Sketch was once the undisputed leader in UI/UX design, credited with popularizing many of the workflow conventions that define modern digital product design today. Its rise coincided with a broader shift away from Photoshop-based interface design toward tools purpose-built for the specific needs of screen-based, digital product work. Years later, having ceded significant ground to Figma’s collaborative-first approach, Sketch remains a genuinely capable, actively developed tool, particularly for Mac-based designers who value its specific strengths. This review examines where Sketch stands today.
What Sketch Is
Sketch is a vector-based design tool built specifically for UI/UX and digital product design, available exclusively on macOS. Unlike general-purpose vector tools like Illustrator, Sketch was designed from the ground up with screen design in mind — pixel-perfect precision, artboards representing specific device screens, and a component system built around the practical needs of designing digital interfaces rather than print or general illustration work.
Mac-Exclusive Focus: Strength and Limitation
Sketch’s decision to remain exclusively Mac-based, rather than expanding to Windows or building a browser-based version, represents a deliberate strategic choice that cuts both ways. On one hand, this focus has allowed Sketch to build a deeply polished, native macOS experience that takes full advantage of Apple’s operating system conventions, resulting in an application that feels notably fast, responsive, and well-integrated with the broader Mac ecosystem compared to browser-based alternatives.
On the other hand, this exclusivity is a genuine limitation for teams with mixed operating systems, or for designers who want the flexibility to work across different devices and platforms. As remote and distributed teams have become increasingly common, and as many organizations maintain a mix of Mac and Windows users, Sketch’s Mac-only requirement has become a more significant practical constraint than it may have been in Sketch’s earlier years of dominance.
Core Design and Prototyping Capabilities
Sketch’s core design toolset remains genuinely strong, offering precise vector editing, a mature symbol and component system for maintaining design consistency across large projects, and solid prototyping capabilities for creating clickable, interactive mockups. Its Smart Layout feature, roughly analogous to Figma’s Auto Layout, allows components to resize and adapt intelligently based on their content, supporting more realistic, functional-feeling prototypes.
For designers who’ve built deep expertise in Sketch’s specific workflow and interface conventions, the tool remains highly capable and efficient, and many long-time Sketch users report a level of comfort and speed with the software that rivals or exceeds their experience with newer alternatives, simply due to years of accumulated familiarity and muscle memory.
Cloud Collaboration Features
Recognizing the competitive threat posed by Figma’s real-time collaborative architecture, Sketch has invested significantly in adding its own cloud-based collaboration features in recent years, including real-time co-editing, commenting, and a web-based viewer that allows non-Sketch users to view and comment on designs without needing the native Mac application installed.
While these additions have narrowed the gap with Figma considerably, most reviewers and users who’ve worked extensively with both tools still generally consider Figma’s collaboration experience more mature and seamless, given that Figma was built around real-time collaboration as its foundational architecture from day one, rather than adding it as a significant but still somewhat secondary feature layered onto an originally single-player, native application.
Plugin Ecosystem
Sketch benefits from a genuinely mature, extensive plugin ecosystem, built up over its many years as the dominant UI/UX design tool. This ecosystem includes plugins for everything from advanced data population and content generation to specialized accessibility checking and design system management tools. For designers with established Sketch-based workflows built around specific plugins, this ecosystem remains a genuine, practical advantage worth factoring into any decision about switching tools.
Design System and Component Management
Sketch’s approach to design systems, built around its Library feature, allows teams to create and share centralized component libraries across multiple projects and team members, helping maintain consistency at scale. While Figma’s approach to component variants and properties has generally been considered more sophisticated and flexible in recent comparisons, Sketch’s system remains genuinely functional and well-suited to teams with established design system practices built around its specific conventions.
Performance as a Native Application
As a native macOS application rather than a browser-based tool, Sketch generally offers strong, consistent performance, particularly for very large, complex design files, without the potential variability that browser-based tools can experience depending on internet connection quality and browser performance. For designers working with particularly large, resource-intensive files, this native application performance can be a genuine, noticeable advantage.
Pricing Structure
Sketch offers a subscription-based pricing model, though it has historically been positioned as relatively affordable compared to some competitors, particularly for individual designers and smaller teams. Sketch has also offered perpetual license options at various points in its history, appealing to designers who prefer avoiding ongoing subscription costs, though the specifics of licensing options should be checked directly given how frequently software pricing models evolve.
How Sketch Compares to Figma Today
The most significant, ongoing comparison for Sketch is against Figma, which has become the dominant tool for UI/UX design broadly across the industry. Figma’s cross-platform, browser-based architecture and superior real-time collaboration generally give it an edge for teams prioritizing flexibility and seamless multiplayer workflows, particularly for larger, more distributed teams.
Sketch retains a meaningful following particularly among individual designers, smaller Mac-based teams, and those with deep, established investment in its specific plugin ecosystem and workflow conventions who find the native Mac performance and years of accumulated familiarity outweigh Figma’s collaborative advantages for their specific context.
Industry Adoption Trends
It’s worth being direct that industry-wide adoption trends have shifted meaningfully toward Figma over recent years, with more design job postings, educational resources, and company-wide standardization efforts assuming Figma as the default tool. This shift matters practically for designers building broadly transferable skills for the job market, or for teams evaluating which tool aligns best with prevailing industry conventions and the expectations of collaborators, clients, and future hires.
This doesn’t mean Sketch has become obsolete or non-viable — many successful design teams and individual designers continue to use it effectively — but the broader industry momentum is a genuine factor worth weighing, particularly for designers earlier in their careers who benefit from building skills aligned with where the majority of the industry and job market has consolidated.
Real-World Use Cases Where Sketch Still Excels
Individual designers and small, fully Mac-based teams with established Sketch workflows and plugin dependencies continue to find genuine value in the tool, particularly given its strong native performance and mature ecosystem built up over many years. Designers who prioritize a native application experience over browser-based tools, and who don’t require extensive real-time collaboration with team members or clients using non-Mac devices, may find Sketch continues to serve their needs well without a compelling reason to switch.
Where Sketch Falls Short
Teams with mixed operating systems, organizations prioritizing seamless, real-time collaborative workflows across many contributors, and designers seeking the broadest possible alignment with current industry-standard tools and hiring expectations will generally find Figma a stronger overall fit given current market realities.
Who Should Choose Sketch
Sketch remains a reasonable choice for individual Mac-based designers and small, fully Mac-based teams with existing investment in its ecosystem, those who strongly prefer native application performance over browser-based tools, and designers who’ve built deep proficiency in its specific workflow and don’t have a pressing need for extensive real-time collaboration with non-Mac users.
Who Should Choose Figma Instead
Larger or distributed teams, organizations with mixed operating systems, and designers prioritizing broad alignment with current industry standards and maximum collaborative flexibility will generally be better served by Figma, given its current position as the dominant, most actively growing tool in this specific category.
Final Verdict
Sketch remains a genuinely capable, well-built tool for Mac-based UI/UX designers, offering strong native performance, a mature plugin ecosystem, and solid core design capabilities. However, its position relative to Figma has clearly diminished over recent years, driven primarily by Figma’s superior cross-platform collaborative architecture and its resulting dominance in broader industry adoption. For individual Mac-based designers or small, fully Mac-based teams with established workflows, Sketch remains a reasonable, capable choice. For most other contexts, particularly larger or distributed teams, Figma has become the more practical default.
