TrustRadius Insights for Sketch are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Easy to use interface: Reviewers have consistently found Sketch's interface to be easy to understand and navigate, with similarities to other prototyping applications. This positive sentiment is shared by many users who appreciate the user-friendly design, making it accessible for both novice and experienced designers.
Versatile symbol libraries: Many reviewers have praised Sketch's ability to create custom symbol libraries or download available ones for free or purchase. This feature allows users to easily create and customize their designs, resulting in a versatile and fast tool that can be tailored according to their specific needs.
Time-saving features: A significant number of users have mentioned that Sketch eliminates the need for manual creation of form fields and UI elements before using them in wireframe layouts. This time-saving feature has been highly appreciated by reviewers, as it allows them to focus more on the creative aspects of their designs rather than repetitive tasks.
We use Sketch as a digital product design tool for designing and wireframing UI interfaces from low fidelity through to high fidelity. We have used it to present prototypes to stakeholders for approval as well as giving our development teams detailed visuals, exported assets and specifications fro delivery. Whilst the basics can be picked up quite easily there it a steep learning curve for more complex tasks.
Pros
Wireframing
Hi-fidelity digital design
Prototypes
Cons
In platform collaboration with colleagues
Licencing can be expensive when sharing
Text formating can be limitied
Likelihood to Recommend
Not everyone in our organisation can use Sketch because it is designed to be an Apple Macintosh operating system only tool. This can be restrictive when some colleague want to collaborate on copy edits or light design amendments. It does balance some of the hi-fidelity vector editing really well though providing what Adobe Illustrator can but in a development context.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Product Management (Publishing company, 1001-5000 employees)
I use Sketch to create assets for my web development projects. It is my preferred tool even though I have Adobe Illustrator available. The web-focused design of Sketch has everything I need to get the job done without the complexity. I especially like the export options which allow me to generate multiple exports all at once.
Pros
Excellent user interface without the bloat of Illustrator.
Multiple exports generated in one click.
Excellent toolset for web design.
Cons
Switched to the dreaded subscription model!
No glaring omissions to the product.
Likelihood to Recommend
Sketch is great for creating web graphics, it's intuitive and helpful while editing vectors for that application. I'd recommend it to anyone creating web assets. It's lightweight and doesn't seem to slow down your computer like Adobe's tools sometimes do. That being said, It's not a tool designed for print. It's missing bleeds, crop marks, etc. that are required for that type of work. However, it's a great tool for what it does.
VU
Verified User
Director in Information Technology (Internet company, 1-10 employees)
Sketch is my preferred tool to start envisioning the first visual ideas of a digital product, whatever it is. It's perfect for having an idea and visualizing it within a couple of minutes. It's such a versatile tool because it's really great for early explorations of an idea as well as making very accurate prototypes or complete design systems ready for production.
Pros
Having instant preview of a screen design on a mobile device.
Easily created design systems with nested objects.
Exporting multiple formats and sizes in one click.
Editing and creating vector artwork.
Cons
More control over vector editing, handles, curves and points.
It would be great to see more animation functionalities.
Being able to create 3D models would be perfect.
Likelihood to Recommend
Sketch is well suited to create mock-ups which could then be easily turned into real designs, it's also perfectly suited to create final screen designs of websites, apps, mobile websites, Apple Watch apps, anything interactive. It might be not very well suited to create more animation intensive interactive experiences which can required third party plugins. It's also very difficult to work on Sketch with anything which involves video and motion graphics.
Our company has used Sketch for several years for designing layouts for the web. It's a nice application for designing and preparing art files for handoff to developers. It's also pretty easy for beginners to pick up if you're familiar with Adobe and other design products.
Pros
Easy to learn and use
Lots of good tutorials available
Creating reusable global components for web designs
Cons
No cloud file storage integrated
Likelihood to Recommend
Sketch is a great application, but the lack of cloud file storage and team collaboration capabilities limits its use with remote teams like ours. Compared to Figma, it has the same design capabilities but lacks the collaboration component.
Sketch allows our company to make highly professional landing pages, illustrations, slides, pitch decks, diagrams, etc. With some plugins or extensions, our designers can export presets and code, which is wonderful to create websites after, using that code.
Pros
Amazing app for UI/UX design. This is prototyping as its best.
Being able to use a lot of plugins for more advanced features and designs gives you a lot of useful features when utilizing Sketch.
Cons
The only aspect we dislike about Sketch is the high price, but when compared to other similar applications, it is one of the more inexpensive options available.
Likelihood to Recommend
It helps our Design Team create awesome landing pages in just a couple of days. Also, it's greatly improved our design workflow. We can have all of the pages of a site, and the different screen sizes, in one document, and then if we need to change a header or symbol, we can edit it in one place, and it affects all of the pages. There is a feature for responsive design, but it's quite basic and does not link to different breakpoints when one element of the screen might go to a different place according to the user's device resolution.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Marketing (Internet company, 11-50 employees)
We use Sketch across a couple of different departments. At first, our design team was the only team using it. However, as a member of the marketing team, I started using it to maintain consistency between projects that our teams collaborated on. After using it for just a few minutes, I knew that it was a game-changer. It is a very easy to use program that allows a user to make designs very simple, without the same technicality of some other Adobe products. Very straightforward and user-friendly while also retaining a robust design feature set.
Pros
Assets within a project "snap" to proportion and match with other assets, maintaining alignment and space in projects to help create well-designed projects, no matter what you are working on.
All the tools are laid out very nicely and clearly. There are minimal questions as to how to do very basic and sometimes more complicated functions.
Automatic saving and cloud saving is a plus.
The design of the software is visually very intuitive. The layers panel is well organized and easy to manage.
Cons
You have to have a canvas set up to export certain file types accurately; this isn't clear at first.
The export process is a little strange. It takes getting used to. It seems you have to convert the file type BEFORE selecting export...I found that to be odd.
It may be less robust than Adobe Illustrator, but I haven't used both enough to say what Sketch might be missing.
Likelihood to Recommend
I have used Sketch to design adverts for events, YouTube still, and to modified an email template that one of our designers had initially created. It's straightforward to pick up new skills and doesn't have the intimidating friction to enter in as a user, as some Adobe products do.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Marketing (Internet company, 501-1000 employees)
Our product, design, and development teams use Sketch to host our design style guide and symbol library. The product and design teams use Sketch to create mockups, wireframes, etc., and then use Sketch's Marvel integration to hand designs off to the devs. The product content strategy team also uses Sketch to create internal images and visuals (e.g., annotated product screenshots, tone maps, infographics, diagrams).
Pros
It's extremely easy to create symbols in Sketch. This makes it very, very fast to re-use components across designs. Not only does this save time, but it keeps our work consistent across users and designs.
Sketch always loads incredibly quickly, no matter how large the file size or how many images/artboards the file contains. It's like magic, especially compared to some of the clunkier software I've used.
Sketch offers a fantastic spread of third-party plugins. The Marvel plugin makes it incredibly easy to upload/sync designs before dev handoffs.
Cons
As with similar software, Sketch does have a learning curve. Sketch is incredibly easy to use once you're comfortable with the navigation, know the keyboard shortcuts, etc. Before you're at that point, however, it can be difficult. I already had experience with programs like Illustrator, Photoshop, and InVision, and took to Sketch very quickly. But one of my colleagues who has less experience with these types of tools is unable to use Sketch efficiently, even after several months.
Sketch is only available for OS. This wasn't a huge problem for our company, where the design and product teams all use MacBooks, but it means it's harder to share with other teams (like the devs, who use PCs).
The basic image editing Sketch offers is pretty limited. Although that's not the main reason anyone at our company uses Sketch, it would be nice to be able to erase parts of an image or do some basic masking.
Likelihood to Recommend
I think Sketch is a wonderful tool for just about any product or design team (unless you use PCs). Sketch is lightweight, fast, easy to use, and gets the job done. Even if you use another tool for major prototyping, wireframing, etc., Sketch is a great option for hosting a design/symbol library and style guide. Its plugins make it very easy to use in conjunction with another tool.
VU
Verified User
Strategist in Product Management (Computer Software company, 201-500 employees)
I have been using Sketch for last 4 years across my various organizations. I learned UX and UI design on Sketch. I really like how we can use plugins of various companies to make it more powerful like Zeplin, Invision, etc. We moved from Adobe Illustrator because this is a simpler product as compared to it and is quite cheaper. It is being used to make user experience mockups and also UI design. It is mainly used by the Product Design and Product Management departments.
Pros
It's easy to understand, very intuitive and easy to get used to.
It is great to make UI designs and share it with teams.
It can be used for wireframing and mockups by PMs.
Cons
I think one limiting factor is that it is available only on Mac. Would be great to have on Windows too.
Sketch is missing the direct design to code, which Figma is able to do.
Sketch doesn't let you share the prototype with others who do not have Sketch. In Invision you can share a link and people can see.
Likelihood to Recommend
Sketch is suitable for startups who have fewer designers, for bigger companies Adobe Cloud might be more helpful since it is more powerful in collaboration. Sketch is also very good when used along with tools like Zeplin and Invision. I think the company has improved a lot and in the future, if they have a direct to code feature, it will be great.
Sketch solves prototyping interactive products. This is either to get buy-in from stakeholders, or to show the intent of what a product will be for developers. Sketch helps us quickly visualize a design and rapidly iterate. It's being utilized by our UX and UI designers primarily, but the deliverables of Sketch are utilized by a wider range of the organization for communication purposes.
Pros
High fidelity interactive mockups.
Very user-friendly interface for a design program.
Incredibly competitive price point, especially when compared to Adobe.
Cons
Sketch hasn't innovated in a while. They used to be a leader here, but have slowed down and are now playing catch-up to other design programs.
Being made for Mac only is extremely limiting.
Working on their design system is a pretty poor experience compared to alternatives.
Likelihood to Recommend
I would recommend Sketch to solo freelance interactive designers who are working on Mac. All other situations I'd probably recommend Figma, it's better all around, or if you love messing with plugins all the time. Sketch can be very powerful combined with third-party plugins, but you get to a point where it's barely the same program at a certain point.
We use Sketch as our primary design software. While Adobe products are still in use, we rely heavily on Sketch for product designs and marketing collateral of every variety. We love the integrations Sketch offers, especially to Zeplin, as well as plugins like Magic Mirror. Sketch has become a staple in our tech stack.
Pros
Plugins are extensive and robust.
High fidelity wireframes are a breeze.
The interface makes it easy for advanced designers, as well as less experienced ones, to thrive.
Cons
Collaborative design.
Prototyping is pretty basic.
Large file handling.
Likelihood to Recommend
Sketch is a must-have for product teams, as well as a really useful tool for marketing teams. We use it to do everything from product design to social graphics. It's a simple, yet robust platform and it's only $99 a year for the license. At that cost, it's one of the very best investments we've made for our team.
VU
Verified User
Director in Marketing (Computer Software company, 11-50 employees)
