There are many options for different mockup and prototyping tools. Today we’ll compare the few that are completely web based and require no install to design mockups orcreate and present interactions.

UXPin seems like a good place to start, after all everyone has heard of them by now. The UI is very impressive, and makes web designing online feel sleek and smooth. You can find the prototyping section in UXPin in the bottom right corner. There are two drop downs, in the first we define the action that triggers the event and in the second we define the outcome.

What we couldn’t do:

o Combine mouse and tap events on 1 element to create responsive mockup

o Trigger component based on event in another component

o Create conditional events: If this then that

o create multi layered events: if this then that and that

o 3d transforms

The components included with UXPin are a little lackluster compared to full fledged mockup tools. Though initially we were impressed with the sheer number of components, it quickly became clear that UXPin components are nothing more than stencils. This seriously hampered our ability to create anything more than very simple UI representations and it impacts on the application’s usefulness as a prototyping tool.

The UI in UX-App is a bit less polished, and the array of options right as you come in can seem a little daunting. Visually, the prototyping UI in UX-App takes much more space than UXPin, which results in a slightly cluttered first impression, but it certainly has a lot of features! Some interactions which were difficult or impossible to achieve with UXPin were relatively straightforward in UX-App. You can find the interactions option by clicking on the green note icon that appears at top left of every mockup component on the page.

In addition to the interactions there are alarge array of complex pre-built components that work straight out of the gate. These include

Drop down menus

Tab containers

Carousels

Accordions

Along with the usual assortment of widgets like links, buttons and icons. It’s certainly convenient to have so many functional components on hand when deadlines are looming.

Invision app is another slick and smoothly designed tool. It lacks the mockup functionality of all other tools but it’s very simple to use. Creating events in invisionapp is done through hotspots that link to other pages or hotspots in images you upload. Certainly if you’re looking for a quick way to link together assets created in other programs such as Photoshop or Sketch, then Invision might be the tool for you.

In the free version offered we could not find any option to animate images at all, possible that this exists in the enterprise versions which cost upwards of $100.

Add to this the lack of component library, and it’s hard to recommend Invision as anything more than a glorified slideshow generator.

Atomic.io is very similar to Invision, in that they have limited components (shapes, images, lines & text) and offer a smooth interface offering mainly navigation options. It’s not immediately clear how one would create common UI elements such as Charts, Tabs, Dropdown menus etc. The application certainly doesn’t come with any pre-built UI components. Comparing Atomic to both UXPin and UX-App is apples to oranges though, since it seems that Atomic is positioning itself as more of a UI animation tool rather than application prototyping tool.

To conclude, the prototyping tool you choose really is a matter of deciding what you want to communicate. If you are fine tuning a complex animation then Atomic might be the correct choice. If on the other hand your goal is to quickly combine common UI elements such as Accordion Panels, Carousels, Dropdowns etc. into a functional prototype then UX-App is the clear winner. Though it takes a bit longer to start, only UX-App let’s you create true-to-life prototypes that behave like real apps with real events including conditional logic, multi effect logic, 3D transformations and more. There’s a steeper learning curve with UX-App, but that is to be expected from a prototyping application that can do so much.