I'll caveat this with the disclaimer that I'm not a designer - I'm a developer that often does light design for clients that can't afford a designer. :)
I've moved pretty fully to Figma. It's easy to use and meets the majority of my needs. I like that I can have all my files in the cloud.
The main HUGE benefit though is collaboration — have recently done a few projects with a designer, and handoff was seamless. No exchanging files back and forth, we both can just see everything at the same time. Something small needs to be updated, it can be done right there on the call and I already have access to it. You can even give the client view-only + comment access directly to the mockups, which again, are always up to date.
The downside to Figma is that there are still a few Photoshop-style files they can't import, so I still have to keep Sketch around to handle those.
At my studio, we try to use the tools that fit best with the requirements of the project and the needs of the client post-engagement. So we use Sketch, Illustrator, InDesign, Figma, XD, etc etc. We've even made prototypes in Powerpoint, Keynote and Google Slides (2 of 10, would not recommend).
InVision Studio and XD tout some pretty cool features but the basic design functionality is lacking, in my opinion, making them painful to use.
Sketch and Figma are about equivalent as far as ease-of-use and design tool basics are concerned. And the plugin communities for both are impressive.
I think the real strength of Sketch is that it plays very well with others. Partly because it was built, from the beginning, with that in mind and partly because it has now been around long enough that other tools make it a priority to support sketch integration. You can do practically anything design related with Sketch and the right plugin.
But that means that you have to find (and probably pay for) all of those extra tools to complete your workflow.
For example, we might use Sketch for the design, InVision Craft to import the designs to InVision for prototyping and client review, InVision inspect or Zeplin for dev involvement, Abstract/Kactus for version control, and Box for hosting all of the files.
With Figma, it's all right there. Figma to design, Figma to prototype (no import or conversion), Figma for developer involvement, Figma for version control, Figma for all of the files. Capiche?
We still use whatever we need to get a job done, but if we have the choice, it's gonna be Figma.
Best tool for the job absolutely makes sense, and you're right: The key reason to use Figma feels like that it has everything together versus using a half dozen tools to create and collaborate and share.
Do you find more clients using Figma now, or is it still something where you'd have to suggest they try Figma?
I know a lot of teams (including us) that have moved from Sketch to Figma. I haven't heard of anybody doing the reverse.
Figma is a very good design tool, but it's also an integrated organization and collaboration tool - this is where it's noticeably stronger than the competition.
Have you missed any Sketch features since switching to Figma?
No we haven't. The biggest improvement with Figma isn't head-to-head feature comparison (although we do find that the Figma way of using components/symbols with in-place overrides is superior to Sketch), it's the cloud-based file organization and shared libraries. This replaces working on a shared network drive using name-based pseudo version control, with files that only designers can edit. The improvement is night and day, and we can't imagine going back.
In Outsmart, my digital consulting firm, we just migrated to Figma from sketch. Main reasons: better prototyping and easier workflow for collaboration between designers (we were using kactus to build a git-like flow in sketch but it was overwhelming for most designers). The variety of plugins (and ability to have engineering build more through Figma's API) also helped make the decision.
So far we are enjoying it very much!
Super cool, what are the best Figma plugins you've used (or built) so far?
Forgot to mention the ability to easily share designs and prototypes through web links with clients!
I'm using Adobe XD and I like it. But Figma is great, but I don't like the interface. I gave it a try, but something pulling me back from the migration.
Are you using Adobe XD individually or with a team? Wondering how well it works on collaboration.
Sorry for the late reply. I'm using it alone now. Their collaboration is still under beta. I tried it once. This feature needs some work.
Gottcha. Yup collaboration seems to be Figma's largest advantage overall.
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That is exactly my experience from a writing/editorial perspective, where I'm often either creating article graphics or collaborating with a team on product mockups from a copy and UX writing perspective. For the former, I still reach for Sketch as I'm more familiar with it and it gets the job done well for individual, non-collaborative tasks. But Figma's the hands-down better option when working with others on a design, especially as a non-designer, thanks to its Google Docs-style comments and generally easy to use tools.