As of 2024 the number of websites worldwide has surpassed 1 billion, and on average more than 252,000 websites are created daily.
Being a high-in-demand job or simply having a passion for it, might have made you decide to join the caravan of web designers and developers, and now you are looking for the tools you need to be equipped with during this exciting journey.
Within this comprehensive guide, we've selected an extensive collection of free web design resources, covering a broad range of elements, including graphic design, coding, inspiration, and testing.
This listicle features 50 best picks for web professionals across the different web categories below:
While most of these web design resources are free to use, some are premium products but offer free usage with limited capabilities.
Canva has revolutionized graphic design for non-designers. It offers a vast library of templates for web graphics, social media visuals, and more. With its user-friendly interface, you can create stunning visuals effortlessly.
Vecteezy offers an extensive collection of free vector graphics, illustrations, and clipart for enhancing your design projects.
Unsplash is a treasure trove of high-quality, free-to-use images and videos that can add visual appeal to your various creative projects. It is a valuable resource for designers, marketers and content creators worldwide.
Coolors is a super-fast color schemes generator, perfect for creating harmonious and visually appealing color palettes.
Pexels is another outstanding source for high-resolution, free stock images and videos to enhance your web projects. Pexels is a valuable go-to for professionals and creatives seeking high-resolution visuals without the burden of licensing fees.
The Adobe Color Wheel is an excellent resource for selecting harmonious color palettes for your websites, ensuring that your design elements mesh seamlessly.
Adobe Express makes it easy to create videos by combining different elements like videos, images, animations, and sound. With the help of Adobe Firefly's generative AI, you can streamline your workflow and finish tasks quickly using the all-in-one editor.
Google Fonts provides a rich collection of free and open-source fonts that can be easily integrated into your web designs, adding personality and uniqueness to your text.
Font Awesome offers a comprehensive collection of scalable vector icons that can be customized and integrated seamlessly into your web projects.
Figma is a versatile, cloud-based design tool that allows for real-time collaboration on web design prototypes and mockups, making it a go-to choice for design teams. If you’re already using it, here you will find a very useful list of Figma plugins you need to have to enhance your design process.
CodePen is an online code editor that's perfect for front-end developers. It enables you to experiment with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code snippets and share your creations with the community.
GitHub is the ultimate platform for version control and collaboration on coding projects. Whether you're working solo or with a team, it's an indispensable resource for developers.
CodeSandbox is an online editor tailored for web application development, making it easy to create, share, and collaborate on projects.
Stack Overflow is a thriving Q&A community where you can find solutions to coding problems, share your expertise, and learn from experienced developers worldwide.
Tabnine is an AI-powered code completion tool that integrates with popular code editors to enhance coding productivity.
Mozilla's MDN Web Docs is a ‘treasure-house’ of in-depth web development documentation, tutorials, and guides, covering HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and much more.
W3Schools offers a comprehensive repository of web development tutorials and reference materials, making it an excellent resource for beginners and experienced developers alike.
Behance is a popular platform for showcasing and discovering creative web design and graphic design projects. It's a fantastic place to get inspired and see what's trending in the design world.
Awwwards recognizes and awards outstanding web designs, providing a constant source of inspiration and motivation for web designers seeking to push their creative boundaries.
Landdding serves as a hub for the design community, offering a platform to showcase and discover remarkable web design concepts effortlessly. Visitors can engage with various web design projects across categories like SaaS, agency, portfolio, design, and more by upvoting their favorites. By doing so, they contribute to these projects' chances of earning a prestigious community badge as one of the top three most-liked endeavors.
Reddit hosts several active communities related to web design, such as r/web_design and r/webdev, where you can engage with fellow designers, seek feedback, and stay updated on industry trends.
Dribbble is a community of designers showcasing their work, providing endless inspiration for web and graphic designers.
SiteInspire showcases the best web design inspiration, curated from a range of high-quality websites.
Miro is an online collaborative whiteboard platform that allows teams to brainstorm, plan, and collaborate on UI/UX designs in real-time.
InVision Freehand is a collaborative digital whiteboard that empowers designers to brainstorm, sketch, and create user interfaces together in real-time.
UserTesting offers a free trial for user testing and feedback on your web design prototypes, helping you fine-tune your user experience.
Balsamiq Wireframes is a valuable tool for creating wireframes and prototypes, allowing you to visualize the layout and functionality of your web pages before diving into development.
Bootstrap is a widely-used CSS framework that simplifies the process of building responsive and mobile-first web projects. Its pre-designed components and grid system are a game-changer.
Svelte is a modern JavaScript framework that shifts much of the work to compile time, resulting in highly optimized web applications.
jQuery is a fast and feature-rich JavaScript library that simplifies complex tasks like DOM manipulation and AJAX requests, making it a staple in many web developers' toolkits.
React, developed by Facebook and the open-source community, is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. Its component-based architecture makes it an excellent choice for creating interactive and dynamic web applications.
Vue.js is another JavaScript framework that focuses on building user interfaces. It's known for its simplicity and flexibility, making it an attractive option for web developers.
Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework that provides low-level CSS classes for building custom designs quickly.
Semantic UI is a sleek and intuitive CSS framework that emphasizes human-friendly HTML, making it easier to create beautiful and responsive web designs.
Google PageSpeed Insights is a handy tool for analyzing the performance of your web pages. It provides valuable suggestions for improving loading times and user experience.
Lighthouse is an open-source tool for auditing the performance, accessibility, SEO, and more of web pages.
GTmetrix offers detailed insights and actionable recommendations for optimizing your website's speed and overall performance. It's a must-have resource for ensuring your site loads quickly and efficiently.
BrowserStack allows you to test your website on various browsers and devices to ensure compatibility and functionality across the diverse landscape of the web.
WebPageTest offers detailed analysis and insights into web page performance, with testing across different browsers and locations.
Today with the increasing use of mobile devices, it's crucial to ensure your website is mobile-friendly. Google's Mobile-Friendly Test helps you determine if your site meets mobile usability standards.
Google Analytics is a powerful web analytics tool that provides detailed insights into your website's performance, user behavior, and traffic sources. It's an essential resource for data-driven decision-making.
Matomo is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics, offering similar features while allowing you to maintain full control over your data and privacy.
If you're using WordPress, Wordfence is a highly-rated security plugin that helps protect your site from malware, hackers, and other security threats.
Let's Encrypt is a free, automated, and open Certificate Authority that provides SSL/TLS certificates for encrypting website traffic, enhancing security and trustworthiness.
Sucuri offers a free website security scanner and malware removal tool, helping you identify and eliminate security vulnerabilities.
HTML5 Boilerplate is a front-end template that includes best practices for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It promotes a solid foundation for secure and well-optimized websites.
Netlify offers free hosting for static websites with features like continuous deployment and serverless functions.
Vercel offers seamless deployment and hosting for modern web applications, with features like serverless functions and edge caching.
If your website is open-source and hosted on GitHub, you can use GitHub Pages to host it for free.
Firebase Hosting provides fast and secure static and dynamic web hosting services with global CDN and seamless integration with other Firebase products.
Heroku offers a free plan for hosting web applications. It's a great choice for developers looking to deploy web projects quickly.
In the dynamic world of web design, staying well-equipped with a diverse range of free resources is essential for success. Whether you're a newcomer or a seasoned pro, these tools and platforms can help you design, develop, and optimize websites that captivate and engage users.
From graphic design and coding to inspiration, testing, and security, the vast array of free web design resources presented in this comprehensive guide empowers you to create websites that not only meet but exceed industry standards.
By harnessing the power of these resources, continuously learning, experimenting, and pushing the boundaries of your creativity, you'll be well on your way to mastering the art of web design. With these tools at your disposal, your web design journey is bound to be a thrilling and successful one.
Lastly, as a bonus for reaching the end of this tool guide, check out this useful list of Chrome extensions, and enrich your web browsing experience. For more articles and the latest trends in web design, follow our socials and visit our blog section.