What will replace adobe fireworks

Is Illustrator? Or Sketch? Or InDesign? Or Pixelmator? Photoshop is the elephant in the room most obvious example. It was created for photo editing and print design tasks. A few UI design features were later added to it, yet Photoshop still lacks many features that would make it really useful and easy to use for screen design. Still, thousands if not millions of users worldwide have been working with this imperfect tool for more than a decade and use it successfully for UI design tasks.

Fireworks, on the other hand, was built from the ground up for UI and screen design, and every single feature in it is intended specifically to help the UI designer. And yes, Fireworks has a few weaknesses. Its color picker feels a bit old. If you work with too many pages or symbols in one document, Fireworks can feel a bit slow.

Bugs do appear randomly and then disappear. And so on. UI designers need the right tool for the job, not the perfect one , and Fireworks manages to be the right tool most of the time.

Finally, there are probably a few features that Fireworks does not have but that would make it even more useful to designers and developers. While Adobe will not likely add any more features, the great community of developers will continue adding extensions to the app, keeping it up to date for quite some time.

Kawasaki Vulcan vector illustration , by Isabel Aracama. Nikon iOS icon , by Gianluca Divisi. Social bar UI design , by Lorenzo Franchini. Expenses app UI design , by Lorenzo Franchini. Restaurant navigation UI design , by Tomas Gajar. Sample navigation UI design , by Tomas Gajar. While the article is three years old now, the examples in it are still relevant, and you can take a quick look if interested. One aspect of Fireworks makes it even more powerful and deserves special mention: extensions.

Extensions are written in JavaScript, run directly in Fireworks, and add new features to make the app better and more productive. Extensions can be written to do almost anything, making it possible to configure Fireworks to be exactly the tool you need! We have published an excellent series of articles, by Ashish Bogawat, that cover in depth some of the best extensions for Fireworks: part 1 , part 2 , part 3. Also worth mentioning is Project Phoenix , where many indispensable Fireworks extensions are frequently improved and updated!

Which extensions work the best for you and help you the most? Share them with us in the comments! These articles could prove very useful to you, and they showcase some powerful workflows in the app.

While it competes partly with Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch and other tools, Fireworks is a great tool and still relevant, and it offers a modern, powerful workflow for all kinds of screen design, even today. Which apps might replace Fireworks today or tomorrow? Many people say that Sketch is great, but it still has a few limitations and lacks many of the features of Fireworks. And unfortunately, it runs only on a Mac. These three fairly recent articles shed more light on Sketch and its features:.

Sketch is quite powerful for UI design. This vector illustration was made entirely with Sketch by the talented designer Isabel Aracama. Antetype is an interesting alternative, as is Pixelmator. Unfortunately, both are Mac-only, too. PC Pro has a quick review of it. EvolveUI should address many of our modern screen design needs such as combined vector and bitmap tools, styles, symbols, the ability to build interactive prototypes, etc.

Bonus points: The app will be open-source and available on all platforms Windows, Mac and Linux. A Kickstarter project supports it, and the first version for Mac and Windows should be available in early This app looks promising, too, but unfortunately, it might not replace Fireworks because it will lack vector and bitmap editing tools, and it will be more like InDesign for the Web than a full-featured screen design app.

As far as I know, Adobe is not working on a replacement. However, moving features into other apps is not really a replacement — it just means that designers will be spending more time working across multiple apps.

Last-minute update : It seems that Adobe is working on a new design tool that could replace Fireworks in the future. If you currently rely on Fireworks for UI design but have recently discovered an app that suits you better and that might replace Fireworks for you, please let us know in the comments. What are our plans, you may ask?

For now, we will keep the Fireworks section open. Many designers out there continue to rely on Fireworks and use it. And, with the promise from Adobe to keep Fireworks available for some time longer, it seems that anyone using Fireworks today is still safe.

Of course, we, too, are exploring alternatives! New tools are emerging every day, and sooner or later a better tool will be created by some talented people who really understand how we design for the screen. Another is Project EvolveUI , which is very promising but still in alpha.

Finally, thank you to the amazing Fireworks community, a community driven by passion and one that makes Fireworks so much better through the contribution of free extensions, useful articles and tutorials — and love! You guys rock! Special thanks to Dave Hogue currently UX Design Manager at Google , who helped me with this article and who has been involved in the Fireworks community around the world for many years. Just the things you can actually use.

Everything TypeScript, with code walkthroughs and examples. And other printed books. About The Author Michel is a freelance editor and has been a contributing editor at Smashing Magazine since Email Newsletter Your smashing email. Design Management Masterclass. FinancesOnline is available for free for all business professionals interested in an efficient way to find top-notch SaaS solutions.

We are able to keep our service free of charge thanks to cooperation with some of the vendors, who are willing to pay us for traffic and sales opportunities provided by our website. Adobe Fireworks Alternatives. What are alternatives to Adobe Fireworks? Autodesk 3ds Max Our score: 8. Xara Designer Pro Our score: 8. Product name:. Our Score:. Adobe InDesign CC. Tailor Brands. Deep Art Effects. Moreover, you can use design templates, vector illustrations, and photos in your works.

Affinity Designer is a vector graphic design software that can be used on PCs and iPads. If you compare Affinity Designer vs Illustrator , you will see that the latter lacks more advanced tools. Affinity Designer is one of the best Fireworks alternatives for illustrators and graphic designers who work with raster and vector graphics. Engineered pen Zoom function Isometric grid Dynamic symbols Stroke stabilization Different text styles. This Adobe Fireworks alternative has standard pen and shape tools for creating complex vector and pixel artworks.

This software has a handy persona toolbar that groups vector, pixel, and export tools into three categories and allows switching between them without interrupting your workflow.

This software comes with great color adjustment tools. It supports the majority of formats, ICC profiles, and the most recent wide gamut displays for unique designs.

Besides, you use silky smooth gradients that will be updated on the page in real-time. This open-source software is especially popular among Linux users. GIMP supports the majority of Photoshop files. The program is great for creating quick sketches and enhancing photos. While Illustrator is better for quick mockups and prototyping, GIMP is perfect for creating the final products.

This free graphic design software can be used as a standard paint program, professional photo retouching software, an online batch processing platform, image renderer, and format converter. GIMP has tools for creating, loading, and saving animations in a frame-as-layer format.

Considered as one of the greatest Fireworks alternatives, this program allows adding plug-ins and extensions for even better performance. GIMP is fitted with an advanced scripting interface that allows users to script simple and complex tasks.

This free vector graphics software is great for creating graphics, layouts, and illustrations. With its artboards, you can create complex layouts and web pages. Besides, the program has the magical canvas feature that allows you to work without distractions. What makes this Adobe Fireworks alternative different from other iOS programs is that its interface supports sensor features. Thanks to it, you can easily create vector shapes on your iPad. Vectornator is easy to use, as it has a simple interface and intuitive design tools.

This vector program for Mac has an extensive toolkit with various shapes, markers, clones, patterns, transformations, and more. Inkscape has basic text editing tools that can be found in word processing programs. However, this Adobe Fireworks alternative has a more extensive toolkit with numerous features for creating, editing, and transforming vectors.

Each tool has a separate dialog box that can be activated with a double-click. This software allows you to create polygons, angle- and curve-based shapes. Besides, you can use a pen, brush, paint bucket, object sprayer, and more. Inkscape has an effective tracing tool for transforming color and black-and-white bitmaps into vectors.