10 Prototyping Apps for Bootstrap 3

I continue to come across all of these amazing Bootstrap apps, libraries and plugins, and feel obliged to continue sharing more. I’ve written a few pieces on Bootstrap already, the post about Icon Fonts for Bootstrap, and also the top free resources for Bootstrap themes.

It appears that the demand was there, and people actually enjoyed learning more about their favorite development framework. At the moment, there is a lot of attention being put towards building things that can help us build a layout of a webpage quickly.

I’ll be focusing on some simple prototyping apps, like button builders (including social), drag and drop layout builders and some other equally interesting stuff. I’m not sure whether the ‘3’ was necessary in title, but I chose to include it anyway – all of these apps will work with Bootstrap 3, while some might work with the 2.* version as well.

Divshot

Divshot does offer a static website builder (see more of those here), but it also has a nice visual website builder integrated within the platform.

The visual website builder will enable you to build fresh sites on the fly, without any need to write code or additional parameters, it’s all click and go. I’d like to mention that the Divshot website itself, is probably one of the nicest I’ve seen in a long time!

Pingendo

Pingendo offers the same functionality as Divshot (with extra features, and a different layout), but is a standalone application that needs to be downloaded and installed on your computer. I’ve only had a chance to look at it for a little while, but it looks promising and is definitely worth recommending to beginner webmasters.

Beautiful Buttons for Twitter Bootstrappers

You’ve to admit, building your own buttons is pain in the neck, and not just for Bootstrap. Trying to ‘guess’ the right angle and colors can prove to be very time consuming. This little app will take care of your button needs on the fly. Plenty of settings and easier than anything implementation.

Jetstrap

I like these guys, they’re also the team behind the Ionic Framework, which I wrote about a little while ago. Jetstrap is a 100% web-based interface building tool for Twitter Bootstrap. No software to download, just log in and build. Your work is accessible from anywhere.

It’s versatile, and everything is manageable and adjustable to your own specific needs. Great for those projects where you need quick access as you go.

Bootstraptor

What this website does, it gives you access to several Bootstrap templates that you can use as starting points (kits) for your projects. If you’re fed up with building custom sites every time, for a new project, then these guys got you covered. It costs $9 for the whole package, but that gives you access to everything. I think it’s worth the investment.

FireworksToolkits

The guy behind this particular ‘product’ has envisioned that his kits can help beginner developers to avoid rebuilding the same things over and over again, or at least not from the very scratch. His stuff will give you access to several UI components that you can manage with Adobe Fireworks, use them however you like.

I reviewed the demo files, and there is definitely some ‘stylish’ stuff in there. Again, not getting paid for this – just supporting creative work!

Bootply

Quite a few websites have reported of Bootply already, it’s a drag&drop type of platform that enables you to build Bootstrap websites quickly, and efficiently. It stands out with the fact that there are custom templates, snippets and other tools available at your disposal. Think of it as an interactive way of building a website with Bootstrap.

Leapstrap

Leapstrap brings Leap interaction to your web site in an easy to use HTML 5 framework, eliminating the need for installing Airpsace apps. It will give you all of the necessary touch-screen multi-functionality that you may require. I’ve yet to explore this on a deeper level.

VCL.JS

If you’ve not developed with TypeScript before, it’s a pretty comforting high-level programming language that I recommend to any front-end or web developer.

VCL.JS is a TypeScript open-source platform for building an enterprise web apps in a fraction of the time, whether you’re an expert developer or just getting started.VCL.JS takes the Delphi approach into the HTML5 world.

Social Buttons for Bootstrap

I did say that we’d see some of these, didn’t think I’d wrap the post up with them. I have to say that these are probably some of the nicest social icons I’ve seen for Bootstrap so far, really elegant and modern, appealing to any type of web project/design.

Changing sizes is easy, and there is an icon for pretty much every big social network out there. Give them a try and let me know what you think!

Prototyping Apps for Bootstrap

It wasn’t easy to spot the pattern, many of these apps provide the functionality of building a Bootstrap website from within an interactive drag and drop platform. I think that’s pretty cool, compared to how we used to build websites a couple of years ago.

If you know of more apps like the ones in this list, I’d love to hear about them. I’m not quite sure of the scope of these on the web, but did my best to gather up some variety!