Sketch VS Figma VS Adobe XD

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  • sublocked

    Interaction designers... Which one are you using? Are you using more than one? Are you using one but moving to another?

    I really want to use Adobe XD for my work, but nested symbols and plugins keep me on Sketch — for now. XD I think is in a great position by sitting back and picking up all the good pieces of the Sketch ecosystem and implementing them.

    Sketch constantly bothers me because of its slow nested symbol performance, and I feel my setup is sort of Frankenstein-like, as I have to utilize multiple plugins and services to get my work done (Abstract for versioning, Zeplin for dev handoff, Invision for prototypes, etc)

    Figma also looks really interesting, but haven't jumped into using it just yet.

  • whatthefunk0

    I'm reserving judgement until I view Invision Studio which has yet to be released but they're just rolling out beta links to those who requested early access

    https://www.invisionapp.com/stud…

    I'm not sure if anything will replace Zeplin for specs (haven't seen if studio addresses) but studio should drastically improve the prototyping phase eliminating the extra Sketch>Invision situation. I come from using Axure and have been frustrated with Invision's limitations with prototyping.

    • Invision's plugins for Sketch worry me. I went through a period where it would detach all of my symbols. I had to revert my file to get my work back.sublocked
    • ...With that in mind I'm not too sure if i trust their software dev expertise with Invision Studio.sublocked
    • I think that's why Invision is building its own product. Plugins and Craft have been problematic with sketch...fingers crossed.whatthefunk
  • Maaku-1

    Sketch does the job for me. As long as you deliver work on time, are able to present your design and hand off assets to developers, they really don't care what you use.

    • Not considering this for devs. Considering this for my workflow, efficiency, and speed. Sketch's performance seems to slow down all around with each release :(sublocked
    • Oh I see, my bad.Maaku
  • SlashPeckham0

    Wanted to bump this thread
    - has anyone migrated from Sketch to Adobe XD? - could be worth learning both but I have never yet met anyone using XD...

    • I'm starting to use XD and Figma for smaller projects to see when I can switch oversublocked
  • Ianbolton0

    I like how fluid XD is and it does seem to get better with every release, but new to all this and haven't tried the other options. XD is super quick, compared to my history of using Illustrator and InDesign. I like how you can paste in simple graphics from Illustrator too, but I'm guessing that would work on the other platforms?

    • XD is ok but needs more work, you can't flip an image, you can't have gradient transparency, there's no ALL CAPS for text, etc. it's missing small basic thingszarkonite
    • but Adobe is furiously working on it and updating regularly so we're kind of switching over here... plus they have plugins now too which are growing by day.zarkonite
  • exador10

    If Dev handoff is a key issue, I think Figma is the way to go...
    -just my opinion though-

    Everything I build has to either be:
    1)shared with a developer at some point
    2) be accessible to other folks on the team (that may not have the same software etc installed)

    can't just send jpegs and artifacts any more... things have changed..

    with figma, I can just send a link and share the file etc... developers can see everything they need, they can see all the CSS/code they want...copy it straight into their work...

    stakeholders and others can see the whole project as it progresses...

    I barely open anything in Adobe any more.... we still have the subscription, but i more or less just use it for fine-tuning images like it was meant to be used...no longer do ANY design work in it..

    we're even starting to move some limited print work to Figma...since you can output to PDf just fine....

    • If your devs use the code from Figma, get new devs ;)zarkonite
    • lol, bit of hyperbole there... generally they get the info they need from it... much more efficiently than from, say, a jpeg...exador1
    • hehe true, but a standard prototype can also do that. The fact that Figma outputs HTML isn't exactly a plus (at least I haven't figured out why it would be)zarkonite
  • NBQ000

    Adobe said XD will become bigger than Photoshop.

    • and slower than lightroom! It will crash all computers, and you will have to pay for it bi-weekly instead of monthly... muuwwahahahahamonNom
  • NBQ000

    When is InVision Studio coming out finally? Looks amazing.

    • I feel like we are seeing things that were capable in Flash 10+ years ago. Since the death of flash it's taken ages for HTML/CSS to catch up it would feel.shapesalad
    • Flash pushed web front-end tech, but was proprietary lock-in reliant on one sole creator package, from one company, which is not what the web should be.Nairn
    • What JS and HTML5/etc can do now is pretty good - what WebAssemby can do now and in the very near future will blow the shit out of FlashNairn
    • The problem is less the underlying tech than the complete lack of creation packages - what's missing is less a swf replacement than Flash itself.Nairn
    • 'Authoring tool' is the term i was scratching around for.Nairn
    • Not another...notype
    • played around with it. the real-time interaction with ui is horrendous. it has a ton of potential, but when shit is playing back at 3 frames per second trying..lvl_13
    • to present to clients? it's not okay. do yourself a favor and look at the google search results for slow playback.lvl_13
    • principle is still one of the best...but it is only useful for presentations. like nairn mentioned-flash was an amazing tool, but the output swf was key.lvl_13
  • NBQ000

    Why does no app (XD, Sketch, etc) export layered PSD & AI files and most importantly why no direct HTML export to save the coders/ devs some time?

    What is your favourite asset export? As individual files (ie. each design element separate)?

  • mg330

    NBQ00,

    I think that InVision released Studio too soon and too incomplete. I get it that some software companies like to do these rolling, iterative releases, build hype, and get some notable industry people to showcase how it can be used. But my excitement to finally get beta access to Studio was really diminished once I had it and I felt pretty quickly it wasn't going to do what I wanted it to do. At our agency I've got an InVision rep for our enterprise account and I've told them how frustrating it was to see such buildup to something so un-usable. I thought it was going to be Sketch on steroids with far better animation and micro-interaction design. It's not.

    I'm still intrigued by it and still love InVision; everything else they're doing has been great - Freehand is perfect for internal reviews and collaborating across offices, and we're moving to only using InVision for commenting and reviewing work. I just wish that they had capabilities like Principle App has, and that I could review that type of prototype in InVision. You can only review Principle prototypes in the application (can't send it to other people to test) or by recording a video. If I could have full interactive prototypes / rich media pages / etc. in InVision to present, comment on, share, etc. that would be amazing.

    • this, this and this! spot on.lvl_13
    • XD works with After Effects, and if you add Inspector Spacetime from google to AE you can pass specs off to your devs easily.zarkonite
    • and can't you do animations with invision studio? why do you need principle?zarkonite
  • shapesalad0

    All these apps have one or two good features. If they could all be merged into one design app tool - we might have something to rival 'Flash' back in the day: one app that allows you to design, animate and code straight to App/Web.

    It feels a bit like we have all those tools, but spread across 6 or so different offerings of UI design apps. No one app hits the spot.

    And can we please end this model of very basic app + all the features you really need are plugins that you need to pay extra for.

  • NBQ000

    So apparently it's impossible to export XD files and elements to Sketch?

    Copy/ Paste from XD to Sketch only generates Bitmaps even for vectors.

    It's really frustrating that there's no way to have them play together.

    Anyone know if there's a way?

    • Yes. They're not meant to play together. :(
      Not yet at least.
      https://adobexd.user…
      mg33
    • they won't ever play nice together. it's like asking coke to give their secret recipe to Pepsi.lvl_13
  • NBQ000

    I can't believe how frustrating it is to export stuff from Sketch.

    It's possible to export "all artboards as PDF" but you can't export one single artboard as PDF because if you have one selected it can only do so as .PNG. WTF?

    And it can only export .PNG's, you can't save stuff as .JPG. WTF?

    This shouldn't be the case in such a big app.

  • NBQ000

    So I was very excited about Invision Studio and I finally downloaded it to try. And I got very disappointed.

    In the promo videos it looks so sexy, great... but in practice it's really not as fluid as XD or Sketch. Stuff like design things, there's no toolbar options to easily access drawing tools. Certain other details (like scaling proportionally) isn't easily found. For some reason interaction (prototyping) once applied can't be deleted. There's no 'x' or trash-can icon to delete it. Very annoying. Maybe I just haven't found but this is not intuitive if stuff like this isn't directly and easily found right there where it should be.

    Also one big reason why I was excited for Studio is the 'Motion' functions with the timeline. And I could not find it at all despite applying "motion" in the prototyping fields. The timeline just wouldn't appear.

    For now I'll stick to Sketch/ XD.

    • Oh yeah and the other thing that I was excited about: Importing Sketch files. Unfortunately when importing everything looks completely messy. Not usable at all.NBQ00
    • There was so much hoopla about Studio pre release... then when it came out ...crickets.thumb_screws
    • Most of time I show an example of an animation I want to use to the dev team, rather than spending ages doing it myself.Chimp