One thing we can count on in the New Year is that the number of web design resources and tools available will keep on increasing. That’s good, but it does mean that it will be just that much more difficult to find a plugin, theme, or resource you really need to help you create websites that will keep up with or leapfrog the competition.
The good news is, to make your search as easy as possible we have reviewed and tested multiple web design tools and resources that we believe you and other users, designers, or developers would have a genuine need for.
Our final list of 15 best web design tools and resources for 2024 is divided into five distinct categories consisting of:
- WordPress themes for building engaging high-conversion rate websites and online stores.
- website building tools for building sections, landing pages, and multiple-page websites quickly and without requiring any coding.
- Vector illustrations that can add a bit of whimsy or entertainment into a website.
- WordPress plugins for incorporating otherwise difficult to design but potentially game-changing functionalities into websites.
- font identifiers to identify a “must have” font.
A majority of these web design resources and tools have a free or trial version.
They are:
What important attributes do these Top Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies have in common?
- They look premium. There is something about each one that might make you wish you had acquired it long ago, e.g., how easy it will be to work with.
- They are intuitive. Through each phase of their use, anything and everything you need is placed when and where it should be.
- They add real value. They help you secure higher paid assignments by enabling you to deliver web design projects faster, make your final deliverables more attractive, or both.
Top 15 Web Design Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies
To help you in your research, we’ve included top features, customer average grade on non-biased platforms such as WordPress.org, Capterra, or Trustpilot, and client feedback.
Let’s get with it.
Brizy is the ideal website builder for Agencies and Web Designers looking for a White Label solution to expand their business.
Brizy’s top feature is its 100% customizable White Label solution that enables designers or developers to add their own builder name, domain URL, builder log, About link, support link, and project subdomain so their customers will be using the designer’s/developer’s builder.
Brizy Builder’s library of demo/template/prebuilt websites is another highly popular feature. Brizy Coworking Workspace is one of the 5 most downloaded pre-built websites. It is attractive and offers an ideal foundation for any business interested in designing office workspace solutions.
There’s more to like as well. New users quickly become aware of Brizy’s intuitiveness, and the ability to modify any kind of content in place. Many competing builders force their users to create their content in a disjointed sidebar. That’s not the case with Brizy.
Product Rating: 4.6/5 on Trustpilot
Customer Highlight: “I was looking for a solution to prepare websites in a practical way for the clients my advertising agency serves. After researching many companies, I decided on Brizy’s White Label product. A great website tool with hundreds of different themes.”
Instant Support: Documentation, Useful Blog Posts, Brizy Academy and YouTube videos
The #1 Free Online Scheduling Solution for Businesses and Agencies
Adequate flexibility is always a must-have when selecting a theme or plugin. The top feature of this software solution, its powerful Multilingual Notifications System, highlights a special type of flexibility in that it gives Trafft’s users the ability to operate in multiple languages.
The Multilingual Notifications System:
- Enables effective management of events and appointments via email, WhatsApp messages and/or SMS.
- keeps clients up to date with respect to appointments and events status.
- enables its users to tailor alerts for specific services or events.
Thumbing through the Trafft library of prebuilt websites can be a revelation in terms of what a genuinely effective booking system might look like. The Divine Beauty and Spa prebuilt website is a case in point.
Features that users will notice once they start using Trafft include the power the customization options bring to the table together with the easy backend and frontend interface navigation.
Product Rating: 5 stars on Capterra
Customer Highlight: “It has a great email set-up with preset ones that are all customizable and the ability to create your own. The dashboard makes access to everything quick and easy. It handles recurring appointments. It’s easy to set up and organize the services. They do coupons. Their support team has been great at helping me get oriented from my old booking app to theirs.”
Support: Trafft’s ticketing system. YouTube videos, support manual, email and social media.
wpDataTables is the best WordPress plugin for any enterprise or individual who needs to create tables and charts.
wpDataTable plugin’s top feature is its Multiple Database Connections capability. This specific feature is a data management breakthrough in that it converts tables into data hubs that are able to extract data from multiple sources.
wpDataTables’ simplification of certain complex data
management processes makes it easier for its clients to create responsive, custom, and easily editable charts and tables than would usually be the case. Templates can also have useful roles. The How to Create a MySQL Based Table template would be very useful to users that are facing this issue for the first time.
What new users quickly first take note include wpDataTables’:
- abundance of practical, user-friendly features.
- adroit management of complex data structures.
- incomparable data management functionality.
wpDataTables successfully handles a variety of client categories, such as:
- Chart engines for displaying data trends and comparisons for financial, marketing, and environmental uses.
- Distinct database connections for working with information from specialized database systems.
Product Rating: 4.5/5 on wordPress.org
Customer Highlight: “The plugin works great. If there was any problem with the implementation, the support of the plugin very helpfully solved everything to your full satisfaction. I recommend the plugin for purchase.”
Instant Support: Support manual, the Facebook community, and YouTube videos.
Uncode is the best multipurpose WordPress and WooCommerce theme for qualified designers and agencies looking for a go-to solution for any project.
While Uncode’s ensemble of website building tools and options would seem to more than justify its popularity, its users seem to agree that the design of its demos is its top feature. They note the exceptional attention to detail together with the fact that the demos can act as excellent sources of inspiration.
Uncode’s classic Digital Agency Portfolio is one of the 5 most downloaded demos, no doubt due to the wide range of uses it can be put to.
New clients quickly discover the value inherent in Uncode’s demos and wireframes, the level of customization, and the top-notch customer support should questions or problems arise.
Uncode’s principal users are:
- Freelancers and Agencies, because of the multitude of options that cover the needs of every user.
- Shop creators, who can easily make effective use of Uncode’s advanced WooCommerce features.
Product Rating: 4.89/5
Customer Highlight: “Special design theme, very interesting and unlimited creativity if you take the time to learn about it. Good code quality, very fast and accurate support.
Please continue your great work!”
Instant Support: Support manual, Facebook groups ,YouTube videos
LayerSlider, the #1 WordPress slider plugin, streamlines the process of creating visually captivating websites.
Despite the simplicity of creating sliders and popups, it’s common for newly introduced features to swiftly become user favorites. That happened with the LayerSlider premium slider template when its parallax effect and text transitions became prominently displayed. Interactive Slider is an interactive fullscreen slider with an entirely custom navigation which is a perfect choice for blogs and other personal or commercial use focusing on travel.
LayerSlider’s popularity is fueled by the wide variety of features to build anything from simple sliders or slideshows to incorporating beautifully animated web content.
LayerSlider has its share of qualities that only users will be aware of, such as:
• the Project Editor that provides an easy way to bring your creative ideas to life.
• a complete suite of visual content creation online services without leaving the UI.
• having the tools necessary to design and create at your fingertips.
LayerSlider also really struts its stuff when used to create marketing materials with mind-blowing and customer-engaging effects in popups and banners.
Customer Highlight: “This slider plugin is amazing. It can do just about anything you can think of for slides. The dashboard is well designed and easy to use.”
Support: Built-in help in LayerSlider’s Project Editor, ticket system, support manual, email.
Amelia is the best WordPress plugin for agencies and business owners in need of a streamlined, user-friendly booking solution.
The Automated Notifications System, Amelia’s top feature, streamlines the booking process by making it easy to categorize appointments as pending, approved, cancelled, rejected, or rescheduled.
Amelia offers a number of templates that can be customized to help businesses grow. The Home Cleaning template illustrates how a template can be put to use to advertise a variety of business services.
Those new to Amelia could tell you what they quickly learned to like about Amelia, like its:
• ease of navigation, the innovativeness exhibited in the backend and frontend interfaces, and its user-friendly design.
• the value its transparent pricing policy offers.
• The range of customization options.
Programming agencies and developers could also profit from having Amelia in their design toolkits.
Product Rating: 4.8 on Capterra
Customer Highlight: “The Amelia plugin is awesome! I have been using it on many of my client’s websites and the experience could not be better. It’s very easy for any customer to book an appointment, pay and having the details of the meeting right on their google calendar. Also, amelia offers a ton of integrations such as with google meets, zoom and WhatsApp. The plugin is incredible and the team behind it is very friendly and always ready to help you out. Thank you!”
Instant Support: YouTube videos, Discord Group, and Support Manual
Slider Revolution is the best WordPress plugin for web designers, web shops, and small agencies tasked with creating eye-catching animated sliders.
Slider Revolution’s top feature is the ability it gives its users to visually create stunning animated effects for WordPress without any need for coding.
Despite its name, this WordPress plugin isn’t limited to creating sliders. With Slider Revolution at your fingertips, you can almost effortlessly:
- design eye-catching sections anywhere on your website.
- design home pages that absolutely nail it.
- create engaging portfolios worthy of a second look.
Slider Revolution’s library of 250+ templates can serve as a great source of inspiration to help you get started. The templates feature special effects not found on many websites and have been fully optimized for various screen sizes. As an example, the Claymorphism Carousel template is an excellent choice for adding an eye-catching element to a website.
Product Rating: 4.65/5 on Trustpilot
Customer Highlight: “This is a stunning tool. There are great templates that are easily modified to suit you. There’s a learning curve which should come as no surprise once you recognize its potential (and therefore yours.) I don’t know one line of code.”
Instant Support: Support manual and YouTube videos
Getillustrations is the best resource for web designers looking for top quality illustrations that exhibit terrific attention to detail.
Getillustrations’ top feature is its 21,500+ vector illustration product line. It is supplemented on a weekly basis and users receive free updates for one year.
What types of illustrations are we talking about? “All kinds” would be an answer albeit an overly simplistic one. The illustrations have been arranged in 40+ categories. Most categories have several hundred illustrations, and a few with 1,000+.
Several 3D illustration categories, basic pencil and ink illustrations, logistics, fitness, and ecology illustrations, and much more are included in the categorized packages. Most illustrations carry messages that would normally take a fair amount of text to convey.
Illustrations can be purchased individually or by the pack. The big (386 Illustrations) library of 3D Avatars features different facial expressions and ethnicities that should help to ensure you will never run out of options.
Custom illustrations can be made upon request as well. Getillustration’s team of illustrators have made many attractive and modern logos to help businesses create or reinvent their brand. Potential customers can receive a quote within 24 hours.
Customer Highlight: “Heaps of high-quality illustrations at a fantastic price, very impressive.”
Support: Ramy Wafaa on X- Getillustrations, Vector stock illustrations in .Figma .Ai .SVG and .PNG.
Mobirise AI is the best online AI tool for generating full page websites using a super-simple single prompt interface anyone can use.
Although the ability to generate a website using a single prompt is the Mobirise AI website builder’s best feature, several prompts will usually be necessary to get content exactly the way you want it. In any event, coding is not required.
How does the Mobirise AI builder work?
- Upload details as to what the site will be about, what it offers, what benefits it can bring, and any distinctive features it should have.
- The AI website builder takes the details and through the intelligent algorithms auto-generates a basic layout or a customized, stunning website.
This makes Mobirise AI an ideal tool for non-techies or others looking for a simplistic, efficient design option.
Site details can be written in any language. Once Mobirise AI has generated a basic layout:
- You can use prompts to choose a topography, style, color scheme, etc., that suits your brand.
- You can edit the pre-generated content to suit your needs; no coding required.
Please note that while AI helps you create your website, it does not own it. You don’t have to worry about Google or mobile devices optimization. Mobirise AI does it for you, and you can host your website wherever you want.
Instant Support: Support manual, the User Forum and YouTube Videos.
WhatFontis is the most powerful and a precise font identification tool available on the market with options to locate free font or commercial font sources.
WhatFontis’ top feature is the 90+% probability its clients have of identifying whatever free or licensed font they want identified. No other system matches that accuracy.
It is worth noting that WhatFontis cannot correctly identify every submitted font with 100% accuracy because of (1) database limitations, and (2) the fact that the ability to properly identify a font may be compromised if the quality of the provided image is of poor quality.
Nevertheless, WhatFontis will always do what it does best given its database of 990K+ free and commercial fonts. This is nearly 5 times as many fonts as that attributed to the nearest competitor.
Whether the goal is to identify a specific font sent by a client, or simply because it is attractive, customers want to know what it is and where to find it. A search can be conducted for a font regardless of its producer, publisher, or foundry.
The process is quite straightforward.
- Upload a clean font image.
- An AI-powered search engine rapidly identifies the font together with as many as 60 close neighbors.
- Links are provided that show where a free font can be downloaded or where a commercial font can be purchased.
- There are links provided indicating where you can download a free font or where you can buy a commercial font.
Note: Before being submitted, letters in a cursive font must be separated.
Instant Support: User Forum
Total is the best multipurpose theme for designers and developers that need the flexibility to be able to design from scratch.
Once they become acquainted with Total, its users discover a number of things they like. For example:
- Total has settings for everything,
- Total is optimized for fast page loading.
- Total features tons of page building options, a font manager, custom post types, and more.
- Total provides dynamic templates for posts and archives.
Total’s pre-built website collection is another user favorite. Nou.veau’s minimalistic design is one of the 5 most widely used pre-built websites and lends itself to a variety of uses.
While Total is tailored for beginners, developers, and DIYers, advanced designers like it as well, and for all intents and purposes anyone else will too.
Product Rating: 4.86/5
Customer Highlight: “We are building sites for clients ranging from very basic to very complicated. Either way I’m completely assured Total can handle it and more. Total has been our go-to theme for many years now, whenever we have a choice Total is first on the list.”
Instant Support: Support Manual
Essential Grid is the best WordPress Gallery Plugin for anyone looking to create unique and breathtaking galleries.
Essential Grid’s top feature is 50+ unique grid skins. Few if any web designers or developers want to expend the extra time or effort to create a gallery from scratch if there is an alternative. Essential Grid is that alternative and its top feature, the use of grid skins in web design is what this WordPress plugin is all about.
An Essential Grid gallery skin can make creating the gallery layout you want a remarkably easy task. You need to beware of the fact that, when it comes to choosing the right skin for your project, you might come across a grid format you haven’t even thought of, and completely fall I love with it. That is a good thing. The Social Media Grid for WordPress example offers a different take on what a portfolio gallery might look like with its clever use of a hover feature.
Users will tell you how much of a time saver Essential Grid is, and how good it is at helping them in their content streams organization.
Product Rating: 4.75/5 on Trustpilot
Customer Highlight: “Great price for your value and more important: fast and really good customer support!”
Instant Support: Support manual and YouTube videos
WoodMart is the best WooCommerce theme for store owners and marketers.
Just a glance at the WoodMart website is enough to grab your attention. Woodmart’s top feature, super-realism, pops right out at you. The custom layouts for cart, shop, and checkout pages are so well done that it’s easy to forget where you are and start window shopping.
There is plenty more to like about WoodMart too, for example:
- a multiplicity of available design options.
- easy customization to fit the brand.
- the time-saving Theme Settings Search and Theme Settings Performance Optimization features.
- widely used “Frequently Bought Together”, “Dynamic Discounts”, and social integrations options.
WoodMart also has a White Label option for developers.
Finding the most popular demos isn’t easy since most of them enjoy lots of usage. If you need a website with a portfolio to display a product line the Woodmart Demo Developer template would serve you well.
Product Rating: 4.93/5
Customer Highlight: “Absolutely love this theme. The features and flexibility are endless, customer support is excellent, documentation is great. I’m so glad I found this and will be using it for many builds to come.”
Instant Support: Support Manual and You Tube Videos
XStore is the ideal WooCommerce theme for anyone looking to build a high-commerce online store with a minimum of effort.
It’s easy to see that XStore is clearly tailored to address existing and prospective shop owners looking for an online presence. XStore’s ready-made stores (pre-built websites) have always enjoyed great popularity, but the recently introduced selection of Sales Booster features has become this theme’s hands-down top favorite.
Users also love the Builders Panel and the user-friendly XStore Control Panel since they offer all the store-building and customizing options they could possibly require.
The quick start the pre-built websites give users is also highly valued. Do you want to create a website for a special niche? How about Spice House? With the selection of a pre-built website like Spice House it’s easy to see why it’s not all that difficult to get a customized online store up in running in a few hours.
Besides its ready-to-go layouts, XStore clients have immediate access to Checkout Builder, Cart Builder, Single Product Builder, Archive Products Builder, and 404 Page Builder.
Product Rating: 4.87/5
Customer Highlight: “Not only design quality! Exception code and great support. Frequent sales with great prices. You can build anything you imagine!”
Instant Support: YouTube videos and support manual.
Blocksy is the best free WordPress theme for building lightweight website projects in 2024.
There doesn’t appear to be much if anything about Blocksy its users are hesitant to brag about, and when it comes to identifying this premium WooCommerce WordPress theme’s top feature, there’ s actually a 4-way tie between:
- Blocksy’s super user-friendly footer and header.
the top performance Gutenberg support. - the advanced hooks and display conditions developers appreciate.
- the seamless WooCommerce integration and all of its corresponding features that everyone is keen on.
And topping it off, Blocksy is free!
A few things novice users rapidly recognize is that Blocksy:
- provides exceptional performance.
- integrates easily with the most popular plugins.
- uses the newest web technologies.
Among the top 5 most popular Blocksy starter sites is the Photo Studio template. It makes sense because can be used to introduce viewers to a wide variety of stores and agencies.
Product Rating: 5/5 on WordPress.org
Customer Highlight: “Exceptional theme backed by a world-class customer service team! 🌟 The responsiveness and helpfulness of the customer service make this the best WordPress theme I’ve ever come across. 🚀 Packed with an abundance of features, I highly recommend this theme.”
Instant Support: A readily accessible Documentation Section, YouTube videos, Support Manual, Facebook Group.
Have you come across one or more web design resources and tools you might consider adding to your toolkit? It would certainly be easier than having to take the time to sift through hundreds in hopes of finding something you could use. Not to mention being able to find the best-in-class of a given type.
This is why we conducted a vetting process, the results of which you can take advantage of. You can preview those that interest you and try them out if possible. The free ones are of course for the taking.
What were we looking for? These 15 web design tools and resources have few shared characteristics. Characteristics we believe to be necessary to be considered “best-in-class”. They are as follows.
- Themes, resources, and plugins are easy to install or set up and are user friendly.
- They give your website an edge in terms of design, functionality, or visitor appeal; or all three.
- They allow you to test the product for free. Or give you enough information to ensure you won’t end up feeling like the product you purchased is markedly different from the one you saw advertised.
- Customer support is fast, friendly, and competent.
See whether you can make excellent use of any or all of these 15 best web design tools and resources.
Are you done? Not likely. There are new web design tools and resources popping up in the marketplace every day. Some of them might offer even greater opportunities.
Your search will probably never end.
