Figma vs. Adobe XD vs. Sketch: Choosing the Right UI Design Tool

Selecting the right UI/UX design tool is as critical as the creative ideas and strategy behind digital experiences. As of 2024, Figma, Adobe XD, and Sketch remain popular tools, however, with platforms constantly evolving through regular updates and feature rollouts, it can be challenging for designers to determine which tool best aligns with their workflow.

With two decades of experience in graphic and UI/UX design, I’ve had the opportunity to use each of these tools for various design projects, such as an AI-powered personal assistant web app in Figma, a car companion mobile app in Adobe XD, and a volunteer management web app in Sketch.

Below, I evaluate Figma, Adobe XD, and Sketch user interfaces, design systems, responsive design capabilities, developer handoff features, and more to help you choose the right tool for your project.

Figma vs. Adobe XD vs. Sketch: Feature Comparison

Figma is a browser-based app known for its collaboration features and comprehensive design systems. Its latest release included extensive UI updates, giving users more control over their workspace. Adobe XD is no longer available for purchase as a standalone application, but still supports existing users in “maintenance mode,” and continues to offer integration across the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. Sketch is the application of choice for many designers using Mac, valued for its screen design focus and plugin range. Version 100, an important update released earlier this year, saw important improvements to its interactive prototyping capabilities.

There isn’t necessarily one tool that’s best for all design projects, but a detailed feature comparison can be invaluable when selecting the right design platform. Figma, Adobe XD, and Sketch each offer a distinct set of capabilities that can cater to specific design needs—let’s explore how they compare.

User Interface

Figma’s UI includes a central canvas, a toolbar, and dedicated panels for layers, properties, and assets. Users can also choose between light and dark modes for visual comfort. One of the main objectives of Figma UI3, the third redesign of the Figma interface launched earlier in 2024, was to provide a more focused and approachable design environment for users. The UI3 updates include a more intuitive UI with informative labels in the properties panel (including an explanation of what each property does and which can be turned on and off), and resizable and collapsible panels, which aim to give users more control over their workspace. Unlike its competitors, Figma is accessible entirely in a browser, allowing for platform independence and reducing the barrier to entry for new users.

Adobe XD’s UI comprises a canvas, toolbar, and customizable layers and assets panels. This tool will be familiar to users of other Adobe Creative Cloud suite products as it maintains the classic Adobe style, with a left-hand toolbar, similar to Photoshop and Illustrator. I use Adobe suite products often, so getting started with Adobe XD was easy. The platform also has dedicated workspaces within a single document (artboards) where designers can create and organize user interface designs for various screens and devices. However, Adobe XD does not support multiple pages within a single XD file, a feature that is available in other design tools like Sketch. To manage large projects and different design flows, designers must rely on duplicating artboards and using the layer panel’s grouping and naming features to keep elements organized.

Sketch’s user interface offers a range of toolbars and panels that users can show or hide as they prefer. Designers can use artboards to create self-contained design frames for different device screens, states, and iterations, while pages allow them to separate and manage different flows or sections of their projects. In May 2024, Sketch launched version 100 with some key UI updates, including a command bar with quick access to common actions in the menu bar. Designers can now pin important documents in their Workspace window. Additionally, a minimap was added to help designers navigate a large canvas with layers outside their current view. Like they can in Figma, users can choose between light and dark themes in Sketch. But unlike in Figma and Adobe XD, a critical difference of Sketch is that it’s designed exclusively for macOS and doesn’t natively support Windows.

Components and Symbols

Figma has a comprehensive component and style library, a centralized hub for designers to store and manage reusable elements across projects and teams. Users can create reusable objects known as components, such as buttons, icons, and input fields, as well as more complex items like device mockups, platform OS components, and company logos. Additionally, the rollout of UI3 brought users 200 new icons hand-drawn by Figma designer Tim Van Damm. Styles and variables play a key role in making Figma a powerhouse for maintaining consistency across design files. Styles are predefined attributes (such as font, size, weight etc.) that can be applied to components, while variables enable designers to define and modify properties across multiple instances and create dynamic and easily updatable components across multiple artboards.

Like Figma, Adobe XD’s design libraries are where assets, styles, and components live. Adobe XD also places a strong emphasis on consistency across designs. Designers can create reusable components that maintain consistency throughout a project. Adobe XD’s Repeat Grid feature lets designers replicate a group of objects horizontally or vertically, which helps create lists, galleries, and other sets of repeated elements. Combined, components and Repeat Grid enable quick creation and uniform modification of repetitive design elements and patterns, saving designers time, especially when dealing with complex patterns or data-heavy presentations.

Sketch initially gained popularity within the UI design community for its strong vector drawing capabilities. It has since evolved, with reusable symbols, text and layer styles, and color variables that designers can use across different Sketch documents or libraries. Serving as the master templates for UI components like buttons, icons, headers, and more, symbols allow designers to reuse these elements consistently throughout a project. When changes are made to the original symbol, those modifications are automatically reflected across all instances of the symbol in the design files. Designers can use Sketch’s Symbol Override feature to customize specific symbol instances without affecting any others.

Sketch’s symbols saved me a lot of time when working on a dashboard UI with multiple cards. Instead of manually updating each card when a change was needed, I only modified the master symbol, and it updated on all screens immediately. This capability allowed me to focus on the finer details of each card.

Responsive Design

Beyond a robust system of responsive grids and layouts, designers can also create responsive designs using Figma’s Auto layout feature and constraints. These features enable elements to adapt flexibly to various screen sizes and layouts. With Auto layout, designers can easily arrange and resize components within frames, ensuring that designs adjust without manual resizing. It requires users to set up elements, margins, and padding carefully, but the results are flawless and easy to duplicate. This feature changed the way I design more structured and smart layouts like data-intensive dashboards for clients in the HR and real estate industries. Constraints in Figma enable designers to set rules for how elements behave when the parent frame is resized, providing control over positioning and alignment in responsive layouts.

In 2021, Adobe XD announced the launch of its Responsive Resizing feature. This feature allows designers to adjust and resize design elements easily, maintaining proper spacing and alignment while ensuring that components adapt smoothly to different screen sizes and layouts for a consistent and responsive design. However, this feature doesn’t always accurately predict how elements should adapt when scaling, which can require manual adjustments, particularly with complex designs or nonstandard layouts.

Although Sketch was not initially built for responsive design, the introduction of resizing constraints and smart layouts in recent updates has enhanced its capabilities in addressing the needs of designers working on responsive layouts. Resizing constraints in Sketch enable designers to define how individual elements behave when the parent container (e.g., an artboard) is resized, providing more control over how components adjust to different screen sizes. Sketch’s Smart Layout feature automates the resizing and alignment of design elements based on content updates, simplifying the process of creating adaptable and consistent layouts in response to changes in text, images, or other elements within a design.

Sharing and Collaboration

Figma stands out for its browser-based real-time editing and collaborative features, allowing multiple users to simultaneously work on and share design files, libraries, and prototypes. It includes tools like FigJam for live brainstorming, and Figma Slides for creating presentations. In Figma Organization (aimed at multiple teams), teams are collaborative groups that can share and work on design files and projects collectively within a dedicated shared space. Each team has access to shared files, libraries, and design systems, allowing for structured management and streamlined workflows tailored to group needs and roles. To share work with others, users can send a view or edit link to the file, which external collaborators can access in their web browser or Figma app. Any changes are automatically accessible to all viewers with an Internet connection.

Adobe XD users can share their work for review by sending a link to stakeholders, who can then provide feedback directly on the designs. Its co-editing capabilities enable multiple team members to work on the same document in real time, fostering a truly collaborative design process. The Creative Cloud Libraries also enable the sharing and synchronizing of assets and design elements across projects and team members. When designing a video gaming e-commerce platform with Adobe XD, I was able to sync my UI libraries with Adobe Illustrator, where I designed the platform’s branding and business cards. This helped me maintain consistent styles, fonts, and colors when working across apps.

Like Figma, Sketch offers real-time collaboration, allowing designers to share their work with other team members and stakeholders by saving their files to a shared Workspace. Anyone from that Workspace can view that file, leave comments, and inspect elements as a viewer. Subscribed users with the latest Mac app version will be able to make changes. Additionally, Sketch users can access version control features with third-party services like Abstract, which enables team members to track changes, explore different iterations, and ensure that everyone is always working with the latest design version. One downside to Sketch, in my opinion, is that users without a subscription cannot immediately see your updates; you have to manually republish your design for them to observe the latest changes, whereas this step is automatic in other tools.

Prototyping and Animations

Figma’s interactions and animations are simple but increasingly powerful with each update. With transitions, animations, hot spots, and overlays, designers can simulate user interactions and flows within their designs. Figma’s prototyping mode enables seamless transitions between design screens, providing a realistic preview of the final product’s appearance and function. For example, I used Figma’s Smart Animate feature and interactive components in a mobile app project to create interactive flows for user testing. Smart Animate detects differences in objects across frames and smoothly animates these changes, providing a more realistic and polished transition experience in mobile prototypes.

Adobe XD’s Auto Animate feature adds motion to prototypes, bridging the gap between static designs and dynamic user experiences. With Auto Animate, designers can create smooth transitions between artboard states by animating the differences in properties such as position, scale, rotation, and opacity. When you duplicate an artboard and make changes to that duplicate, Auto Animate intelligently interpolates the differences and animates the objects, simulating lifelike animations with minimal effort. This feature helped me showcase button presses and slide transitions to give the client a better understanding of the product flow. Finally, Adobe XD is the only tool that currently offers a native Voice Prototyping feature for creating interactive voice commands and speech playback within prototypes.

Sketch’s new Smart Animate feature allows designers to create smooth, sophisticated animations between artboards with minimal effort. Users can also create links between artboards to simulate user flows, and set fixed headers and footers for scrolling designs and hot spots for creating touch points. Sketch’s prototyping capabilities can be extended by leveraging third-party plugins like Principle and Anima, as well as Craft by InVision, which integrates prototyping and syncing with real data.

Plugins, Extensions, and AI Capabilities

Figma’s plugin offering is growing. Two of its most potent plugins include Sizzy for responsive design testing, and Stark, which is designed for accessibility. Sizzy enables designers to preview their designs simultaneously on multiple devices side by side, helping ensure consistent layouts across various screen sizes. Stark is an all-in-one suite of accessibility tools allowing designers to check color contrast, simulate color blindness, and ensure their designs are visually accessible to all users. A Figma plugin that ended up saving me a lot of time is Font Awesome. With it, I was able to search for the right icon to use without leaving the canvas.

In 2023, Figma acquired the AI plugin Diagram, and thanks to the acquisition, the company is now well ahead of its competitors in terms of AI potential. Its AI features allow users to search for and access necessary assets quickly, automatically generate initial mockups, and utilize AI for intelligent text rewriting and layer auto renaming.

Adobe XD supports a variety of plugins, which can be accessed through the Creative Cloud marketplace. Commonly accessed extensions include Repetor, which enables quick duplication of items such as lists and galleries while maintaining uniformity in style and spacing. Plugins like Zeplin and ProtoPie facilitate seamless handoff and advanced prototyping. Adobe XD also leverages the AI capabilities of Adobe Sensei for quick, content-aware layout adjustments.

Plugins, once the holy grail of Sketch, now play a lesser role as the design tool’s native features mature. Nevertheless, Sketch still has a well-established community of plugins and integrations. Sketch Runner helps users speed up their workflow by using a quick command bar for searching and executing commands and plugins. One of my go-to Sketch plugins is Abstract, designed to facilitate version control and collaborative workflows by allowing teams to manage and document their Sketch files and design processes more efficiently.

Developer Handoff

Figma’s built-in Dev Mode is one of its standout features. Designers can share links with developers, who can then inspect elements, view CSS, iOS, and Android code, and export assets directly within the platform. Dev Mode automatically generates design specifications and documentation that developers can reference to ensure they build to the design specifications. Figma’s handoff features significantly improved my communication with clients and developers. For example, its Ready for Dev View feature helped me organize the status of all assets so that developers knew which ones were ready for them. Additionally, Code Connect allowed me to convert design elements into production-ready code snippets. This resulted in a smooth transition to developers, with minimal back-and-forth and fewer misinterpretations of my original design.

Adobe XD simplifies handoff by providing developers with a shareable link to the XD prototype where they can inspect and retrieve design specs, assets, and code snippets. Users can opt for either public or private links, depending on the nature of the project. This approach ensures that developers have easy access to measurements, colors, fonts, and icons required to translate design to code accurately. Adobe XD also allows designers to export design assets to PNG, SVG, JPG, and PDF file formats, catering to the different needs of web, iOS, or Android platforms. Its integration with tools like Zeplin and Sympli further enhances this handoff with more specific developer preferences, such as generating code snippets from design files.

Sketch’s shared libraries, export assets, and code snippet generation features enable developers to understand the design intent and build accurately to specification. Invited developers can also inspect designs in a browser without needing to download the Mac desktop app. Beyond this, designers working in Sketch can use its plugins and integrated tools for smooth developer handoff. Sketch is also compatible with plugins like Zeplin and Abstract, which offer additional layers of collaboration.

Figma vs. Adobe XD vs. Sketch: Which Tool Is Right for You?

All three tools are built to help you design effectively. Figma stands out for its user-friendly interface, robust collaborative features, and built-in Dev Mode, making it a smart choice for team-focused design workflows. Adobe XD may be more accessible for those accustomed to the Adobe Creative Cloud interface, offering a smoother onboarding experience. However, its reusable components and voice prototyping capabilities have the potential to enhance any designer’s workflow. If you’re looking for a native Mac desktop app with a rich selection of plugins, Sketch is for you.

Ultimately, choosing the best design tool involves assessing your project’s specific goals, the level of collaboration required in your team, and how well the tool integrates with your current tech stack and workflows.