As the saying goes, “What’s seen is sold” refers to the idea that users demand what pleases the eye. Sure, a digital product’s functionality is essential, but that doesn’t mean the interface can look cluttered, the fonts can be all over the place, and the buttons can be inconsistent.
The user interface should treat sore eyes while making the digital experience intuitive. The landscape of UI design is ever-changing, and now we have tools to help us design UI that make our jobs much more manageable.
9 UI Tools That Dominate Past, Present, and the Future
Here’s a list of 9 beat UI design tools (in no particular order) to ace the UI game in 2025.
1. Figma – The Collaborative Powerhouse
Open any list of UI design tools, and you are bound to spot Figma in that list because this tool has taken the world by storm. A browser-based interface design tool used to create, collaborate, prototype, and handoff.
It’s known for its collaborative tool, FigJam, an online whiteboard tool for collaborative ideation, brainstorming, and workshops.
Figma is a vector graphics editor; it should be your pick if you’re looking for an all-in-one tool that will get your back from start to finish, whether it’s ideation or interactive prototyping.
Key Features:
- Modern Pen Tool: With these tools, designers can draw in any direction with Vector Networks. There’s no need to merge or connect to the path’s original point.
- Arc Tool: Designing circular shapes like clocks, wheels, or pie charts becomes easy with the arc tool.
- OpenType: Chuck those conventional font styles and use advanced font features that go well with your brand’s messaging.
- Auto Layout: Helps make design responsive and has flexible styles you can apply across all your UI design software.
- Ready-made Libraries: Access libraries that comprise ready-made assets and plug-ins that you can simply drag and drop into your design files.
Best For:
- Developers who can get code snippets for CSS, iOS, and Android as handoffs.
- Design teams with multiple designers who want to work on a project simultaneously through embedded commenting functionality for a collaborative design process.
Pricing:
Starter Team | Professional Team | Organisation | Enterprise |
Free | $15/ Monthly | $45/ Monthly | $75/ Monthly |
2. Adobe XD – Seamless Integration with Adobe Suite
Adobe XD is another vector-based UI design software encompassing all the tools and features a designer will need to create a collaborative design and prototypes.
People choose this software over others because they get a complete software suite in Adobe Creative Cloud, which can be used on Windows and Mac.
Key Features:
- Drag and drop editor tool: Vector-based tools with unlimited artboards and smart guides that you can simply drag and drop in your existing design, and there’s some object or element for all sorts of designs.
- Ready-made components: UI kits with ready-made components are available for Apple Design, Google Material Design, Amazon Alexa, and more.
- 3D elements: 3D transforms that help you provide depth and stimulation to objects.
- Components for iterative design: If you wish to scale your design, iterate them and work intuitively to apply changes across the entire design instantly without manually implementing all the detailed changes.
- Voice prototypes: Nowadays, design has voice commands with built-in speech playback and integrated voice-enabled features.
Best For:
Animators that need animation functionalities such as video and Lottie playback, micro-animations and motion effects.
Shareholders that need interactive prototypes as handoffs to approve the initial ideas of developers and designers.
Pricing:
Adobe XD is no longer available for purchase as a single application but will continue to be supported for existing users. However, you can sign up for the Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps Subscription.
Monthly | Annual, paid monthly | Annual, prepaid |
6945.48/ Monthly (INR) | 1915.14/ Monthly (INR) | 21070.08/ Yearly (INR) |
3. Sketch – A Mac-Lover’s Favorite
Alert for all macOS users: Sketch is here; it’s a powerful and flexible UI UX design tool that is used for wireframing, prototyping, and design handoff, which is everything that one needs to bring designs into existence.
For a collaborative design that’s ideal for both beginner and experienced designers. There are focused tools, an intuitive interface, and an infinite Canvas with zero distractions.
Key Features:
- Editable boolean operations: Intuitive vector editing tools and editable boolean operations for iterative design.
- Infinite design canvas: Flexible artboards, design presets, customisable grids and simple resizing tools on an infinite design canvas allow you to scale your designs to any screen size.
- Variable and OpenType fonts: These fonts provide infinite control over your interface typography.
- Cross-platform tools: This tool is ideal for real-time collaboration, sharing feedback, and creating developer handoffs.
Best For:
- Shorthand and maths operators to speed up the design process.
Pricing:
You can try Sketch with a free trial of 30 days.
Standard Subscription | Mac-only License | Business Subscription |
$10/ Monthly | $120/ Yearly | $22/ Monthly |
4. Framer – Ideal for Interactive Prototyping
Framer provides an infinite canvas with modern layout, styling, and typography features. Designing websites and publishing them in one place becomes a cakewalk with Framer.
Framer Academy also helps you master the fundamentals and become the master of software, how to start with a template and then level up with the plug-ins later.
Key Features:
- Design on a real canvas: Framer provides a true design canvas, not just a visual HTML editor. Instead of designing a picture of a website that you need to rebuild later, you design something real with all the styling and typography.
- Freeform Canvas: Designing breakpoints side by side that are real and connected and are still on the freeform canvas. They are perfect for every screen size with grids and stacks, their intuitive auto layout equivalent.
- Add advanced features: In seconds, you can add appear effects, text effects, parallax scrolling, scroll animations, looping animations, and much more.
Best For:
Designers who want to add interactive elements and outshine competitors’ websites.
Pricing:
Startup | Scaleup | Enterprise |
2700/ Monthly (INR) | 7200/ Monthly (INR) | Custom Pricing |
5. Miro – Best for Prototyping and Collaboration
Previously known as inVision, Miro is a powerful web-based screen design tool very popular among UI UX designers. You can upload static design files to create prototypes, and the software will turn those into high-fidelity prototypes.
Key Features:
- Collaborative Designs: Clients and other team members can directly collaborate by commenting on shareable boards; everybody can view everybody’s contribution in real time.
- Seamless crossover: Always keeping up with the latest technology, the Craft Prototype feature allows seamless crossover between Sketch and Miro. The cherry on top is that it’s free to sign up.
- Compatibility: Both macOS and Windows users can use the software with rapid prototyping features and built-in animations.
Best For:
- Design teams working on user flows and feedback loops for validation.
Pricing
Starter | Business | Enterprise |
$8/ Monthly | $16/ Monthly | Custom Pricing |

6. Axure RP – Advanced UX Prototyping
Axure RP comes with detailed specifications that come in handy when designing wireframes, and prototypes and documenting the process of design projects. Dynamic and conditional interactions are what Axure RP is known for.
Key Features:
- Adaptive views: Develop interactive and dynamic prototypes with conditional logic and variables.
- Automated documentation: It supports collaborative editing while documenting specifications, and prototyping can be as detailed as a project demands.
Best For:
UI UX designers working at levels of business.
Pricing
Axure RP Pro | Axure RP Team | Axure for Enterprise |
$29/ Monthly | $49/ Monthly | Custom Pricing |
7. Balsamiq – Quick and Easy Wireframing
Next up, we have Balsamiq to create efficient mock-ups. When sketching on a whiteboard and timing your speed while creating a prototype on Balsamiq, the time difference won’t be much. This software is fast and easy to use, with its UI components library and icons.
Key Features:
- Drag and Drop functionality: Different ready-made UI elements, such as icons and animations, can be easily dragged and dropped in the design.
- Sketch-style wireframes: Wireframes have a sketch-style look for a low-fidelity look and feel needed in the early concept development stage.
Best For:
Product Managers to create mock-ups.
Pricing
Business | Enterprise |
$12/ Monthly | $18/ Monthly |
8. UXPin – Bridging Design and Development
A UI and UX design platform that is well equipped with creating interactive prototypes which doesn’t require coding skills. The interface is easy to learn for beginners and has ready-to-use design components that can eventually help create design systems.
Key Features:
- It works well with both Mac and Windows and even in the browser.
- A bunch of AI-powered features to speed up and automate the design process.
Best For:
Teams focusing on a design-to-code approach.
Pricing
Essentials | Advanced | Merge AI | Company |
$6/ Monthly | $29/ Monthly | $39/ Monthly | $119/ Monthly |
9. Uizard – Best for Micro-Interactions and Motion Design
Uizard helps you turn product ideas into concepts fast with GenAI; this is apt for designers without advanced design expertise. With an extremely low learning curve, Uizard can be used for ideation, low-fidelity wireframing, rapid prototyping, UI styling and real-time collaboration.
Key Features:
- Gen AI: The powerful range of AI features and functionality facilitates design.
- Low learning curve: If you know software like Google Slides, Keynote, or PowerPoint, you can easily learn Uizard in no time.
Best For:
Designers and Product teams who want to create realistic app prototypes.
Pricing
Pro | Business | Enterprise |
$12/ Monthly | $39/ Monthly | Custom Pricing |

In Conclusion
UI is just one aspect of the digital product. However, most of the design tools we’ve mentioned are end-to-end platforms with all the workflow features. In the age of automation, performing tasks manually is considered a waste of time. Design agencies use these tools to make their tasks easy and draw inspiration from them to create unique design systems.
Contact Yellow Slice for your next project and see us using the top market tools for efficient collaboration and outstanding results. Top brands have trusted us with their digital products, and we’ve not failed even one of them; let’s add your business to the successful endeavour list, too.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. As a beginner, which UI design tool is best?
Tools like Figma, Adobe XD, and Balsamiq for beginners can be the first choices. Figma was picked for its intuitive interface and real-time collaboration tool, so any beginner can figure out Figma quickly.
Adobe XD is usually preferred. It comes with the whole suite of Adobe software, making it easy for users to learn this because people usually use some Adobe software from before.
Balsamiq doesn’t deal with complex design elements; hence, it is the perfect choice for beginners.
2. What factors should I look for while choosing a UI design tool?
A good UI design should be,
- Easy to use
- Offering collaboration
- Providing responsive design support
- Able to integrate with other design and development tools
- Economical for all sizes of firms
- Used for end-to-end processes from ideation to prototyping
The choice of tool depends on your priorities. While selecting the tool, make sure you are clear with those, and then go on to select a tool.