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I find at least zooming in/out large project files to be much faster in Figma. Lack of good offline workflow sucks but the overall features and cross-compatibil

I find at least zooming in/out large project files to be much faster in Figma. Lack of good offline workflow sucks but the overall features and cross-compatibility means nearly everyone is moving to Figma. Sketch isn’t bad software at all, but they are really losing out to the network effects of Figma. Design software isn’t like IDEs where everyone in an organisation can use their favourite one - orgs choose design tooling that is shared across the whole design team, and often used by the FE devs too to some degree. I feel a little sorry for Sketch but if they are not going cross-platform, at this point the only thing Sketch can do to remain at least a little bit relevant is to develop features Figma doesn’t have, maybe some animation tools and scripting for more interactive prototypes, and find a niche in that.

PostThisTooFast 6y ago
Some of us don’t want a Web-based application. Illustrator is derelict at this point, unmaintained and defect-ridden... not to mention a rental ware rip-off. So the Mac desperately needed a good vector app, but sadly Sketch suffers from some significant functional defects that make it a PITA to use. On the other hand, so does Designer. But at least Affinity released a Windows version. Corel Draw is better than all of those, but Windows-only. But screw Web apps.
simonhamp 6y ago
I’m not sure I would feel sorry for them; doubling down on your one-platform stance while your customers are overwhelmingly voting with their feet and wallets for cross-platform support is just stupidity in my opinion. They’ll have a core set of customers who will appreciate it, but I’m not sure they’re going to pay the bills just because you’ve convinced them stay, which they probably would’ve done anyway
- arvinsim 6y ago
  It might also be that they have considered the cross-platform option...and found it not feasible. They might have decided that it is easier to continue on the current path.
  - dharma1 6y ago
    I guess that's the flip side if you build on 100% Apple specific stack - Cocoa, Objective-C/Swift, Coregraphics etc. Porting your app to other platforms later won't be simple. Maybe decision makers at Sketch were looking at stats like majority of designers use MacOS - while that's probably true, that's not the case for devs, product people etc - who are now all using Figma to a degree too. Once you've got that cross-team use of the same app, you're not going to want to go back.
    - arvinsim 6y ago
      It could also be that the stats point to heavy MacOS use before. But trends change.
polk 6y ago
> Lack of good offline workflow sucks This has just been solved: https://www.figma.com/blog/behind-the-feature-autosave/ https://www.figma.com/blog/behind-the-feature-autosave/ Interesting timing on these articles getting published. Almost at exactly the same time, and almost polar opposites.

PostThisTooFast 6y ago

Some of us don’t want a Web-based application. Illustrator is derelict at this point, unmaintained and defect-ridden... not to mention a rental ware rip-off. So the Mac desperately needed a good vector app, but sadly Sketch suffers from some significant functional defects that make it a PITA to use. On the other hand, so does Designer. But at least Affinity released a Windows version. Corel Draw is better than all of those, but Windows-only. But screw Web apps.

simonhamp 6y ago

I’m not sure I would feel sorry for them; doubling down on your one-platform stance while your customers are overwhelmingly voting with their feet and wallets for cross-platform support is just stupidity in my opinion. They’ll have a core set of customers who will appreciate it, but I’m not sure they’re going to pay the bills just because you’ve convinced them stay, which they probably would’ve done anyway

arvinsim 6y ago
It might also be that they have considered the cross-platform option...and found it not feasible. They might have decided that it is easier to continue on the current path.
- dharma1 6y ago
  I guess that's the flip side if you build on 100% Apple specific stack - Cocoa, Objective-C/Swift, Coregraphics etc. Porting your app to other platforms later won't be simple. Maybe decision makers at Sketch were looking at stats like majority of designers use MacOS - while that's probably true, that's not the case for devs, product people etc - who are now all using Figma to a degree too. Once you've got that cross-team use of the same app, you're not going to want to go back.
  - arvinsim 6y ago
    It could also be that the stats point to heavy MacOS use before. But trends change.

polk 6y ago

> Lack of good offline workflow sucks This has just been solved: https://www.figma.com/blog/behind-the-feature-autosave/ https://www.figma.com/blog/behind-the-feature-autosave/ Interesting timing on these articles getting published. Almost at exactly the same time, and almost polar opposites.