Any open source alternatives to balsamiq mockup [closed]

Asked 27/10, 2010 at 10:54 Answered 24/10, 2012 at 1:31

127

As the title reads, I'm looking for open source alternatives to balsamiq mockup for prototyping. Anyone knows of an equally good alternative that's open source or basically freeware.

Staurolite answered 27/10, 2010 at 10:54 Comment(2)

Are you looking for free of charge (freeware, though this word is not well defined), or software with freedom (open source / Free Software) ? – Callum 22/5, 2016 at 16:1

This is a pretty valid and relevant question to software development and I don't agree with the decision to close it. Maybe we need up/down voting for these decisions to let the community determine if a particular topic is worthy of remaining open. We are about serving the community at stackoverflow aren't we? – Libriform 12/6, 2016 at 20:50

The best available Open source mock up tool is Pencil. Its available as firefox plugin as well as stand alone.

Another solution, which I personally use is Inkscape, an open source SVG Editor. It is NOT a mock up designer, but we can use it for designing mock ups, using freely available stencil kit, like Yahoo Stencil Kit.

Tsai answered 11/10, 2011 at 21:3 Comment(6)

I'm using Pencil now - the standalone version. It's very comprehensive and solidly built. Just download, make sure you've got xulrunner, and run: xulrunner application.ini – Cohberg 31/5, 2012 at 11:44

Well done @Tsai for answering the question! :-) Pencil is the best Open Source (GPL) alternative to balsamiq. Maquetta looks promising, but Pencil is mature > pencil.evolus.vn – Flinty 26/3, 2013 at 11:29

I'm using the standalone version of Pencil and it's terribly buggy (as of 2014). Certain elements are not saved, pdf export is terrible, png export is incomplete, gui elements are not configurable/flexible enough. – Ekg 7/2, 2014 at 9:17

Yes, Pencil is buggy, export is cumbersome and I've lost some data, too. Would not use it again. – Handtohand 27/2, 2014 at 12:54

The most recent version (2.0.5) is still a bit buggy, but I find it to be the best open source app available before moving to QTCreator or other such heavy apps. – Zea 19/7, 2014 at 12:37

Does Pencil anyway support the Right to Left languages?! I mean shapes and tables, can we change their direction to be delt with from right to left? – Minutely 11/12, 2014 at 11:0

Mockingbird is free during beta

Firefox's pencil add-on is free forever

Itinerate answered 27/10, 2010 at 11:5 Comment(6)

Actually, Mockingbird is open source: bitbucket.org/gomockingbird/mockingbird/src – Truculent 11/8, 2012 at 22:18

Tried accessing Mockingbird source on BitBucket and got "Access denied". so not quite "open source". By contrast Pencil pencil.evolus.vn is GPL. – Flinty 26/3, 2013 at 11:12

@Truculent Mockingbird isn't open source anymore – Executive 11/12, 2013 at 9:44

No one can remove an open source license, so if you can get hold of an open source version, you can fork the project. The newer versions (as a whole) may never have been open source. The copyright owner, can duel licence and remove a licence from newer version, but all the original code is still under the old licence. – Callum 22/5, 2016 at 16:7

The site is listing an old version of Pencil... One of the comments there refers to a new link at github: github.com/prikhi/pencil/releases – Digiovanni 21/1, 2017 at 1:7

where is the old code? – Filament 20/12, 2017 at 9:46

Take a look at Maqetta. It runs as a html5 app in your browser, so you can deploy it on your server to easily share your work with others, or you can simply start it locally and point your browser to localhost on port 50000.

On their homepage, you can test maqetta online (after registering), or download a package that contains everything needed to run it locally.

Resources:

Sibbie answered 24/10, 2012 at 1:31 Comment(1)

Maqetta hosted is discontinued from today, and the repository doesn't seem to get much attention anymore – Contagion 31/1, 2014 at 11:34

WireframeSketcher is not open-source but it's free for open-source developers. WireframeSketcher helps you quickly create wireframes, mockups and prototypes for desktop, web and mobile applications. It comes both as a standalone version and as a plug-in for Eclipse IDEs. It has some distinctive features like storyboards, components, linking and vector PDF export. Among supported IDEs are are Aptana, Flash Builder, Zend Studio and Rational Application Developer.

_{(source: wireframesketcher.com)}

Summation answered 27/10, 2010 at 14:48 Comment(3)

It seems that there's no more a free version – Benevento 4/6, 2012 at 13:29

gnu.org/philosophy/when-free-depends-on-nonfree.html – Callum 22/5, 2016 at 16:4

I cant see any evidence of a free version available to anyone other than bloggers who do a positive review. – Beabeach 10/10, 2023 at 5:53

Recommended topics

Hot tags