Do I need all three — wireframe, mockup, and prototype?

Not necessarily. The three are stages of fidelity. If you can go straight to a complete high-fidelity prototype, as Koryvant lets you, you settle structure, look, and feel in one step.

Is a mockup interactive?

No. A mockup is a static, high-fidelity picture of a screen. A prototype is the interactive version where screens link and states respond.

What fidelity is best for user testing?

A clickable prototype, because testers can move through the real flow and hit real states. A wireframe tests structure; a mockup tests look; only a prototype tests the experience.

Guide · Prototyping

Wireframe vs mockup vs prototype: what each one is

A wireframe shows structure, a mockup shows the finished look, and a prototype shows the feel — a navigable flow you can click through. They are three fidelities of the same idea, used at three stages of designing a product.

Last updated August 19, 2026

What is a wireframe?

A wireframe is a low-fidelity layout: boxes, labels, and placement, with no real colour, type, or imagery. Its job is to agree on structure and hierarchy before anyone argues about visuals.

Wireframes are fast and deliberately rough. They are the right tool early, when the question is "what goes where," not "what does it look like."

What is a mockup?

A mockup is a high-fidelity, static picture of a screen: real colour, typography, spacing, and content, but not interactive. It answers "what will this look like" for a single screen at a time.

A mockup is more convincing than a wireframe but still static. You cannot move through the product or see how a screen behaves in its empty or error state.

What is a prototype?

A prototype is interactive: screens link, states respond, and you can click through the real flow. A high-fidelity prototype combines the polish of a mockup with the navigability of the working product.

A prototype is where a product stops being pictures and starts being an experience. It is the fidelity that catches flow problems a wireframe or mockup hides.

Which one does Koryvant produce?

Koryvant produces the last one — a complete, high-fidelity clickable prototype — from a prompt. It draws every screen in every state, across light and dark, under a bespoke design language, plus stack-agnostic handoff specs.

Koryvant skips the manual wireframe-then-mockup-then-prototype ladder and hands you the decided, high-fidelity prototype directly. Koryvant is the design-complete blueprint layer, not a full-app builder. There is no backend, no database, and no running full-stack app.

Try it on your own idea

Describe your product to Koryvant and get a complete clickable prototype — every screen, every state, both themes — free to generate and preview.

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Questions

Do I need all three — wireframe, mockup, and prototype?: Not necessarily. The three are stages of fidelity. If you can go straight to a complete high-fidelity prototype, as Koryvant lets you, you settle structure, look, and feel in one step.
Is a mockup interactive?: No. A mockup is a static, high-fidelity picture of a screen. A prototype is the interactive version where screens link and states respond.
What fidelity is best for user testing?: A clickable prototype, because testers can move through the real flow and hit real states. A wireframe tests structure; a mockup tests look; only a prototype tests the experience.

Keep reading: AI prototype generators, explained or AI mockup generators, explained. Browse all guides, or see Koryvant by product type.