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Balsamiq vs Fluid UI
March 15, 2025 | Author: Sandeep Sharma
11★
Balsamiq really shines during the early stages of designing a new interface. It offers the same speed and rough feel as sketching with pencil, with the advantage of the digital medium: drag & drop to resize and rearrange elements, make changes without starting over, and your work is clear enough that you'll make sense of them later.
1★
Fluid UI helps you prototype Android, iPhone, iPad or Windows 8 mobile apps with our custom libraries, or upload your own images for pixel perfect mobile apps. Preview your mockup directly in your browser or install the Android or iOS apps to test directly on your device. Share the mockup with clients, stakeholders and users and get invaluable feedback long before writing a single line of code.
Balsamiq and Fluid UI are both wireframing tools, which is to say they exist to help people make things that don’t exist yet, so that they can eventually exist in a way that makes sense. They let users drag and drop things onto a blank screen, which is the digital equivalent of moving furniture around in an empty house that hasn't been built yet. Both tools offer pre-made UI components, because nobody wants to reinvent buttons and scroll bars when they could be doing something more exciting, like contemplating the futility of existence or making a cup of tea. Also, they both allow collaboration, which means multiple people can argue over design choices in real-time instead of waiting until the next meeting.
Balsamiq, which first graced the world in 2008 from the United States, prefers a hand-drawn aesthetic, presumably to give users the warm feeling of sketching on a napkin in a coffee shop while pretending to work. It is beloved by UX designers and product managers who enjoy its stubborn refusal to offer any unnecessary styling options, ensuring that prototypes remain delightfully ugly in the name of efficiency. It also has a desktop version, because sometimes the internet disappears at the worst possible moment, usually right before a deadline.
Fluid UI, on the other hand, emerged from Ireland in 2012 with the idea that wireframes should be a little more interactive and a little less like something scrawled on a pub coaster. It allows for clickable prototypes, real-time collaboration with video chat (for those who enjoy seeing the faces of their confused teammates) and is particularly handy for mobile app designers who like their mockups to actually look like the devices they’ll be used on. In short, it tries very hard to be helpful while simultaneously reminding users that designing anything is a fundamentally chaotic process.
See also: Top 10 Online Design software
Balsamiq, which first graced the world in 2008 from the United States, prefers a hand-drawn aesthetic, presumably to give users the warm feeling of sketching on a napkin in a coffee shop while pretending to work. It is beloved by UX designers and product managers who enjoy its stubborn refusal to offer any unnecessary styling options, ensuring that prototypes remain delightfully ugly in the name of efficiency. It also has a desktop version, because sometimes the internet disappears at the worst possible moment, usually right before a deadline.
Fluid UI, on the other hand, emerged from Ireland in 2012 with the idea that wireframes should be a little more interactive and a little less like something scrawled on a pub coaster. It allows for clickable prototypes, real-time collaboration with video chat (for those who enjoy seeing the faces of their confused teammates) and is particularly handy for mobile app designers who like their mockups to actually look like the devices they’ll be used on. In short, it tries very hard to be helpful while simultaneously reminding users that designing anything is a fundamentally chaotic process.
See also: Top 10 Online Design software
