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Coming Soon: Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop

Hello friends of Balsamiq!

It's a very exciting time here in Balsamiqland. After years of work, we think we're THIS CLOSE to being able to release our brand new, fully rewritten Desktop applications for Windows and Mac.

The new versions are fully native, no longer relying on the soon-to-be-outdated Adobe Air technology.

What's new in Balsamiq Wireframes?

First of all, the name! Balsamiq Mockups served us well for a decade, but it's finally time to call things for what they are. 🙂 What our tool lets you create are actually called low-fidelity wireframes, not mockups!

Other than that, our main focus was to not to change the tool's UX or feature set, but to rewrite it completely to work on a more modern technology stack. In other words...EVERYTHING is new, but it's hard to see. 🙂

We now deliver a top-class native experience, using standard controls on each platform. We improved performance, and stability.

We also added a few key improvements:

  • Comments! You can add comments, with callouts, threads, mentions...the works!
  • Wireframes To Go is now tightly integrated in the editor. You can find and import symbols in just a few clicks.
  • A brand new Full Screen Presentation Mode! More powerful, and better for user testing.
  • Editing of Balsamiq Cloud projects! That way you get the best of both worlds: you can use a fast, powerful native desktop app, but your data is saved in the Cloud, with all the collaboration features you expect.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Balsamiq Wireframes also has a much larger canvas to work with, exports to high quality vector-based PDFs, includes more Android controls, has better trackpad and mouse support, and - only on macOS for now - even has built-in spell check!

Where can I get it?

Well, it's not widely available yet. We need your help to get us over the finish line.

Before we can call it "ready", we need more feedback. Would you be up for trying it out and telling us what you think about it?

We set up a temporary staging website with the new app, the new docs, the new online store, and all that good stuff.

Here's the secret link to download the app: https://tempbuypage.balsamiq.com/wireframes/desktop/ - please don't bookmark this or share it too widely, it will go away soon! 🙂

The new app can run side-by-side with Mockups 3, and the BMPR file format hasn't changed.

Balsamiq Wireframes is a major-version update, so it's a paid update.

Alright, I'll let you go and try it out!

Any questions, we're here.

Onward!

Peldi for the Balsamiq Team

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Comments (9)

  1. Your tool is very useful. I am excited to use Balsamiq Wireframe.

  2. Hi! First of all – great work! Will there be an iOS (iPAD OS) version as well? It yes, when? Thanks!!!

    • Thanks, Peter! 🙂

      Making our tool more iPad-friendly is indeed on the roadmap. We don’t have any precise date to share for now but I’ll be happy to add you to the beta list for when the time comes if you’d like.

      Have a great week!

  3. Have you planned a Linux release?

  4. That’s really nice and we have been waiting a long time for it. We do use the cloud version though so it wasn’t vital.

    But I’m really disappointed that the feature set was frozen in time like 5 years ago or so. It feel so outdated now and ever since the cloud version came out no real new features have been added (for productivity) and things like the widgets and icon sets are still the same since a decade ago. What is holding you back? Nostalgia?

    Pat Le Cat
    • Hi Pat and thanks for sharing your thoughts today.

      The main change happens behind the scenes but we introduced a few key improvements listed in the blog post (new Comments, new Full Screen Presentation Mode, larger canvas, high-resolution PDF exports…).

      Is there something in particular that you’re missing?

      We’d love to hear more about it so if you have time, please share your ideas via support@balsamiq.com and we’ll talk about it! 🙂

  5. I was surprised to see C++ in the install package but it went smoothly.

    Is there a specific channel for feedback? I’m seeing some duplication on the component bar.

    Murray Eaton