My current Figma vs. Sketch
A personal view about designing with both tools
It’s crazy to see how fast Figma has succeeded to capture such a big chunk of the design market. Design teams all around the world are rapidly switching to Figma as their main design tool.
For a long time, I haven’t got the chance to try Figma for myself and see what the buzz is all about, so when we had to kick-off a new project, we decided to give Figma a shot.
I’ve been using Figma for a while now. I wanted to share how it works for my personal needs comparing to Sketch.
Usage & Performance
When I was working on Sketch on a regular basis, it tended to crash a lot and files were gone without having an up to date version.
Figma solved this issue as it works very smooth, fast and doesn’t crash often if any. The biggest bonus is that you don’t need to worry about saving your files as it always keeps your files saved and up to date.
Having said that, I think Sketch is more convenient, more software than an app, as it was built in a traditional way, it feels more like a native app.
RTL support
I’m aware of the fact this might not be a top priority for both of the companies, but still, none of them is perfect for RTL usage.
Although Sketch is better with RTL writing, it still has some issues when combining texts and numbers together in the same layer.
As Figma still lacks RTL built-in support, I’m waiting to see if and how they’re going to add it.
Collaboration
No question, collaboration is what made Figma so popular and successful.
Although the new Sketch for teams is an improvement, it’s still not there yet. It increases the price of using the software in that way.
Update: Thanks Daniel Duke for the pricing heads up.
Also, I don’t like the repo method (like Abstract/Github). I get it for code but not for design, it just doesn’t make sense to me. Working simultaneously in the same place is so much easier and efficient.
Hidden gems
Fonts
Figma comes with Google fonts fully integrated which is fantastic, reducing the hassle of downloading and installing fonts. Yet it doesn’t have a preview on the fonts panel in general which makes it harder to pick the right font for your design.
Images handling
I love Sketch’s images drag & drop from the web. I can drag images right from my browser into my artboard.
Plugins
Plugins for both are really great. I love more the way Sketch does that, more easy to use, although I like how in Figma you can access all plugins right from the app without having to download them from different places.
I think both tools are great. Yes, different tools might suit different usages but at the end of the day, I think people would prefer to design and work in just one place.
If you’re a part of a team and the need for collaboration is something you’ve been seeking for, then Figma is undoubtedly for you.
