Balsamiq vs Invision

All the Balsamiq UI elements are drawn by hand and have a really nice low-fidelity design.

Balsamiq has a very easy to use drag and drop interface that lets you quickly build and adjust your mockups. The UI is centered around low-fidelity wireframes that help focus the reviews on the core layout and functionality instead of getting hung-up on visual design.

Balsamiq has a built in library of over 75 built-in user interface components and 187 icons, as well as community generated plug-ins.

myBalsamiq has been built with teams in mind and has a variety of featured to support collaborating on the mockups:

• Notifications - Real-time notifications to enable you to keep track of team member actions

• Revision Control - All mockups have a revision history to enable reverting to previous versions and keeping track of design decisions.

• Skype Integration - Easy to use Skype integration to host design reviews.

• Access Control - Access controls allow sharing projects with team members as well as allowing external reviewers to leave comments on the designs.

You can link together pages to create shareable user demos

You can use common keyboard shortcuts like Shift to select multiple elements or to resize while maintaing proportions, F2 for renaming labels etc.

Invision offers a free plan to anyone that is limited to one project. While the free plan is a bit limited it does allow the user to trial the software for as long as they like to decide on its merits and whether it is worth paying for the more robust options.

Once uploaded on Invision, the screen will be presented in a way that will behave as an actual web page. This is especially easy for showing the work to clients, more so if compared to just showing them a .PDF, which may make it look like the page is "too crowded".

Hotspot links can be created for every page, and once it's done, for each one of them gestures and transitions can be registered.

Invision supports various gesture types: swiping, double tapping, sliding, etc...

Live Share allows you to collaborate in real-time using an in-browser screen share. Each collaborator gets their own mouse, so you can easily point and see what someone is talking about. You can also sketch, and chat right inside the Live Share interface.

Invision's Live Share gives team members the ability to collaborate in real-time through a screen share inside their browser. Each collaborator has their cursor which they can use and edit or add notes in real-time. On top of that, Invision also has a VOIP chat which works inside the browser.

Invision uses Invision Sync or Dropbox to automatically save design files on the cloud. Furthermore, it has version control built in. This is especially helpful if a team is going through different versions for a specific design and they want to return again and again to previous designs.

Invision allows clients, stakeholders or any team members to leave comments and feedback inside the design which will be displayed as a point on the page itself. These paints can be discussed or even be turned into tasks. This makes it easy for designers to go through what they need to work on, and once it's done, the task can be checked off.