93 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.6 out of 100
Based on 93 reviews and ratings
20 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 6 out of 100
Based on 20 reviews and ratings
Attribute Ratings
- Balsamiq is rated higher in 1 area: Likelihood to Recommend
- UXPin is rated higher in 1 area: Support Rating
- Balsamiq and UXPin are tied in 1 area: Likelihood to Renew
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
Balsamiq
99%
29 Ratings
3.7
UXPin
37%
11 Ratings
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
Balsamiq
100%
1 Rating
10.0
UXPin
100%
1 Rating
Usability
8.0
Balsamiq
80%
1 Rating
UXPin
N/A
0 Ratings
Support Rating
5.0
Balsamiq
50%
2 Ratings
10.0
UXPin
100%
3 Ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
Balsamiq
Balsamiq is very well suited for mocking up / prototyping UIs for systems or apps. The really good thing about it is that the wireframes it produces do not look like real screens but all the same do look nice, neat and tidy. This allows you to express and design how your interface will looks and even work, but it also expresses that these are just wireframes. I have had problems throughout my career when I have mocked up UIs with HTML, often users and stakeholders think that the system is ready to be used or not far off, they can't seem to grasp that there is nothing behind it. Balsamiq helps here because the wireframes are in a hand drawn style, so they can't be confused with a near-ready or working system.

Verified User
Professional in Corporate
Research Company, 501-1000 employeesUXPin
UXPin is an excellent resource for creating website and app flows and to better help our clients understand how their websites and apps will function. It also gives them a visual reference and some real-life application. It can be difficult for clients to truly understand how a website or an app flows from one page or screen to another via a phone call or web conference. UXPin helps us to illustrate these flows in a hands-on, visual format. UXPin also helps our clients understand the purpose of a sitemap. We used to send our clients a sitemap in an outline format. While many understood that the top-level items on the outline were the main navigation of their website and other items were child pages, several did not. We have found that using UXPin to show the main level navigation, how in-page navigation and child pages (drop-down menus from the main navigation) work has been an integral step in getting approval on sitemaps.
Director Of Operations
Proclaim InteractiveMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Pros
Balsamiq
- Low-fidelity wireframing—Balsamiq offers tools to create lo-fi wireframes without the messiness and confusion that often comes along with other types of lo-fi wireframing (e.g. hand-drawn wireframes). This helps us avoid the need to heavily “translate” our designs to the people we’re showing them to.
- Easy-to-use interface—We have never had to spend time training anyone on how to use Balsamiq. Drag, drop, arrange—that’s it! This is helpful in getting non-designers and less experienced designers to communicate their ideas of what the finished design should sort-of look like without asking them to spend a lot of time learning a new tool.
- Ability to convert a design to a PDF—This is definitely a plus! Whereas other design tools require stakeholders to log into a design tool account or view designs on a web page, Balsamiq makes it really easy to just download a design as a PDF and hand/email it to a stakeholder. Lots of our stakeholders don’t want to deal with visiting a website or logging into something. However, they’re typically happy to receive a PDF and not have to ask questions such as, “How do I access that?” and “What’s the password again?"

Verified User
Professional in Research & Development
Education Management Company, 51-200 employeesUXPin
- Smart elements are super nice because they allow me to create complicated features that will appear on every page. When the client wants to change something it is very easy to do so in one place.
- Working on grid is important to me. Having the ability to change and manipulate that grid in UXPin is just what I need.
- There are tons of add on features like Font Awesome icons and prebuilt stuff that not only looks great, but also just lets me get ideas across fast without committing to what the final design is going to look like.
- I love the ability to edit things if I want. I can control several details, but it's not too overwhelming. They include various font options from Google fonts as well. You can design as much or as little as you want. The interface doesn't get in the way. It's there if you want it but has a simplicity that is nice.
- Having a link on a live webpage is a necessity. As soon as you make changes, they are live. No more worrying about which is the latest version.
- I'm a photoshop user so it has a few keyboard commands that are familiar like hold 'alt', click and drag to duplicate is nice!
Lead Designer
White Lion InteractiveInternet, 11-50 employees
Cons
Balsamiq
- Although it's not meant for sketching processes, it could be improved a bit for doing this (a bit more support for some more arrows or diagrams).
- Sometimes it's possible to get a bit lost in different propositions. It's interesting that it's only propositions, but the offline desktop version works faster for me (lot of coping attributes and screenshots into my sketches).
- It's using flash or something like that in their offline version, it keeps asking for updates.

Verified User
Administrative Assistant in Information Technology
Computer Software Company, 11-50 employeesUXPin
- No search and replace for fonts (missing or just to replace).
- Tool is built for design/dev teams but does not integrate content teams in well.
- If you are not careful you can get lost in designing interactions when you should be just creating building blocks - don’t over animate!!!
- There is currently no “scrub” or click-drag interaction which limits touch capability testing/concepts.
- Editing adaptive versions of designs is very time consuming, edits to not ripple through from master viewport size. All updates are manual, even when creating an adaptive version.
- When a library item is updated, it can revert changes you have made unknowingly.
- Video integration is limited to online video host aggregators such as IMGR, YouTube, and Vimeo.
- Not a ton of info for a designer on how to use the expressions effectively.
- Prototypes with a lot of interactions can get slow, especially on computers with a lot of security software. It’s best to work with UXPin to figure out what is blocking APIs, and JS.
Director User Experience Design
Fidelity InvestmentsFinancial Services, 10,001+ employees
Pricing Details
Balsamiq
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
—UXPin
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
—Likelihood to Renew
Balsamiq
Balsamiq 10.0
Based on 1 answer
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
Product Owner
Hansen TechnologiesTelecommunications, 501-1000 employees
UXPin
UXPin 10.0
Based on 1 answer
We'll definitely continue to use UXPin. Right now it provides us with everything we need in order to deliver quality projects to our clients. If at any point in time, UXPin doesn't provide us with what we need, we'll start vetting other software out there that may be similar. My guess is that UXPin will continue to make updates and improvements so we'll likely stick with it for quite some time.
Director Of Operations
Proclaim InteractiveMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Usability
Balsamiq
Balsamiq 8.0
Based on 1 answer
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.

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Information Technology and Services Company, 501-1000 employeesUXPin
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Balsamiq
Balsamiq 5.0
Based on 2 answers
We haven't had to use the support feature yet
Consultant
HMS Cornerstone SolutionsInformation Technology & Services, 11-50 employees
UXPin
UXPin 10.0
Based on 3 answers
As far as I know, my teams have only had to use the UXPin support once. The experience went really well. We just needed a bit of assistance with using the Documentation feature. UXPin's support was quick and helped my team in a matter of minutes. We will definitely reach out to their support without hesitation in the future.
Director Of Operations
Proclaim InteractiveMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
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
Senior Business Analyst
Lucid AgencyMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
UXPin
Adobe XD is so much more than UXPin, with Adobe Cloud you can easily share designs as well. We used Adobe XD before changing to UXPin. At first UXPin seems so advanced and helpful, but don't get fooled. You're heavily limited in the long run, and after all the training and implementation of UXPin (both app-wise for IT but also training designers etc) it is not worth your time.
Most Valuable Professional
Tappr NetworkDefense & Space, 11-50 employees
Return on Investment
Balsamiq
- It has definitely saved time when negotiating interface changes with a large variety of stakeholders
- Building a new layout is very quick and saves a lot of time when prototyping any clean basic interface
- All of this eventually leads to better functionality for less money, which while hard to quantify is very useful
- The only potential negative impact is that the design features are limited so may discourage the use of custom features which would have been particularly useful.

Verified User
Engineer in Engineering
Environmental Services Company, 1-10 employeesUXPin
- Saving money by using one tool for lo-fi wireframing, high fidelity wireframing, prototyping, and user testing, rather than four separate tools.
- The ability to create and use team libraries enables us to create visually consistent designs with less effort than creating every single design from scratch, which allows us to save considerable time (and therefore money!)
- In-platform collaboration saves our team a lot of time and energy. With everything in one place (wireframes, prototypes, user feedback, collaboration comments), we can all be on the same page about the design workflow and pinpoint discussion points that are based on up-to-date designs.

Verified User
Professional in Research & Development
Education Management Company, 51-200 employees