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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Balsamiq

    Score7.6 out of 10
    N/ABalsamiq is a wireframing tool that helps lean product teams turn early ideas into clear, actionable direction. The tool helps product managers, founders, and engineers worldwide share concepts, reduce rework, and build better products.

    $12

    per month (up to 2 projects)

    Figma

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AFigma, headquartered in San Francisco, offers their collaborative design and prototyping application to support digital product and UI development.

    $15

    per month per editor

    Pricing
    BalsamiqFigma
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Professional
    $144
    per year
    Organization
    $540
    per year
    Starter
    Free
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BalsamiqFigma
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsPay per project, not per user
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BalsamiqFigma
    Considered Both Products
    Balsamiq
    Chose Balsamiq
    Balsamiq is lagging a lot as compared to Figma but it's comparable with respect to MockFlow.

    Also, Figma is a full stack solution in designing and hence it was an overkill of my role. Balsamiq is easier to use & know in the industry and hence that helped in decision making.
    Incentivized
    Chose Balsamiq
    I use Balsamic for ideation, discussion, collaboration and proposals. It is super fast and easy to just drag UI components onto the canvas and move things around or delete things as you need. Its alignment tools are basic and good enough to get the job done. I would use Figma
    Incentivized
    Figma
    Chose Figma
    Figma just has way more features and is more intuitive and user friendly. It’s the tool we’re sticking with for the time being.
    Incentivized
    Chose Figma
    no comparison.
    Incentivized
    Chose Figma
    The detailing and extent of designs that are possible in Figma are unparalleled. Screen mirroring is one of the most used features as the others do not offer this. In terms of load time, responsiveness, lag etc. there is a marginal improvement. Figma works better even when the …
    Incentivized
    Chose Figma
    Figma does everything that I personally needed to do, and does all of those really well.
    If you're a UI / UX designer, there is nothing better out there. If you're a PM, you'll be working on this quite a bit, but this is definitely not the best wireframing tool.
    Incentivized
    Chose Figma
    Yes definitely, it is way easier to use and has way better collaboration compared to Adobe Illustration and Sketch. Figma has better integration with the development team as it can export code and maintain assets as well.

    Another big upside of Figma is prototyping, since the …
    Incentivized
    Chose Figma
    Figma provides a much better collaborating experience. For example, Adobe XD does not support simultaneous editing, and this is such a pain when teams are working together.
    Incentivized
    Chose Figma
    Online collaboration, file management, fast service, available on desktop and web, prototyping and creation tools. These are some of the important factors that make Figma very attractive. It's only a matter of time before they take over the top spot.
    Incentivized
    Chose Figma
    Figma had the most powerful features for custom built development. UXPin is still a good out of the box choice for teams that don't want to build or maintain their own library, but Figma is what we needed to build and present a new custom UI for our product.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    99%
    Would buy again
    194 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    171 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    188 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    99%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    118 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    133 Answers
    User Ratings
    BalsamiqFigma
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (31 ratings)
    9.0
    (201 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.6
    (33 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.5
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.1
    (17 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BalsamiqFigma
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Balsamiq
    Balsamiq is a great tool for quickly getting ideas into visual form. At first it seems like there are not that many UI assets, but this constraint actually adds to the speed. There are less things for you to fuss over, you can focus on getting your ideas down. This is a tool for lofi rough drawings not a tool for building beautiful prototypes for developers to code to. It is fantastic for ideation because you mostly just drag and drop components onto the canvas and move things around. It's great in a live workshop setting for that reason.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Figma
    Figma is a solid design tool to craft the UX design concepts/solutions for digital products. For printed marketing materials such as brochures, marketing flyers, press releases, etc, other design tools such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, or InDesign might make more sense to use for those use case scenarios.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Balsamiq
    • Easy to use
    • Produces good quality mock ups and prototypes
    • Mock ups are obviously only just mock ups (this is important as if users see mock-ups in HTML, for example, they tend to think the system is ready to use or not far off)
    • Has a good selection of standard shapes that mock real world fields / controls
    • Allows not for profit organisations use it for free
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Figma
    • Detailed enough to create pixel perfect designs with total control over the outcome
    • Creating and implementing design systems to improve consistency and speed up design work
    • Robust prototyping tools to create simple animations or to connect various pages
    • I love autolayout, which improves design spacing and responsiveness
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Balsamiq
    • The sketch-like style can be off-putting to some stakeholders, and it’s not initially very clear that there is the option to turn this “off.” While I do think there is benefit to the default style, knowing from the start that this flexibility existed would have helped us be able to use this tool more often in the past and in different situations.
    • There are very limited collaborative functionalities. When it’s early in the design process, it’s often really helpful to have a number of people in the design to offer in-app feedback so the designer doesn’t have the burden of collecting feedback from many disparate sources in order to incorporate the feedback.
    • There are limited UI elements. As design evolves, there are more and more UI elements to consider, and many to stop using. Our Balsamiq wireframes would be a lot more effective in communicating design ideas to stakeholders if there was a wider range of UI elements to choose from.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Figma
    • Prototyping in Figma is pretty much nothing more than a glorified slide show. Sure, variables, etc are available but it takes way to long to set them up and even more time when there are revisions needed.
    • It would be helpful if there were a contextual help system for various functionality. For example, advanced autolayout (like space between) can become very tricky to implement sometimes. I often wish there were an AI assistant to ask for help. I often use ChatGTP to help me through these times.
    • Searching layers needs to be much easier and more intuitive.
    • I would like to be able to make groups like the layers palette in Photoshop. That would help with organization and speed a lot.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Balsamiq
    I'm not sure how else we would be able to complete our work without Balsamiq or another similar tool. All of my experience with Balsamiq has been positive and they continue to develop new features so that my job gets easier. I would be very surprised if we didn't renew Balsamiq
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Figma
    Figma is a pretty cool tool in many areas. My team almost uses it on daily basis, such as, brainstorming on product/design topics, discussing prototypes created by designers. We even use it for retrospectives, which is super convenient and naturally keeps records of what the team discusses every month. Furthermore, I do see the potential of the product - currently we mainly use it for design topics, but it seems it is also a good fit for tech diagrams, which we probably will explore further in the future.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Balsamiq
    Very intuitive and easy to understand. It only takes minutes to get the hang of it and get back to work. For new analysts (like, brand new, fresh out of school) it's not difficult and they need minimal to no hand-holding. The training content that is embedded is easy to find and use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Figma
    It's easy to use for designers who are familiar with design terms and functions from Photoshop and Illustrator. However, non-tech and non-designer collaborators have a hard time figuring out how to leave comments and apply changes, compared to other online design tools like Canva and Squarespace. Even simple drag-and-drops and rearrangement of certain blocks become too complicated due to uncommon functions like Hug and Lock.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Balsamiq
    No answers on this topic
    Figma
    The only regret I have is, its not available when there is no internet
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Balsamiq
    No answers on this topic
    Figma
    I think its great, As there are many other software or systems which can be integrated with it as plugins or API's
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Balsamiq
    We haven't had to use the support feature yet
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Figma
    I haven't used their support lately but in the past, they had a chat that I used often. They often responded in a few hours and were able to give a satisfactory solution. I would imagine it's less personal now but the community has expanded drastically so there are more resources out there to self serve with a bit of Google magic.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Balsamiq
    No answers on this topic
    Figma
    In-person training has its own benefits - 1. It helps in resolving queries then and there during the training. 2. I find classroom or in-person training more interactive. 3. Classroom or in-person training could be more practical in nature where participants can have an hands on experience with tools and clarify their doubts with the trainer.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Balsamiq
    No answers on this topic
    Figma
    Online training has its own merits and demerits - 1. Sometimes we may face issues with connectivity or the training content 2. The way training is being delivered becomes very important because not everyone is comfortable taking online training and learning by themselves. 3. With the advancement of technology online training has become popular but there is a segment of people who still prefer class-room training over online one.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Balsamiq
    Creating digital wireframes in Photoshop is a nightmare. Photoshop was not really designed for this purpose. It doesn't have good collaboration options and it doesn't allow pattern libraries, which are essential for consistency and efficiency. We use UXPin and Axure for some time, but found that these platforms were a bit bloated. Balsamiq is much simpler than any of these options. It's a perfect wireframing platform for non-designers or for designers that want to focus on content and element-placement prior to design
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Figma
    Figma compared to other tools has user friendly UI which is very easy for all levels of designers. Compared to Adobe XD and Sketch Figma is stable, while in other tools I have faced software crashing in the middle of the work which resulted in loss of data/design. Compared to other tools it's fast and shows less lag. Collaboration in Figma is very easy as it is cloud based but in XD it's not that smooth working with other designers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Balsamiq
    No answers on this topic
    Figma
    I think this is great and as I mentioned at ADP we use Figma extensively whether by designers, researchers or content writers
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Balsamiq
    • The product works very well for showing product owners and developers design ideas for purposes of discussion, debate and refinement.
    • The products also works very well for specifying new designs for developers. This is best done in a series of screens that show various screen states and user interactions.
    • I also use the products to document bugs in software products and websites we have developed. This includes outlining and documenting bugs and changes to user interactions and refinements to the usability of completed interfaces and user experiences.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Figma
    • Allows us to get funding for further phases of the project (which is uncountable)
    • Well, it lets us show off when needed due to well suited UI-oriented character
    • Easily approachable by anyone (browser use)
    • User friendly interface
    • More advanced cooperation requires some of the users to have a license
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Balsamiq Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Balsamiq user interfaceScreenshot of the commenting feature, which supports collaborationScreenshot of where to export wireframes to PDF and PNGScreenshot of where to add wireframes to Confluence pages to clarify ideas, make specs visual, and align teamsScreenshot of where to add wireframes to Jira issues to clarify specs, reduce rework, and help teams build the right thing