37

I recently came across a tool called "Sketch", which is great for designing apps and other responsive layouts, and has great resources as well. For now, it's only available for Mac though. What would be a valid alternative on Windows?

Improve this question
3
  • 1
    There are lots. A simple search using your exact title can find you them
    – Zach Saucier
    Feb 14, 2015 at 17:31
  • 1
    There really is a lot of options to choose from, but from a professional standpoint Adobe Experience Design is the way to go.
    – user72517
    Jul 5, 2017 at 9:46
  • just found out about invision studio, looks promising and I signed up for early access so I'll write a full answer after I actually test it out, just wanted to give a heads up
    – woojoo666
    Oct 24, 2017 at 8:14

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
23

After trying a bunch of Windows applications, I haven't found anything equivalent to Sketch for Windows. And no, Illustrator and such are NOT Sketch alternatives. Fireworks is probably the closest, and it's no longer supported by Adobe. It seems that they are now creating a copy "heavily inspired by Sketch" app: Project Comet.

We'll see how it goes, but right now I use Sketch on a El Capitán virtual machine with VMWare and it works pretty well!

Update (February 2016): you can now try the public preview of Experience Design CC (previously known as Project Comet). Sadly only for Mac now, but it'll be available for Windows in "late 2016" according to Adobe.

Update 2 (December 2016): It's now available for Windows 10 Anniversary Update as well. Seems it has quite a long way to go to have all the Sketch functionality though, very very beta... (not having an object navigator kills it for me for now)

Update 3 (December 2016): JustInMind Prototyper also seems interesting for Windows, even if it doesn't handle greatly HiDPI and doesn't seem as intuitive as Sketch. Still have to try it "seriously" to have a proper opinion about it.

Update 4 (June 2017): The latest builds of Experience Design (it's being updated monthly on Windows 10) introduced an object navigator, and it's drag & drop since the last build. It's quite more usable now, even if it's still far from being on-par with Sketch, I'd say it's the best looking alternative right now. I'll try to completely design the next project with it and post some impressions.

Update 5 (December 2017): I've done a couple of designs with it. It's still (very) far from being on-par with Sketch, but it has some cool ideas & it's quite usable right now. The tutorial is very basic, and the Material Design component sheet is not quite complete, but it's a good start. Much nicer & intuitive interface than other Adobe products, and not too buggy. It does freeze sometimes while doing rather simple stuff (copy / paste, editing, etc). Support of multi-screen with mixed HiDPI & 1080p resolutions is a nice surprise.

Improve this answer
1
  • I wonder what you think about our lunacyapp.com
    – Ivan Braun
    May 1, 2018 at 12:13
13

Some other valid options for 2017:

Gravit Designer:

This is a very young product and as such it's still lacking many features, but for now it's a good vector editor, and the roadmap promises a lot more: symbols, sketch import, prototyping, etc. It's great advantage as of now, is that it's free! It's available for Mac, windows, linux, and even online.

Edit: As of version 3.1 gravit imports sketch files, which makes it an even better alternative.

Gravit Designer for UI

Affinity Designer

This is not an app made exclusively for web design, which can be both an advantage and disadvantage, but with vector AND raster editing features, symbols resizing, and the best export interface I've ever seen, this is a super strong contender for all-around design app. Available for Mac & Windows

enter image description here

Improve this answer
3
  • Interesting! However it failed loading my Sketch files and it seems they have some bug-squashing to do until it's stable (discuss.gravit.io/t/…), but looks promising!
    – Leo Lozes
    Jul 7, 2017 at 9:51
  • I am amazed at how good this is, despite being free! Merely due to the fact that it's multiplatform, I might just switch to it from Sketch!
    – Ky -
    Feb 1, 2018 at 14:11
  • Gravit has too much paywalls, Affinity is not free. Lunacy is much better, because it's free and can save yout project to the sketch format. Also it supports sketch cloud, so you can work with your mac peers on a windows PC.
    – Mikolaytis
    Aug 23, 2020 at 20:58
12

2018 update:

Lunacy — reads and saves .sketch files (native Windows app, free)

Lunacy screenshot

Figma — reads .sketch files (browser-based, freemium)

enter image description here

Disclosure: I'm one of the authors of Lunacy. I have no relation to Figma.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    This is a sketch viewer, not a sketch alternative.
    – Rafael
    Jun 19, 2017 at 5:35
  • Ouch, right. I rewrote the whole thing.
    – Ivan Braun
    Jun 19, 2017 at 16:12
  • 1
    It is interesting to know tho.
    – Rafael
    Jun 19, 2017 at 16:21
5

This a tough one, as Sketch is pretty amazing. Photoshop is currently adding in Sketch-like features, trying to catch up. And Adobe is also, as previously mentioned, now pushing their new Adobe Experience Design app. But, it's Mac only for now.

I'd look at signing up for Affinity Designer's Windows beta. (Currently Mac only but just recently revealed that a Windows version is coming up for beta testing) https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/windows/

Affinity Designer on the Mac is a great Photoshop/Illustrator/Sketch replacement. It's got a ton of features, including artboards that work like Sketch. It's a little bit of a learning curve, but it's a solid replacement.

Improve this answer
1
  • 2
    Not spam, the link clearly takes you to the beta site that states it's not ready yet. I get that because I'm new it could seem like spam, but it's just a dude trying to offer up a possible alternative. I edited the comment to reflect that Affinity Designer is only Mac for now but will soon be available for Windows.
    – EncyclopediaRed
    Apr 15, 2016 at 4:19
4

You could try Macaw it's for both windows and Macintosh. It also has a feature to generate mark-up from your designs so you can do responsive design very easily.

Improve this answer
4
  • This sounds interesting. I've downloaded it and will check it out. Thanks for the suggestion. The only problem I'm finding is that on the page link posted by Zach Saucier above, Macaw is listed as "discontinued" like Fireworks. I know Fireworks is no longer supported by Adobe, so does this mean Macaw is no longer supported either and if so, wouldn't be a good alternative for Win users?
    – Chris22
    Jul 8, 2016 at 17:15
  • The link is: alternativeto.net/software/sketch
    – Chris22
    Jul 8, 2016 at 17:22
  • 1
    It is discontinued, but there's a stable version (1.6.1) that's fine. It would, in my opinion, be a good alternative for Windows users until the new Adobe Experience Design program comes out.
    – mrClean
    Jul 8, 2016 at 17:27
  • Thanks. I just read the "News about Macaw's Acquistion" on the site and while there is still support for the product and it will be available for download indefinitely, the support is limited to general usability.
    – Chris22
    Jul 8, 2016 at 17:37
3

I'm not a Sketch user.... but if I was bound to Windows, which I'm not, I'd definitely be looking at Xara, which is Windows-only.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.