99 of the Best Free Tools for Web Designers and Web Developers
Our secret stash of FREE web design and web development tools.
Learning the skills you need for web design or web development is the first step toward working on the web—but that also means familiarizing yourself with the tools of the trade. That’s why we put together this list of 99 free tools you’ll need for either web-development, web design, or both.
As you learn, keep this list handy and think of it as your own virtual toolbox.
Table of Contents
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Web Design Resources
This web designing tools list includes web designing tools for beginners, as well as design resources that will serve you through an entire career.
Newsletter Lists
1. Creative Market
Before you do anything else, go get on the Creative Market newsletter list. Once a week, you’ll get an email packed with 5 free downloads, including everything from patterns and fonts to templates and themes.
Software + Apps
These software programs and web applications provide a solid foundation for web design.
2. CoffeeCup Software
They offer up all sorts of free apps for web designers, including an HTML editor, web form builder, shopping cart designer, and many others.
3. InVision app
Powerful prototyping and collaboration tools. You can get high-fidelity mockups and prototypes in just minutes.
4. Pixlr
Edit images right in your browser.
5. Canva
Amazingly easy graphic design software that anyone can use. The search and drag function is so simple and helpful!
6. Easel.ly
Awesome free infographic templates.
Photos
Photos are a critical part of web design. These stock photo resources are key go-to’s when you need the right photo right now.
7. Unsplash
Some of the most gorgeous free stock photos out there, and with tons of variety. New images are added every day.
8. PicJumbo
Get free photos delivered to your inbox that are totally free for personal and commercial use.
9. Gratisography
Free high-resolution images that you can use in personal and commercial projects. They have easy-to-browse categories: animals, nature, objects, whimsical, and more.
10. Vecteezy
Search tons of images licensed for personal and/or commercial use, mostly from Flickr.
11. Pixabay
Curated web design resources, including a ton of categorized photos, plus icons and templates.
12. Stock Up
Search over 9,000 photos from 26 different websites, all in one place.
13. Death to the Stock Photo
Get on their email list and get their free photo packs in your inbox once a month.
14. Little Visuals
If you join their list, you’ll get 7 free high-res photos emailed to you once a week.
15. New Old Stock
Get free, vintage photos from public archives.
16. Cupcake
Free, high-res photos by Jonas Nilsson Lee.
17. Pexels
10 new free stock photos every day.
18. Magdeleine
1 free high-res photo per day.
19. SplitShire
Free, high quality stock photos by an Italian photographer.
20. ISO Republic
High quality stock photos marketed to creatives.
21. Paul Jarvis
Sign up to get 20 of Paul Jarvis’s top photos for free.
Symbols + Icons
Looking for symbols or icons to use on your website? Look no further.
22. Pixeden
Tons of free icon sets, including weather icons, social icons, line icons, and many others.
23. Iconmonstr
More than 2800 boldly graphic icons in a few different styles.
24. Captain Icon
Over 350 free vector icons for mobile and web designs.
25. Linear Icons
An icon font with 170 different icons to choose from.
26. Font Awesome
A symbol font that allows you to add symbols to your websites.
27. Fontello
Generates icon font packs.
28. flaticon
Download vector icons or include icons as webfonts.
29. The Noun Project
Search a noun, get a free symbol or icon.
30. Endless Icons
Free icon library.
31. Perfect Icons
Customize and optimize social media icons for your site.
32. iconSweets
60 free vector Photoshop icons.
33. Round Icons
Free quirky and professional icon bundles.
Fonts
Fonts are such a crucial part of design that they can be easy to overlook. Look here instead, and find the fonts to take your design to the next level.
34. Google Webfonts
Add fonts to your website in just a few clicks.
35. Fontjoy
Font pairing generator.
36. Font Squirrel
Hundreds of totally free fonts.
37. Beautiful Web Type
Check out a curated collection of the most beautiful Google Webfonts.
38. Lost Type
Gorgeous pay-what-you-can fonts.
Colors
Need help dialing in the best colors for your design? These color tools are at your service.
39. Material UI
A gallery of Material Design and flat design colors to use in your designs.
40. Paletton
Start with any color and get a palette (with 5 shades per color) based on a few different color scheme patterns: monochromatic, adjacent, triad, tetrad, or custom.
41. Design Seeds
Tons of great color palettes taken from photographs. You can search by keyword or for similar colors.
42. Adobe Color Wheel
Choose from different types of color pairings and save your color palettes.
43. Material Palette
Generate a color palette based on 2 colors.
44. Flat UI Color Picker
The name says it all.
45. Flat UI Colors
Ditto.
46. Bootflat
Flat color picker.
47. Coolors
Color palette generator.
48. Material Design Color Tool
Design UIs with accessible palettes in mind.
49. BrandColors
Check out the exact colors that major brands use.
50. 0 to 255
Find the perfect color variation you’re looking for.
51. Colour Lovers
Browse user color palettes and add your own to the community.
52. Color Hunt
Features hand-picked color palettes for designers and artists.
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Backgrounds + Textures
Photos, fonts, and colors aren’t the end of a design—you also need backgrounds and textures to holds them all together. Find yours with these tools.
53. Pattern8
Repeatable SVG background patterns you can use for your web projects.
54. Hero Patterns
Amazing repeating patterns from around the world.
55. Texture King
All the textures you could ever want: grunge, rust, plaster, concrete, dirt, and many more.
56. Patternico
Create your own patterns using Font Awesome icons. Customize the background color, canvas size, and shape transparency.
57. Subtle Patterns
Free downloadable patterns.
58. Lost and Taken
Free textures in a ton of categories, including cardboard, stone, metal, bubbles, seamless, and more.
59. The Pattern Library
A range of designer patterns for inspiration.
UI (User Interface) Kits/Guides
Web design is more than just visual appeal. The way a site’s user interface “feels” to the user is also a critical factor. These tools will help make sure your own UI design is on point.
60. 55+ Elements Free UI Kit
A clean, modern UI kit. Be sure to search around on the Behance website for tons of great resources from other designers!
61. Oh no, not another UI Kit
A simple, flat, open source mobile and web UI kit that comes as a PSD file.
62. PSD Booster Freebies
Tons of great Photoshop freebies, including UI kits, themes, and more.
63. Material Design Guidelines
The official guide to Google’s Material Design standards.
Web Development Resources
After a website is designed, it needs to be developed! Whether you’re working on both sides of the process (designing AND building a site), or building a site based on someone else’s designs, these developer tools will help you make that design a virtual reality.
Domain Name Search Engines
Domain names are at the heart of a website—they’re the direct address where users can find your site online. But the internet is a crowded place, and it can be hard to find the exact domain name you want. These tools will help you find out of a name you want is available, and to create one that IS if your first choice isn’t.
64. Domain Wheel
A domain name search engine that helps you find domains via AI and category suggestions.
65. Nameboy
Enter a keyword or two and get a list of available domains that incorporate them.
66. Panabee
Describe what you want in two words and Panabee will generate a list of potential domain names.
67. Looka
Generate domain names based on character length.
68. LeanDomainSearch
Search for a domain name by keyword.
Frameworks, Templates, Code Packs, + Themes
Sometimes you’ll need to code every part of a website from scratch—but sometimes you won’t. Here’s a list of frameworks, templates, code packs, and themes you can use to cut down on heavy lifting.
69. WP-Flex
A blank, responsive WordPress theme boilerplate that follows the official WordPress Codex best practices and requirements.
70. Foundation
An advanced responsive framework that’s one of the most popular out there.
71. Ionic
Create mobile apps using the web technologies you know and love.
72. Initializr
Quickly generate a template based on HTML5 Boilerplate.
73. Materialize
A modern, responsive framework based on Google’s Material Design specifications.
74. WordPress Plugin Boilerplate
If you want to create WordPress plugins, the Plugin Boilerplate is a standardized, object-oriented starting point.
75. CK Grafico Front End Boilerplate
Free JavaScript, TypeScript, Vue, and React boilerplate code.
76. HTML5 Boilerplate
The first and the best. Free HTML5 boilerplate code.
77. HTML5 UP
Free fully responsive HTML5 template.
78. 1 Line CSS Grid Framework
A framework for CSS that’s only 1 line long!
79. 960 Grid System
A Skillcrush favorite.
80. Starkers for WordPress
A basic template for developing your first WordPress theme.
81. colorlib
Free WordPress template for developers.
82. Underscores
WordPress template for building out a brand new theme.
83. Sage for WordPress
A WordPress starter theme based on HTML5 boilerplate and Bootstrap.
84. Whiteboard for WordPress
A clean, basic WordPress theme for developers.
85. Bootstrap
A responsive HTML, CSS, and JS framework.
86. Bootswatch
Free themes for Bootstrap.
Code Style Guides
You can’t start coding without learning basic skills, but once you have those skills nailed it’s time to learn how to code artfully. These guides will teach you best coding practices that will elevate your work beyond the basic level.
87. Web Field Manual
A collection of resources, best practices, inspiration, and reference materials for modern coding. There are also sections filled with tools and additional resources and language-specific information.
88. Google Developers Web Fundamentals
A comprehensive resource for web development best practices, right from Google. Perfect for both new developers and those who want to make their projects better.
89. Deployments Best Practices
Before you deploy a website or app, be sure to check out these best practices to make sure everything goes smoothly.
90. GitHub
GitHub’s very own code style guide.
91. Google
Google’s code style guide.
92. Mozilla
A code style guide from the pros at Mozilla.
Code Validation
Finished with that website? Not so fast. Before marking that project “done,” use these tools to wrap up loose ends in your code and check to see if you’re meeting standards of accessibility, style, and industry best practices.
93. w3.org
94. JSON Formatter HTML Validator
95. Validome
96. Validator.nu
97. Code Beautify
98. JSLint
99. Free Formatter
Ready to combine these tools with the skills you need to make money in tech? Check out our programs page to find the Skillcrush Blueprint course that’s right for you. In just three months you can be qualified to start working on the web.
Is Tech Right For you? Take Our 3-Minute Quiz!
You Will Learn: If a career in tech is right for you What tech careers fit your strengths What skills you need to reach your goals
