Sketch
The incumbent Figma displaced — still excellent, still Mac-only.
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sovereigntySketch was the tool Figma took the market from, and it is still a first-class native macOS design application with a strong plugin ecosystem and a one-time-purchase option alongside subscriptions. Being native means it is fast in ways a browser tool is not. The constraints are the ones that cost it the market: macOS only, and collaboration that was retrofitted rather than designed in. Listed because for a solo designer on a Mac who resents subscriptions, it remains a rational choice.
SOURCE-AVAILABLEProprietaryLOCAL-FIRST
LicenseProprietary
PricingAround $12 per editor per month, or a one-time licence with a year of updates.
Open sourceNo
Self-hostableNo
Local-first dataYes
What it does well
- +Native macOS performance — noticeably faster than browser tools
- +One-time purchase option, which is rare in this category now
- +Mature plugin ecosystem built over a decade
- +Files are local by default
Where it falls short
- −macOS only — excludes most teams outright
- −Collaboration is bolted on rather than native
- −Proprietary format with the same lock-in as Figma's
- −Losing ecosystem momentum to Figma and Penpot
Sketch as an alternative to
Where Sketch shows up in our comparisons, and how it ranked.
Sketch head-to-head
Straight comparisons against the tools people weigh it against.