Choosing a tool or resource simply because it’s labeled “best” can work, but it doesn’t always lead to the best outcome. When you know what a tool is best for—and why—it becomes much easier to make the right choice. This article is designed to help you find tools and resources you’ll actually use and rely on in real projects.
When building a website that needs to compete with others of a similar type or purpose, performance, UI, UX, and future-readiness matter. Each of the 12 must-have tools and resources listed below has been selected with these factors in mind.
- The 12 Must-Have Tools and Resources for Designers and Agencies are as follows-
- Best for harnessing the power of AI across entire website projects: CSAI
- Best theme for designers where speed, flexibility, and modularity are key: Blocksy
- Best innovative WordPress theme due to a wealth of design options: Uncode
- Best AI-powered website building tool for designers, developers, and beginners: Mobirise AI
- Best font identifying tool: WhatFontIs
- Best plugin for creating advanced sliders, animations, and special effects: Slider Revolution
- Best theme for creating stores of any size and complexity: Woodmart
- Best AI-powered multipurpose theme for quick project turnarounds: Crafto
- Best tool for uncovering and fixing broken links: Dr. Link Check
- Best source of royalty-free illustrations: Getillustrations
- Best tool for creating vivid galleries and portfolios: Essential Grid
- Best premium WooCommerce theme for conversion-focused websites: XStore
- Best for: CSAI is an ideal choice for agencies because it functions to perfection with any imaginable website type.
- Key strength: CSAI enables its users to bring AI models into both Cornerstone and WordPress.
- Why users like it: CSAI provides prompts for fast prototyping.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
CSAI is great for agencies as it helps them leverage the power of AI throughout the website building process. Whereas OpenAI’s ChatGPT pioneered the effort behind consumer AI adoption, agencies can connect to OpenAI (or any other model) and put its tools to use with CSAI.
Updates/Releases: New version releases occur regularly. For example, they just recently added a native integration for Gemini on top of other integrations with Grok, Claude, and more.
Major product qualities:
- Prompt Library: Prompts are provided for fast prototyping. A system prompt can be added to CSAI that allows it to be tailored to meet specific needs, workflow, and preferences.
- Support for All Formats: CSAI fully supports Code, Image, Copy, Chat, Video generation, and Speech formats.
- Native Mask Editor: Images generated via AI can be masked off and customized right in CSAI which allows creation of truly custom images.
Client Insight: “I was stuck building websites with themes someone built in their parents basement, no support, just horrible. I came across Cornerstone and decided to buy it. Before I knew it I had bought 10 themes, and then when you guys launched the unlimited plan, I jumped on it.”
- Best for: Blocksy is best for designers requiring maximum speed and flexibility.
- Key strength: Blocksy is ideal for projects that start slow and evolve slowly over time thanks to its modularity.
- Why first-time users like it: There is seemingly no friction. Theme options are placed exactly where they are expected to be and any changes preview live.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
Blocksy excels in content-driven websites, business sites, WooCommerce stores, and projects where performance and flexibility matter. Blocksy’s focus on building websites that evolve over time allows them to scale without having to redesign them from scratch. Blocksy fully supports WooCommerce with its ability to create awesome online shops. Blocksy’s Pottery starter site demo would be an ideal starting point for a client that values straightforward, no-frills websites.
Updates/Releases: New version releases occur regularly. For example, they just recently added a native integration for Gemini on top of other integrations with Grok, Claude, and more.
Major product qualities:
- Interface: Customizing is a smooth and effortless process. Blocksy users never feel like the theme is fighting them.
- Content creation: Features like dynamic featured images and clean typography controls help writers focus on content.
Customer Average Grade: 5 out of 5 stars (based on 863 reviews)
Client Insight: “After trying out several themes over time, Blocksy has become my go-to choice every time I start a new project. I’ve used it for both SEO-focused sites and e-commerce stores, and it always impresses me with how fast and lightweight it is.”
- Best for: Agency, portfolio, and eCommerce websites.
- Key strength: Discovering more than initially expected while watching a demo.
- What designers and developers like about it: Designers and developers like the demos because they often provide the inspiration needed to get a project successfully underway.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
Uncode has been a top-selling creative theme for a long time. Although a wealth of design aids is easily accessible, Uncode users often go to the demos to help them get a project off to a quick and successful start. The attention-grabbing Freelance Portfolio example is one of the more highly downloaded demos.
Updates/Releases: Update releases are based on user-requested demands.
Major product qualities:
- Dynamic Elements: These make it possible to create personalized custom templates and designs by populating data from various WordPress sources.
- Content Block: The unique Content Block allows a user to create replicable sections of content that can be integrated into web pages.
- Wireframes Plugin: The Wireframes Plugin allows you to easily import 800+ carefully designed section templates that can be combined and modified.
Customer Average Grade: 4.89 on 3,430 reviews
Client Insight: “Amazing theme backed by a support team that responds faster than I can refresh my browser! They solved my issue instantly and with real professionalism. Outstanding experience—highly recommended!”
- Best for: AI-powered website design when workflow is important.
- Key strength: The ability to generate website prototypes with a single prompt.
- What its users like: The AI website-building concept is easy to follow.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
With Mobirise AI a website prototype of almost any type and built to serve almost any purpose can be generated from simple instructions and using a single prompt. The word prototype is used because a website created from a single prompt will rarely be the finished product but the tools are there to customize it to completion.
Updates/Releases: Update releases are based on user-requested demands.
Major product qualities:
- AI Text or image to Website: A single prompt from textual or image instructions will generate a website featuring latest-trend-trained AI web designs.
- AI Content: AI-generated content will be highly engaging and highly converting. Images related to the prompt will be high quality and easily personalized.
- AI Customizing: Customizing, editing changes, and redesign can be made via AI chat.
Client Insight: “What I love most about Mobirise AI is the freedom it gives me. Even though it generates content and designs, the online editor allows me to customize everything to fit my brand perfectly. AI also provides images and video content automatically that makes the site engaging without any extra effort on my part.”
- Best for: Best tool for quick and accurate font identification.
- Key strength: Allows users to identify the exact font or the closest alternatives from an image almost instantly.
- What web designers and marketing teams like about it: The hours of manual font searching saved positively impacts real-world workflows.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
WhatFontIs enables web designers, developers and others to upload a font image e.g., logo, screenshot, poster, or UI design, and receive instant identification of the font or its closest matches. The font identifier’s AI features analyze font details and provide licensing info and download links along with the identified font.
Updates/Releases: Update releases are based on user-requested demands.
Major product qualities:
- Client Features: For Web & UI/UX Designers – Image-based font detection, visual previews, and quick access to web-safe or Google Fonts alternatives. For Developers – Clean font naming, font-family information, and easy handoff for CSS and web implementation.
- The value of alternative suggestions: Even when the exact font can’t be identified, the suggested alternatives are realistically usable in real projects.
- Manages imperfect images: Handles imperfect images well – works reliably with cropped screenshots, low-resolution logos, or compressed images, which is where many tools fail.
Client Insight: “WhatFontis is the best Font Finder I’ve used. Bookmark it!”
- Best for: Website layouts that can benefit from visual special effects.
- Key strength: Slider Revolution is a future ready tool.
- What its users like: Users have access to Slider revolution’s ultra-modern template library together with a host of other tools and resources.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
Slider Revolution meets the future-ready challenge head on by giving its users access to an ever-growing collection of resources, and by releasing new, ultra-modern templates like the Director-Media Gallery Slider example. Director is a cinematic WordPress media gallery crafted for storytellers and creators.
Updates/Releases: New templates are released on a monthly basis.
Major product qualities:
- Marketers: Use Slider Revolution to take full control over their marketing content by not having to wait for designer or developer revisions or updates.
- Web Designers: Slider Revolution’s flexibility and creativity make it easier to obtain innovative solutions that do not blend in with everyone else’s.
- Web Developers: Take advantage of new and exciting approaches to content creation.
Client Insight: “I use Slider Revolution on many of my websites and love how fast, flexible, and reliable it is. The preset templates save a lot of time, and the ability to create custom menus gives my clients something extra every time. Support is excellent – quick, friendly, and always helpful. Highly recommend!!
- Best for: Creating online stores for which size doesn’t count.
- Key strength: Because of the theme’s WooCommerce functionality additional plugins are not needed when building a store.
- What its users like: WoodMart will make a project a success whether the objective is to create a small or large store or a multivendor market.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
WoodMart comes with custom WooCommerce layout builder functionality that allows its users to create custom layouts shop pages, single product pages, cart, and checkout layouts with a WPBakery or Elementor page builder. An alternate approach for initiating a website design is through use of a WoodMart demo. These demos can be used for designing any website type or niche. WoodMart’s Pets-Dog Food demo could easily be customized for use by stores selling completely different product types.
Major product qualities:
- Navigation: Backend UI is aligned with WordPress standards. Easy to locate options in Theme Settings
- Client Features: Client specific features include a White Label opportunity for developers, and social integrations for Marketers.
- Elementor: Elementor Pro is not required. Elementor’s free version can be used.
Customer Average Grade: 4.91
Client Insight: “Amazing support! The team responded incredibly fast and solved my issue within minutes — truly professional and reliable service!”
- Best for: Excellent choice for startups and agencies and for projects where quick turnarounds are important.
- Key strength: Crafto’s many AI-powered features seamlessly integrate into WordPress.
- What its users like: Agencies can design a website from headers to footers and everything in between, using the intuitive Crafto Theme Builder.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
Despite the attention given to Crafto’s remarkable AI capabilities its top feature without doubt is the 52+ creative and interactive full website demos that include this dynamic Product Showcase example together with its expansive template library. In addition, website builders have easy access to 1450+ pixel-perfect, fully-editable templates and 325+ inner pages they can import from the demos.
Major product qualities:
- Theme Builder: Crafto’s theme builder makes the designing and customizing of key website areas a fast and easy process.
- Performance management features: These include Critical CSS management, JS loading optimization, and other options sometimes needed for website loading speed optimization.
Customer Average Grade: 4.81
Client Insight: “I’m genuinely impressed with Crafto! The design quality is top-notch, and the number of ready-to-use demos saved me so much time. It’s super easy to customize thanks to the powerful theme builder, and the built-in AI tools are a great bonus.”
- Best for: Fixing inoperative website links.
- Key strength: Fast, effective, and intuitive.
- What Clients like: Dr. Link Check is focused on one job and does it well.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
Its users love what Dr. Link Check can do for them because they don’t have to constantly be monitoring their websites to search for inoperative links. The Dr. Link Check tool saves website owners and agencies time and helps them avoid circumstances in which a broken link could harmfully impact a site’s users or SEO.
Major product qualities:
- Dr. Link is commitment built: This tool finds broken links you generally would look for manually and also locates broken links in meta data and asset files.
- Client Features: Dr. Link functions the same for site owners, site builders, and any other client type. Website type or size is irrelevant. Whether a website has one link or a million Dr. Link Check will keep them healthy.
Client Insight: “It’s never fun dealing with never ending broken links, but thanks to your tool for making it almost fun :)”
- Best for: Making websites and presentations look more polished, more modern, and less “empty.”
- Key strength: A huge collection of well-organized illustrations you can actually find your way through.
- What People Love About: Everything is hand-made, royalty-free, and editable, so you can quickly pick what you need and customize it without headaches.
Want to see this illustration pack live? Click on the video.
Getillustrations is a marketplace built for people who need great visuals fast, without relying on random stock graphics. It’s one of the biggest collections of human-made, royalty-free illustrations, with 38,000+ categorized assets designed for websites, landing pages, apps, and presentations.
A couple of collections that really stand out:
- Icons, a pack of 2,000+ miniature illustrations across 12+ chapters. They’re like icons, but with more personality, more detail, and more storytelling.
- Notion Illustrations, a set of 1,090 vector illustrations made for Notion-style websites, clean layouts, dashboards, and modern product pages.
Updates and releases: new illustrations are added every week, so the library keeps growing and staying fresh.
Why it works so well:
- Made with real use cases in mind: Packs are built around themes and needs, not just “random pretty drawings.”
- Works for different types of creators: Designers, developers, marketers, and founders all use it.
- Easy formats to download and edit: You get AI, SVG, and PNG, so it fits almost any workflow.
Preview the resources to explore the packs and see what matches your style.
Customer Average Grade: 4.9
Client Insight: “I really like the different styles available in this library. I used it to illustrator some of my blog posts. Since you get vector files, you can also recolor them to have them match your brand and product identity!”
- Best for: Creating engaging gallery designs and portfolios.
- Key strength: Essential Grid is a time saver that effectively helps users organize their content flows.
- What Portfolio Owners Like: Galleries created on Essential Grid are engaging, 100% responsive, and load quickly.
Want to see this tool live? Click on the video.
Essential Grid can be used on any website-building project that involves a searchable grid listing of items. Its users can create their own grid skins or can select from more than 50+ customizable grid skins or create their own. Either way, the desired grid systems can be created at lightning speeds. The Grant Fuhr Blog Grid for WordPress example is a good example of what Essential Grid makes possible as well as the ease of putting grid skins to practical use.
Major product qualities:
- Grid types: Essential Grid’s library features 50+ grid types. Users also can choose even, cobble, or masonry grids, or create their own designs.
- Responsiveness: Essential Grid created galleries are 100% responsive and load quickly
- Social media content: Social media content can be uploaded to Essential Grid designed galleries and portfolios.
Preview the tool
Customer Average Grade: 4.85 on TrustPilot
Client Insight: “Essential Grid is a very flexible and powerful grid tool that I’ve used on multiple projects. Easy to make beautiful layouts and lots of styling options.”
- Best for: Creating any size WooCommerce online stores from small online shops to large eCommerce entities.
- Key strength: Whenever WooCommerce or WordPress updates XStore-built stores will continue to function without drops in performance.
- Why users like it: They have noticed how smoothly Elementor and Gutenberg perform with XStore. The drag-and-drop editing is fast and responsive even with complex WooCommerce pages.
Want to see this template live? Click on the video.
The most successful and most frequently praised feature of XStore is its Full Site Builder combined with deep WooCommerce integration.
XStore also excels in a wide variety of store-building projects that include online stores of any size, niche stores, and conversion-focused websites in which performance and UX are critical. XStore users often like to take advantage of demos like the attractive Beauty and Cosmetics example.
Major product qualities:
- For Businesses: XStore’s Full Site Builder with its product, cart, checkout, and account pages along with the WooCommerce-focused layouts.
- For Designers, Developers, and Agencies: Reusable templates, global design settings, and XStore’s excellent compatibility with third-party plugins.
Customer Average Grade: 4.88
Client Insight: “I had almost all I wanted here. Had to make some custom PHP for single product page but I don’t think any theme gives a shortcut for that. Support is fine, too, not needed much as I love doing it myself but they guided well when needed.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Which of the above are the best resources for creating engaging designs?
- Getillustrations stands out for its large collection of customizable vector illustrations, while Slider Revolution makes it easy to create eye-catching animations, sliders, and popups that enhance user engagement.
Which design tools best serve multiple clients in 2026?
- CSAI is well suited for nearly any website type and supports fast project turnaround through AI-assisted workflows. Crafto offers similar AI-driven advantages and includes a wide range of ready-made templates and inner page layouts.
What are the best tools and resources for creating large or complex online stores?
- WoodMart is a WooCommerce-focused theme designed to handle large and complex stores without relying on additional plugins. Blocksy is also a strong option, especially for projects that start simple and grow over time thanks to its speed and flexibility.
