!

Cost: Free
Compare to: Adobe Illustrator
Format: Mac, Windows, and Linux

Coding Has Never Been This Easy

Hopefully you haven’t been sucked into the idea that as a web designer you have to also code. There are many reasons why designers shouldn’t code, not the least of which is that it seems like every time you open your text editor there is some massive update that must be downloaded. But if you weren’t able to escape having to code, there is good news:

There are many free and/or web-based tools you can use instead of cluttering your desktop with a bunch of programs or waiting for endless updates to download and install.

CodeAnywhere

A slick online platform for coding and development, CodeAnywhere offers a number of valuable features, including the ability to share your work with others and collaborate on projects. Their integrated code editor is a nice touch, even for the designer that only periodically needs to mess around with coding. CodeAnywhere also syncs with Dropbox and Google Drive, so all your files are right there at your fingertips, no matter where you are in the world.

Cost: Free (with a basic membership)
Compare to: Adobe Dreamweaver, Komodo Edit, TextWrangler, Notepad ++
Format: Web-based

JSFiddle

If you long to create CSS, HTML, or JavaScript and then be immediately able to see the results, JSFiddle is the application for you. You can easily write and execute code, debug, and collaborate with others. Sharing your work is super easy, making it less of a hassle to get help when you encounter errors. And since it’s web-based, there’s no worry about updating any software!

Cost: Free
Compare to: Dreamweaver, Komodo Edit, TextWrangler, Notepad ++
Format: Web-based

Do It All: Design, Develop, and Deploy Websites With Ease

In recent years, browser-based website design has become more and more prevalent. Applications like Macaw, and Adobe Edge are recent additions to the genre, but all require a one-time or monthly fee to use their services. Old standards like WordPress continue to be popular web design programs, as do website builders like IM Creator, Wix, and SquareSpace.

WordPress

WordPress began as a few lines of code, evolved into a self-hosting blogging platform, and is now the most widely used Content Management System in the world. It made website design much more accessible to average people, in addition to giving trained web designers greater flexibility in the services they offer their clients.

With thousands of pre-made templates that can be relatively easily customized and thousands more plug-ins available to take care of tasks from SEO to spellchecking, building a website with WordPress is a great choice for web designers of all skill levels to create beautiful, functional websites. Created to be intuitive and design-friendly, WordPress is also much easier for web designers to use than Drupal or Joomla, both of which are far more development-oriented.

Cost: Free to download; themes, plugins, and other expenses may be incurred
Compare to: Drupal, Joomla
Format: Web-based

Website Builders

The beauty of website builders like IM Creator is this:

They are all-in-one website creation platforms!

Everything you need to create a gorgeous, image-rich website is right at your fingertips. There’s no need to download text editors to edit HTML or CSS. Likewise, there is no need for FTP programs to transfer files back and forth. Using web-based apps to check standards compliance or figure out how to add Google fonts is totally unnecessary as well because IM Creator takes care of that too.

There are a host of other handy features built right in. IM Creator has a huge catalogue of pre-made site templates that can be pre-populated for fast publishing. If you want to create your own template you can do that as well. With a drag and drop editor built right into the interface, you can easily add images, text, and menus and move them wherever you want on the screen.

Likely the best feature of website builders is that there is no need to purchase software and no need to wait for programs to download. There are no annoying updates that interrupt your creative workflow either. Additionally, unlike WordPress, which requires constant updates to the framework, themes, and plugins, website creators handle that all on their own, which by itself demonstrates that website builders are a better choice than WordPress. Everything you need to create a website, from design and development to e-mail, hosting, and deploying the site, is all encapsulated within the website builder. You can just focus on design!

Cost: Free to try
Compare to: Wix, Squarespace
Format: Web-based

Conclusion

Starting your own web design business is difficult enough. There’s no need for you to waste your precious time and money buying and downloading programs to your computer when you can utilize the free web design resources and web-based applications available to you on the Web. Each program and application listed here has distinct advantages for website designers of all experience levels and offer great value above and beyond traditional website design tools.

What are your favorite free web design resources or web-based applications? Let us know by leaving a comment below. And for more great tips and insights on how to make your web design business thrive, be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter!

Image Credits:

Chumby, Downloading Software 2 by Andreas Pizsa via Flickr Creative Commons