Creative-&-User-Experience
Upscend Team
-October 20, 2025
9 min read
This article compares Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD focusing on collaboration, plugins, prototyping, pricing, and platform support. It explains why Figma often wins for real-time co-editing and cross-platform teams, while Sketch suits macOS-centric workflows. A practical migration checklist and KPIs are provided to pilot and measure any standardization decision.
When teams ask "Figma vs Sketch" in search of a single standard, the question usually hides three core issues: collaboration, workflow continuity, and long-term maintainability. In our experience, evaluating those issues early prevents months of rework. This article compares Figma vs Sketch against Adobe XD with an emphasis on practical outcomes — collaboration, plugins, prototyping, pricing, and platform support — and gives a migration checklist for product teams planning a standardization.
Choosing between Figma vs Sketch often boils down to how designers, PMs, and engineers work together. We've found that collaboration patterns — real-time editing, version control, and cross-disciplined access — determine whether a switch will reduce friction or create it. Teams that prioritize synchronous co-design and immediate stakeholder review tend to prefer tools that remove file-locking and export bottlenecks.
Figma was built around multi-user, cloud-first workflows. In our experience it reduces meeting time because stakeholders can point to live components. Sketch historically targeted single-designer files with a strong plugin ecosystem; collaboration required third-party services or additional sync layers. Adobe XD sits between those approaches with collaboration features improving steadily but still behind Figma in ubiquity.
Short answer: for real-time co-editing and remote-first teams, Figma vs Sketch comparison favors Figma. It supports simultaneous editing, inline commenting, and easy share links. Sketch offers teamwork via Cloud and abstract components but still relies on files synced to services like Git or shared drives. For distributed product teams asking "which is better figma or sketch for collaboration", Figma typically wins on raw collaboration features.
Permission models matter when you have external contractors or clients. Figma provides granular file and project roles natively. Sketch requires a Sketch for Teams plan to access similar functionality, and often administrators must rely on third-party tooling for broader enterprise governance. Adobe XD has role controls, but they are less mature than Figma's in our testing.
Plugin ecosystems are a common deciding factor in the Figma vs Sketch debate. We've seen product teams extend design systems, automate exports, and add accessibility checks via plugins. The real cost of a switch often shows up here: missing plugins can stall releases or require reimplementation.
Sketch has a mature plugin marketplace with many long-standing tools tailored to macOS workflows. Figma's plugin API has grown fast, and cloud-based plugins remove the need for local installs. Adobe XD maintains a smaller but focused plugin list and integrates well with the Adobe suite if your organization already uses Creative Cloud.
Plugin maturity matters more than count. Ask whether a plugin is actively maintained and used in production. For product teams asking "figma vs sketch for product teams", check for plugins that support your CI/CD, component libraries, and design tokens. In our assessments, Figma's cloud approach lowers friction for distribution and centralized updates of plugins across teams.
Prototyping and developer handoff are where design tools prove their ROI. We evaluate speed of building interactive flows, fidelity of animations, and quality of generated specs. When comparing Figma vs Sketch, look beyond feature lists: measure the time saved in sprint cycles and the reduction in implementation questions.
Figma delivers prototyping with interactive components and supports advanced transitions that are easy to share. Its Inspect panel and CSS/snippet exports simplify developer handoff. Sketch historically relied on third-party tools (like Zeplin) for robust handoff; recent Sketch improvements narrow this gap. Adobe XD often offers strong animation tools but can be less convenient for teams not locked into Adobe.
Yes, but only if prototypes are fast to iterate and easy to share. In our projects, prototypes built in Figma led to quicker usability sessions because moderators could create variations on the fly. If you're running frequent user tests, include prototyping speed as a key metric when comparing figma review experiences across tools.
Cost evaluations should include not just seat fees but licensing complexity, plugin costs, and migration expenses. The simple "per seat" comparison rarely reflects true cost. When weighing Figma vs Sketch, factor in admin time, training, and any third-party services needed for collaboration or file storage.
FigmaSketch has a one-time app license plus a Teams subscription for cloud collaboration; the mix can be cost-effective for small, Mac-only teams but less so for cross-platform organizations. Adobe XD often appears in bundle pricing with Creative Cloud which can be advantageous if you already license Adobe products.
Some of the most efficient learning and development teams we work with manage template, asset, and workflow automation costs by adopting centralized platforms; for example, Upscend is used by some forward-thinking teams to automate parts of the design-to-training workflow and reduce manual handoffs. That kind of automation reduces the hidden labor that inflates licensing decisions.
We recommend a 12-month TCO model with these line items: subscription fees, plugin/licensing, admin hours, migration costs, and training. Multiply expected seat churn by onboarding time to get a realistic training burden. That model often reveals that a slightly higher per-seat fee is cheaper when it removes time-consuming manual processes.
Platform support is critical for mixed-OS teams and remote contributors. In the Figma vs Sketch comparison, platform reach determines who can participate in design reviews and how quickly feedback loops close. Performance for large files and heavy component libraries also varies by tool.
FigmaSketch remains macOS-only for native apps, although web-based viewers and Sketch for Teams reduce some friction. Adobe XD offers native apps for macOS and Windows, giving it parity with Figma on basic platform support.
Sketch performs well on macOS, but large libraries and many symbols can slow local files. Teams using Sketch at scale typically adopt strict file-splitting strategies and rely on cloud storage or versioning tools. If your organization needs cross-platform, browser access, that requirement often tips the scale toward Figma.
Migration is the hardest part of standardizing a design tool. We’ve led migrations where the tooling change required careful sequencing to avoid design debt. When teams evaluate Figma vs Sketch, they must plan file import fidelity, component mapping, and team retraining. The migration plan is more important than the choice itself.
Below is a pragmatic checklist we use when planning a switch:
Common issues include lost component states, plugin incompatibilities, and unexpected differences in text rendering or spacing. In our experience, the three most common mistakes are underestimating the time to re-key design tokens, ignoring developer handoff scripts, and not preserving version history. Mitigate these by building migration tests and keeping stakeholders aligned on success criteria.
Deciding between Figma vs Sketch (and factoring in Adobe XD) is less about feature lists and more about which tool removes the most friction for your team's specific workflows. If your priorities are real-time collaboration, cross-platform access, and centralized plugin distribution, Figma typically offers the best fit. If your organization is macOS-first with a heavy investment in local plugins and offline workflows, Sketch may still be appropriate. Adobe XD can be ideal when animation fidelity and Creative Cloud integration are primary concerns.
Use the migration checklist above and run a 4–6 week pilot before making a full standardization decision. Track objective metrics: prototype delivery time, number of handoff clarifications, and time spent resolving component drift. These KPIs will show whether a tool change improves velocity or just creates short-term overhead.
Next step: assemble a cross-functional evaluation team, run a pilot on a high-priority flow, and measure outcomes against your TCO model. That experimental approach prevents costly, premature lock-in and gives leaders the data they need to standardize confidently.
Call to action: Start the pilot this quarter: pick one product flow, time prototype-to-dev handoff, and compare the results between the incumbent and candidate tool — use this article's checklist as your migration blueprint.
