Sketch

Sketch is the UI design editor that redefined the industry in 2010 — before Figma, almost everyone used it. Today it remains the preferred choice of many macOS professionals for its speed, feature maturity and vast plugin ecosystem.

Sketch is a vector design application for macOS, specialized in UI design, icons and digital graphics. The canvas is infinite, the component system (Symbols) lets you build reusable component libraries, and grids and guide systems facilitate work on consistent layouts. Sketch introduced the concept of multi-artboard design and shared team libraries, innovations later adopted by the industry. The plugin system is very rich: hundreds of community-written plugins add features like content population, developer handoff, animations and third-party tool integrations. Sketch added cloud-based collaborative features — the web viewer lets stakeholders comment on designs without installing anything — but remains a primarily offline application compared to Figma. The Inspector panels and style panels are very precise for detailed UI design work. It's only available for macOS.

For UI/UX designers working on macOS who want a mature, fast and plugin-rich tool for interface design, with an accessible pricing model for individual editors.

Sketch has a Standard plan at $10 per editor per month billed annually; the Business plan at $20 per editor adds team management and SSO features. Viewers (stakeholders who can view and comment on designs) are free and unlimited. A 30-day free trial is available. Sketch is only available for macOS: there is no Windows or Linux version.