Sketch

What is Sketch?

Sketch is a design and prototyping software used by a wide range of businesses to create interactive prototypes and designs. Over one million users have used Sketch for their design needs. Its standout features are its extensive tool kit and customizable user interface.

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Table of Contents

Sketch Review Summary

Sketch was founded in 2010 by Pieter Omvlee and Emanuel Sá. Since then, its 138 full-time, remotely-based employees have served over one million users.

Sketch’s features are tailored for user experience designers and prototypers. This means that it does not include the user-friendly photo creation and editing features of Canva and Adobe Photoshop. Its strongest features are its tool kit and user interface.

Sketch’s pricing starts at $9 per month per user. It is one of the more affordable solutions on the market today. It is generally more affordable than its two closest competitors, Adobe XD and Figma.

Overall, Sketch is a powerful prototyping software built more so for user experience designers rather than small businesses in need of ready-made custom images. Sketch can be leveraged to create robust and interactive prototypes of designs and applications your small business is working on. However, look into Figma if you’re in need of more flexible team collaboration or you do not have a Mac computer.

  • If you are a marketer or a small business with far simpler design needs, consider Canva.
  • If you are in need of a prototyping software that offers Windows and Linux support, try Figma.
  • If you are interested in more robust photo editing capabilities, try Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.

Sketch Pricing & Cost

Sketch pricing starts at $9 per user per month. Its Standard plan comes with unlimited documents and projects, as well as its native Mac application.

Sketch also provides a Business plan with custom pricing for businesses with more advanced needs. Consider this option if you are in need of add-ons such as single sign-on and a dedicated customer success manager.

Sketch Features

Let’s discuss the major features that Sketch offers and how they can help your design needs. Product screenshots are included to add context and demonstrate the user interface.

Designs

Sketch’s designs are centered around prototyping and wireframing. In this regard, it is very robust. However, we recommend alternatives like Canva if creating ready-made, well designed images and banners for your social media or small business is more important for you.

Design Types

Sketch, like Figma and Adobe XD, is built primarily for wireframing. This means that it is best leveraged for creating mockups and interactive demos. Contrast this with Canva, which is tailor-made for social media posts, business cards, and presentations.

”Sketch

Sketch works with vector graphics. These are scalable graphics you can create and export as SVG files. Because of this, it can be used to design logos similarly to Adobe Illustrator. However, note that Illustrator is a print-friendly software that offers more features centered around this model.

Templates

Sketch comes with very few templates to choose from when starting out. In contrast, Figma offers an ample amount of dedicated templates, and also supports community-made templates. This means that if you are new to wireframing and prototyping software, Figma’s templates will be easier and more insightful to use.

Sketch supports the following templates:

  • Android icon design
  • iOS app icon
  • Google Material Design
  • Web design

Tool Kit

Sketch’s tool kit is robust for prototypes and designers. You can customize your interface to include the exact tools and guides needed. In addition to its wide breadth of tools, Sketch also allows you to create interactive demos of your prototypes. This means if you’re designing a website or mobile app, you can preview the user experience before moving forward.

User Interface

Sketch’s user interface is sleek and customizable. An example of an uncustomized user interface is seen below.

Sketch User Interface

Although Sketch’s basic user interface is comprehensive, you can add a number of additional tweaks to modify your interface to your liking. These include:

  • Grid lines
  • Rulers
  • Colors
  • Fonts
  • Toolbar
  • Tabs

Sketch also allows you to modify your toolbar. You have a wide array of tools to choose from, with additional viewing options such as showing icons with or without text. This helps flatten the learning curve for beginners to the platform.

Tool Types

Sketch offers a robust number of tool types. Each tool is designed to make prototyping simultaneously efficient and powerful.

Sketch Tool Kit

The fundamental tool most users will start with is the Artboard. Artboards are frames that house your prototypes and designs. Sketch comes with a number of artboard templates including:

Device CategoryDevice Types
Apple Devices
  • iPhone
  • iPad
  • Apple Watch
  • Apple TV
  • MacBook
Android Devices
  • Common mobile
  • Common tablet
  • Chromebook
Social Media
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Once you’ve selected your Artboard, you’re free to insert text and images. Sketch can also randomly generate avatars, names, world cities, user profiles and images from Unsplash to help streamline your wireframing.

Another standout tool that Sketch offers is its Hotspots and Links. These are essentially redirects that you can create from one Artboard to another. This allows you to simulate the actual experience of using the end product you’re prototyping.

Sketch Prototyping

As you can see above, we’ve connected Hotspots in each of the prototypes’ lower buttons. This means that when we present an interactive demo of our prototype, users can click on each button and be redirected to their respective pages.

This is one of the primary reasons we recommend any user experience designer chooses software like Sketch over graphic and image based solutions such as Adobe Illustrator and Canva.

Symbols

Another important feature Sketch offers is symbols. Symbols in Sketch are the equivalent of Figma’s Components. Symbols can help you substantially streamline your workflow by applying any changes you make across your entire file.

Sketch Symbols

The main use case for this is if you are using the same element multiple times across your file, such as an icon. You can mark any graphic, image, and text in Sketch as a Symbol.

Now, anytime you make a change to that Symbol’s shape, size, or color, these changes will be made across your entire project. This means that you do not have to go through your entire project and individually make the same changes multiple times.

Photo Editing

Photo editing in Sketch is very limited when compared to Adobe Photoshop. This is because it is primarily designed for wireframing rather than photo editing.

Sketch Photo Editing

You can make very basic adjustments to your images. This includes:

  • Saturation
  • Brightness
  • Borders
  • Shadows
  • Blur

Although Sketch’s photo editing is not as robust as alternatives, we feel it does well in accommodating designers looking to make quick edits without disturbing their workflow.

Collaboration

Sketch’s collaboration is strong, but weaker than Figma's. Sketch’s real time collaboration can only be leveraged if all your team members have Mac devices. Commenting on documents is also counterintuitive.

Sketch Collaboration

Real time collaboration is robust even if it is only available for Mac users. Changes made by team members are immediately seen in the same document. You can also choose to track a specific member’s cursor if they’re presenting changes.

Commenting in Sketch is more limited than in Figma. You cannot highlight specific parts of a document and can only comment on Sketch’s web browser.

Cloud Storage

Sketch is not fully cloud-based like Figma. This means that you’ll often need to save your own projects before uploading them to the cloud, which takes up space on your harddrive. Ultimately, consider Figma if you feel you and your team will be handling a vast amount of projects and files for your business.

Sketch Version Control

Version control is decent in Sketch. You can recover any edition of your file from its inception. You’re provided a side by side preview to easily visualize changes between each document.

Unlike Figma, you cannot add notes that specify which changes have been made. This makes restoring larger files harder in Sketch.

Sketch Integrations

Sketch integrates primarily with prototyping and user testing software. It does not offer support for collaboration and productivity tools like Adobe XD and Figma. Here are some popular integrations Sketch supports:

  • Abstract
  • Avocode
  • InVision
  • Lokalise
  • Versions
  • Zeplin

Sketch Customer Service

Sketch’s customer support team is quick to respond and attentive, but only available through email. Responses typically take one to two business days.

Sketch’s blog is its most helpful secondary resource. It offers updates on the software itself as well as software guides for both new and experienced users.

Customer Support ChannelsEmail
Other Support ResourcesBlog, community page
Application Status PageYes

Sketch Alternatives & Competitors

Sketch has a number of competitors. Its most comparable alternatives are Adobe XD and Figma.

Here’s a full list of Sketch competitors:

Is Sketch Right For You?

Overall, Sketch is a powerful prototyping software built more so for user experience designers rather than small businesses in need of ready-made custom images. Sketch can be leveraged to create robust and interactive prototypes of designs and applications your small business is working on. However, look into Figma if you’re in need of more flexible team collaboration or you do not have a Mac computer.

  • If you are a marketer or a small business with far simpler design needs, consider Canva.
  • If you are in need of a prototyping software that offers Windows and Linux support, try Figma.
  • If you are interested in more robust photo editing capabilities, try Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.

If you're interested, you can try Sketch today.

Yousef Fatehpour

Yousef Fatehpour is a Junior Research Analyst at SoftwarePundit. He graduated from University of California, San Diego, where he studied Human Centered Design and Communications. His work at UCSD's Design Lab emphasized UX research and product management.

Yousef's primary areas of interest are software design, user journeys, and how user experience is handled across software markets. Yousef also has experience in product design and multimedia content production. You can connect with Yousef on LinkedIn.

Yousef is an expert in several software categories including:

  • SMS marketing software
  • Document management software
  • Human resource software
  • Applicant tracking software
  • Design software