Axure RP vs. Balsamiq

Axure RP

107 Reviews and Ratings

Balsamiq

106 Reviews and Ratings

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Axure RP	Score7.6 out of 10	N/A	Axure RP is a software prototyping tool used by UX designers, from Axure Software Solutions in San Diego.	N/A
Balsamiq	Score7.6 out of 10	N/A	Balsamiq is a wireframing tool that helps lean product teams turn early ideas into clear, actionable direction. The tool helps product managers, founders, and engineers worldwide share concepts, reduce rework, and build better products.	$12 per month (up to 2 projects)

Pricing

Axure RP

Balsamiq

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Pricing Offerings
Axure RP	Balsamiq
Free Trial
No	Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

No setup fee

No setup fee

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Pay per project, not per user

Community Pulse
Key User Insights
	Axure RP	Balsamiq
Considered Both Products	Axure Software Solutions Josh Peichoto Digital Strategy Manager in Marketing at Envoy Mortgage (Financial Services, 1001-5000 employees) Chose Axure RP Axure RP has its place among the competitors. Every product has its pros and cons. Axure works well for larger and less visual design projects or deliverables. In some cases we might use Axure along with another tool, such as Sketch or Photoshop, to create different … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Axure RP Axure stacks up pretty nicely against other tools, in terms of available functionality and support for users. It’s probably the best tool I have used to create the most realistic and complex prototypes for sales purposes. However, its interface is outdated compared to other … Incentivized Helpful? Stephanie Martin Visual and Experience Designer at Freelance, Various Clients (Design, 1-10 employees) Chose Axure RP As I stated, I find myself reaching for Axure less. Though it is certainly more powerful than an other tools I've used, it is also the slowest and least simple to build out a prototype. For quick turnaround for a client, I'll always reach for one of the other programs. For a … Incentivized Helpful? Deionna Adams UX Designer Web in Marketing at College of Western Idaho (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees) Chose Axure RP More tools; and a more professional interface. Balsamic is great for casual projects and simple designs. Axure better suited for mid-level projects. I would like to see features improve in regards to large-scale projects. Bottom line Axure is the best and only mid to high-level … Incentivized Helpful? Pooja Sawant UX Designer/Researcher at zeal (Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees) Chose Axure RP It's better than iRise, Mockplus, UXPin etc for high fidelity prototypes. But for more visual UI and vectors I would recommend Sketch if you are a Mac user. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Axure RP We also use some other prototyping tools like InVision, but Axure works great on projects where you start from low-fidelity wireframes (so just boxes and dummy text), creating simple animations, testing out the concepts with users and stakeholders - then translating the same … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Axure RP InVision and Marvel are hotspot-based applications, so you are limited to the types of interactions that you can create. You can create any interaction in Axure by building it yourself with a combination of adding cases to dynamic panels with clauses. Learning how to do a … Incentivized Helpful? Rhoni Rakos User Experience Design Lead in Information Technology at American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (Health, Wellness and Fitness, 201-500 employees) Chose Axure RP I've used Balsamiq and Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator is not helpful for wireframes because it's basically the same as a sketch with straighter lines. Balsamic is helpful but it doesn't have as much functionality built in, so you can only communicate so much. Its also hard for … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Axure RP Neither of tools around are a complete solution. Axure is the most complete tool in the market at this moment. In my perspective and daily use, the strongest feature of Axure is prototyping for mobile and tablet devices. Axshare is very helpful, but still I wish to have the … Incentivized Helpful? Lucas Roe Lead User Experience Designer in Product Management at ACGI Software (Computer Software, 51-200 employees) Chose Axure RP Axure's masters put in an entirely different space from any other tool I've tested. They allow a degree of systemic design that I have yet to see in another piece of software. Sketch (by Bohemian Coding) gets close with its inclusion of symbols. However, until the symbols have … Incentivized Helpful?	Balsamiq Verified User Chose Balsamiq While I love these other tools for many different reasons, Balsamiq is the tool I use for low-fidelity wireframing every time. It’s the most simple and easy-to-use out of the bunch, and it gets the job done without a ton of effort and time required. In the early stages of … Incentivized Helpful? Elizabeth Coppinger Senior Business Analyst in Marketing at Lucid Agency (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees) Chose 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 … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Balsamiq It is very much user-friendly. It reproduces the experience of sketching on a whiteboard but using a computer. The handwritten design is unique which lets designer focus on the design. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Balsamiq Balsamiq is a quite simple tool; but does exactly what was designed for, it helps with creating mockups, wireframes, and flows. Its simplicity works great for people who are not designers but need to visually represent their ideas. Low-fidelity wireframes work really well in … Incentivized Helpful? Pooja Sawant UX Researcher/Usability at zeal (Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees) Chose Balsamiq Axure vs Balsamiq. I would pick Axure over Balsamiq. The only con is there could be a learning curve to Axure. Sketch gives more interactivity over Balsamiq but is limited to Mac users. UXPin has easier palettes to move around than Balsamiq but Balsamiq is easier to use than UXPi… Incentivized Helpful? Abbie Cataldo Principal UX Designer, UX Practice Lead in Product Management at Accruent (Computer Software, 501-1000 employees) Chose Balsamiq I think the learning curve for all of the other tools is much greater than that of Balsamiq. PhotoShop, I think, is a poor tool for UX, but is often used by members of my team for its overall prevalence in their past education (many graphics folks). I have found that … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Balsamiq Axure is basically a direct copy of Balsamiq for 4x the price. Moqups is painful to use and it's a monthly subscription. Although I have not used Adobe Comp, the learning curve is so high, it cannot even come close to the ease of Balsamiq. And Illustrator and Photoshop for … Incentivized Helpful? Courtney Famiglietti Lead SharePoint Solutions Engineer in Information Technology at Commonwealth Financial Network (Financial Services, 501-1000 employees) Chose Balsamiq I also leverage PowerPoint for more detailed, high fidelity. Balsamiq has its purpose for the initial planning phases of design. Where PowerPoint allows for much more detail, being able to add in own images seamlessly, ability to update library of stock template tools, etc. I … Incentivized Helpful?
	Would buy again
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Delivers good value for the price
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	Happy with the feature set
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	Lived up to sales and marketing promises
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Implementation went as expected
No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic

User Ratings
	Axure RP	Balsamiq
Likelihood to Recommend	8.4 (27 ratings)	8.5 (31 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	10.0 (1 ratings)	10.0 (2 ratings)
Usability	7.1 (5 ratings)	8.0 (1 ratings)
Support Rating	8.3 (2 ratings)	5.0 (1 ratings)