For some time, Sketch has been a staple application for many UX and UI designers. Recently, however, we’ve seen many new contenders for Sketch’s crown as a versatile UI design tool. The two apps that I think stand out from the rest (and that have had the most success in their development) are Figma and Adobe XD.
Sketch Competitors
A while back, Adobe Fireworks was our team’s primary interface design application. Fireworks was flexible, easy to use, and with many free extensions, it fit perfectly into our design workflow. When Adobe stopped developing Fireworks, the only alternative left was Sketch. We switched to it (and it was an expensive transition considering we also had to move from Windows to Mac), but the productivity gains were huge and we’ve never regretted the choice.
Sketch was the primary application not only for our team, but also for many other UI designers. But in the last couple years, a number of competitors have started to seriously vie with Sketch for the title of #1 tool. Given how quickly these new competitor apps have been improving, our team wanted to try some of them out and even considered switching to them. In this article, I hope to give you a comprehensive comparison of the major contenders for Sketch’s place in the UI design tool realm.
While it seems like not a week goes by without the launch of a new design application, only a few of them have matured to challenge Sketch’s leading position. In my opinion the closest that has come close are Figma and Adobe XD. Both apps have fully functional free versions, which significantly lowers the barrier for new users.
XD has Mac and Windows versions, while Figma supports Mac, Windows, Linux and Chrome OS – pretty much any operating system on which you can install and run a modern browser.
Figma
Figma is a web application. You can run it in a browser and therefore on virtually any operating system. This is one aspect that completely differentiates it from Sketch, an application that only supports Macs. Contrary to my concerns, Figma runs perfectly smoothly and even surpasses the responsiveness of Sketch in a number of areas. Here’s an example:
Much has been said about comparing Figma to Sketch, but the race has only intensified with recent updates to both apps.
Figma’s success has prompted Sketch developers to rethink their own approach. The company recently raised a $20 million investment to add more features, including a web version of the Sketch app.
Adobe XD
Although an entire generation of designers grew up using Adobe Photoshop for design, it was never created with user interface designers in mind. Adobe realized this and started working on a new application called XD. While XD took a while to catch up to Sketch in terms of functionality, it looks like Adobe took it very seriously last year. New features – and some of them quite powerful – are added to the app almost every month, and at this point I can consider it a viable alternative to Sketch.
Other apps
Figma and Adobe XD are by no means the only challengers to Sketch’s leadership. While it may seem that every few weeks a new entrant joins the race, most of them, in my opinion, play in a lower league than the above mentioned applications. However, some programs deserve a special mention.
- Framer X While Framer was originally a code-based prototyping tool, it has been steadily adding design capabilities. The latest iteration of Framer X can be described as an interface design tool with the ability to code interactions and animations for more precise control, and flexibility.
- InVision Studio InVision emerged as the best way to share design mockups with coworkers and clients. Over the years, however, new features have been added to the app, and Studio has evolved into a standalone UI design, prototyping, and animation application. (Studio is probably based on Macaw, which InVision bought in early 2016).
- Gravit This is another UI design app that is slowly but steadily improving. Corel bought Gravit a few months ago, which means we could soon see it gain more features and popularity .