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That’s the primary reason why our design team chose Sketch over Figma. Lock in with Figma is worse than with Adobe - there’s no way to export other than flatten

That’s the primary reason why our design team chose Sketch over Figma. Lock in with Figma is worse than with Adobe - there’s no way to export other than flattened SVGs or bitmaps and almost nothing else understands their proprietary file format. Plus, if you stop paying the subscription you potentially lose access to your files. Yes, there’s a generous free tier, but that’s essentially VC funded at the moment. There’s no guarantee that will last forever, especially if they need to actually make some money. At least with Sketch the file format is well understood and you can keep using whatever version you end up with when your licence expires.

robenkleene 7y ago
I agree 100% with this thought process, I have trouble understanding why people are willing to use a product that gives them so little control over their work. Because of this, I've spent a lot of time reading about why people choose Figma, and the reasoning is simply that they value working together more efficiently more than they value data ownership. There are a few interesting take-aways that come from that observation: 1. Over time, there might be a divide with file-based apps for personal use on one side, and web apps for group use on the other (we're probably already here outside of some areas, like video editing and programming, where people still collaborate by editing files). 2. Even for the file-based apps, outside of expert users, it's actually probably preferable for most users to use a web-based app and take their risks with the company behind it, rather than keep track of those files themselves. E.g., picture users with no backup strategy, and all their files on one computer in their house. For these users, dealing with the future of Figma is probably safer than them keeping track of their files themselves. 3. Another fascinating angle here is that programming ends up side stepping all these trade-offs entirely, just because of version control (which is facilitated by plain text file formats), which solves both problems simultaneously (collaboration and offsite backups). Version control, and by extension plain text, are such powerful concepts that they end up splintering off programming from the trajectory the rest of the software industry is on.
- mattkevan 7y ago
  Really good points. You’re right. Individually, files stored in Figma probably are a lot safer than on a hard drive that’s never been backed up. Organisations should probably think hard though. Sketch files are basically a bundle of zipped JSON files and image assets, lending themselves quite nicely to version control. Abstract, for example, is a nice UI layer over Git and neatly adds versioning, collaboration, and developer hand off to Sketch.
arvinsim 7y ago
Being MacOS only is also a form of lock-in when using Sketch. Figma can work with any platform.
- mattkevan 7y ago
  Just because it’s Mac only doesn’t mean you don’t own your own files. If you’re going to take it that far, being computer-only is a form of lock in too. Having said that, there are windows apps that can work with sketch files. For example https://icons8.com/lunacy https://icons8.com/lunacy
- npunt 7y ago
  True, tho that's only one of many ways to get locked-in. Just to name three: 1. what if I want to switch platforms? 2. what if they switch business models? 3. what if they go away? The only real concern is #1 with Sketch, and that's your (org's) choice so you do have some choice in the matter. Since the format is well-documented there's ways to move away if #2 and you still have access to existing software with #3 (save issues with a licensing server perhaps). Figma is a concern with all three unfortunately. Everything I see about its capabilities is amazing, but I've resisted for this reason. Hopefully they open their format.
Silhouette 7y ago
At least with Sketch the file format is well understood and you can keep using whatever version you end up with when your licence expires. For me, this is the #1 issue with the recent trend for subscription models. I do think a lot of these firms are price gouging as well, but even if they weren't, it's just too much risk that something we depend on to do our work might be changed or even entirely discontinued if the business running it changes its mind or fails. I've had salespeople straight-up promise me that X or Y software company is far too big to fail and will be around forever. I've also seen enough big name tech companies fail over the years to know what that promise is worth. We would rather stick with old versions of the big name titles, or use alternatives like the Affinity suite or Sketch where you have your copy and it really is yours, than jump on that bandwagon. I've had salespeople tell me that this is a liability, and that everyone else is moving on and our software won't be compatible with the new file formats or other such excuses. To date, the number of times we have been seriously stung by that since the likes of Adobe went subscription-only is zero, and the number of cases where it's caused a bit of inconvenience but we worked around it without too much trouble is I think one, so I'm willing to take my chances.
coreyward 7y ago
Use whatever tool you prefer, of course, but there are a few underlying assumptions here that I believe are erroneous. Assumption #1: Design documents are contained in a file, and that file should be portable. Tools like Figma are closer in nature to SaaS products than they are to native, file-based, raster editing softwares like Photoshop. You don't expect to be able to export your Slack workspace into a file and import it into another tool. You expect to have a means of migrating that data, potentially by exporting that data into a common format (e.g. JSON, CSV), transforming it into a format compatible with the target, and then either importing it using a provided tool or an API. Assumption #2: Design tools all work similarly enough that document structures are largely portable. While UI modalities remain similar enough on the surface, the underlying capabilities that produce the visual are exceedingly different. Look at type, for example—even Sketch and Figma, which are similar conceptually and of the same era, render type so differently that even robust import/migrate tools fail to capture the position of text within a few pixels for even basic, single-line, single-style text. Notions of seamlessly switching between tools disregards the real-world complexity of fonts, color profiles, raster manipulations, version history, comments, plugin-generated metadata, symbols/components, and more. Assumption #3: There's no way to export a Figma document. You can get the entire document structure from Figma via the API. This is the same data the viewer uses to render the document. You do not need to understand the internals of the .fig files.

robenkleene 7y ago

I agree 100% with this thought process, I have trouble understanding why people are willing to use a product that gives them so little control over their work. Because of this, I've spent a lot of time reading about why people choose Figma, and the reasoning is simply that they value working together more efficiently more than they value data ownership. There are a few interesting take-aways that come from that observation: 1. Over time, there might be a divide with file-based apps for personal use on one side, and web apps for group use on the other (we're probably already here outside of some areas, like video editing and programming, where people still collaborate by editing files). 2. Even for the file-based apps, outside of expert users, it's actually probably preferable for most users to use a web-based app and take their risks with the company behind it, rather than keep track of those files themselves. E.g., picture users with no backup strategy, and all their files on one computer in their house. For these users, dealing with the future of Figma is probably safer than them keeping track of their files themselves. 3. Another fascinating angle here is that programming ends up side stepping all these trade-offs entirely, just because of version control (which is facilitated by plain text file formats), which solves both problems simultaneously (collaboration and offsite backups). Version control, and by extension plain text, are such powerful concepts that they end up splintering off programming from the trajectory the rest of the software industry is on.

mattkevan 7y ago
Really good points. You’re right. Individually, files stored in Figma probably are a lot safer than on a hard drive that’s never been backed up. Organisations should probably think hard though. Sketch files are basically a bundle of zipped JSON files and image assets, lending themselves quite nicely to version control. Abstract, for example, is a nice UI layer over Git and neatly adds versioning, collaboration, and developer hand off to Sketch.

arvinsim 7y ago

Being MacOS only is also a form of lock-in when using Sketch. Figma can work with any platform.

mattkevan 7y ago
Just because it’s Mac only doesn’t mean you don’t own your own files. If you’re going to take it that far, being computer-only is a form of lock in too. Having said that, there are windows apps that can work with sketch files. For example https://icons8.com/lunacy https://icons8.com/lunacy
npunt 7y ago
True, tho that's only one of many ways to get locked-in. Just to name three: 1. what if I want to switch platforms? 2. what if they switch business models? 3. what if they go away? The only real concern is #1 with Sketch, and that's your (org's) choice so you do have some choice in the matter. Since the format is well-documented there's ways to move away if #2 and you still have access to existing software with #3 (save issues with a licensing server perhaps). Figma is a concern with all three unfortunately. Everything I see about its capabilities is amazing, but I've resisted for this reason. Hopefully they open their format.

Silhouette 7y ago

At least with Sketch the file format is well understood and you can keep using whatever version you end up with when your licence expires. For me, this is the #1 issue with the recent trend for subscription models. I do think a lot of these firms are price gouging as well, but even if they weren't, it's just too much risk that something we depend on to do our work might be changed or even entirely discontinued if the business running it changes its mind or fails. I've had salespeople straight-up promise me that X or Y software company is far too big to fail and will be around forever. I've also seen enough big name tech companies fail over the years to know what that promise is worth. We would rather stick with old versions of the big name titles, or use alternatives like the Affinity suite or Sketch where you have your copy and it really is yours, than jump on that bandwagon. I've had salespeople tell me that this is a liability, and that everyone else is moving on and our software won't be compatible with the new file formats or other such excuses. To date, the number of times we have been seriously stung by that since the likes of Adobe went subscription-only is zero, and the number of cases where it's caused a bit of inconvenience but we worked around it without too much trouble is I think one, so I'm willing to take my chances.

coreyward 7y ago

Use whatever tool you prefer, of course, but there are a few underlying assumptions here that I believe are erroneous. Assumption #1: Design documents are contained in a file, and that file should be portable. Tools like Figma are closer in nature to SaaS products than they are to native, file-based, raster editing softwares like Photoshop. You don't expect to be able to export your Slack workspace into a file and import it into another tool. You expect to have a means of migrating that data, potentially by exporting that data into a common format (e.g. JSON, CSV), transforming it into a format compatible with the target, and then either importing it using a provided tool or an API. Assumption #2: Design tools all work similarly enough that document structures are largely portable. While UI modalities remain similar enough on the surface, the underlying capabilities that produce the visual are exceedingly different. Look at type, for example—even Sketch and Figma, which are similar conceptually and of the same era, render type so differently that even robust import/migrate tools fail to capture the position of text within a few pixels for even basic, single-line, single-style text. Notions of seamlessly switching between tools disregards the real-world complexity of fonts, color profiles, raster manipulations, version history, comments, plugin-generated metadata, symbols/components, and more. Assumption #3: There's no way to export a Figma document. You can get the entire document structure from Figma via the API. This is the same data the viewer uses to render the document. You do not need to understand the internals of the .fig files.