Sketch

Sketch is easy to get up and running with - even without previous prototyping experience (such as with Adobe Illustrator to build components or using Adobe XD for building interactions), a few hours with Sketch is enough to get familiarized with the software.

The inclusion of symbols in Sketch is a huge pro - coming from Illustrator, I was already aware of their application and advantages. That knowledge crossed over easily for Sketch and allowed our team to prototype web and mobile designs quickly and efficiently.

Another huge plus is the community surrounding Sketch - their own documentation and a strong community means it's easy to get answers to questions you may have about tooling.

In building out vector graphics, I still prefer Illustrator. Sketch is limited in the number of features that it has, and I've found that many people turn to third party plugins to make Sketch work for them. That can lead to headaches (additional documentation to learn, maintenance of that third party plugin, getting help quickly for those plugins, etc).

Another issue is that Sketch doesn't have support for collaboration. They have a beta version of "Sketch Teams" that will likely be moving into production in the near-future. As it stands, the closest we can get to making Sketch work for teams is Symbols, Libraries and Shared-Styles.

This is by far the most intuitive user interface design software out there. It is made for screens first, whereas a program like Illustrator has a lot of features built for print first. You can still design screens in Illustrator, but Sketch is built to measure in pixels first and has a much simpler interface.

I can quickly mock up a landing page, logo, app screen and more, faster than any other program. They remove a lot from their own interface that I feel can be distracting in a program like Illustator.

I'm a Mac user, so this doesn't matter to me, but it only works on Mac's for now. Apparently they are working on a Windows version, but as of September 2020 when writing this, there is no known release date.

Does not open layered .eps files, so I either use a web based conversion tool or open it using Affinity Designer and converting to .svg to work with .eps layered in Sketch.

I find myself wanting to use this interface to create flyers and other print materials as well. I have to go Google dimensions of regular print items to set them properly. While I know that's not the intention of this software, that would be valuable to me and help this software compete with Adobe on print graphics the way they do with vector graphics.

I love Sketch and use it as my main app design tool. While there is a bit of a learning curve, I think it's worth investing the time to learn Sketch, particularly if you're designing user experiences and interfaces for mobile apps. The ability to create and use templates and components makes it extremely versatile. Also, the design tools, symbol libraries, and editing features make Sketch the best UX/UI design app I've ever used. Further, you can add plugins to add capabilities to Sketch. I use several. One of these allows me to export a design as code directly into Xcode! This saves time when coding a new UI.

There's little I don't like about Sketch. The only thing I could think of needing improvement is in creating gradients in the Appearance section of the Inspector. While this is extremely powerful, I find it a bit confusing at times.