As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates Figma 2.5/5 and Sketch 3/5 in Design. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 0 of the 6 judges pick Figma and 6 pick Sketch. Figma scores higher on 4 of 7 criteria (Pricing transparency, AI features & rights to the work, Brand assets & governance, plus 1 more). Sketch scores higher on 3 of 7 criteria (Files, formats & portability, European sovereignty and Collaboration, review & developer handoff). Provenance — Figma: Rest of world; Sketch: EU-Made. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
The two benches split along clear lines rather than settling on one verdict. Figma's means lead on pricing transparency (8.0 vs 6.3; 6–0), AI and content rights (5.0 vs 4.0; 6–0), design and prototyping (7.0 vs 6.7; 2–0 with four ties) and brand asset governance (4.0 vs 3.2; 3–0 with three ties). Sketch's means lead on file ownership and portability (8.0 vs 4.5; 6–0), sovereignty (3.7 vs 1.3; 6–0) and collaboration and handoff (6.8 vs 6.5; 3–1 with two ties). The weighted totals shown run to Sketch for five judges — product designer 6.1 vs 6, frontend engineer 6.8 vs 5.3, brand marketer 5.1 vs 5, data protection officer 5 vs 4.3, skeptic 5.6 vs 5 — with no totals shown for the agency owner. The attributes list Figma's data residency as US default and subprocessor exposure as US CLOUD Act; Sketch's entity jurisdiction is listed as NL, with ownership, data residency and subprocessor exposure as unknown.
Choose Figma if
You need per-seat euro prices published before purchase: pricing transparency leans 6 judges to 0 toward Figma (8.0 vs 6.3), with €16/mo for a Full seat at Professional, €55/mo at Organization and €90/mo at Enterprise stated on the pages.
You plan to use AI features and want AI credits stated per plan: the AI and content rights lean is 6 to 0 toward Figma (5.0 vs 4.0).
Your team's main need is design and prototyping, where Figma's mean leads 7.0 to 6.7 with 2 judges leaning Figma, 0 leaning Sketch and 4 ties.
You need a documented logo-to-brand-kit generator: brand asset governance leans 3 to 0 toward Figma (4.0 vs 3.2), with 3 judges tying.
Choose Sketch if
You need design files readable without the vendor's app: file ownership and portability leans 6 to 0 toward Sketch (8.0 vs 4.5); documents are ZIP archives of JSON with an independently versioned JSON Schema on npm.
Your procurement requires an EU legal entity: Sketch's legal entity jurisdiction attribute is NL, and the sovereignty lean is 6 to 0 toward Sketch (3.7 vs 1.3); Figma's data residency attribute is US default.
Your developers inspect files in the browser: collaboration and handoff leans 3 to 1 toward Sketch (6.8 vs 6.5), with free browser-based developer inspection documented.
Your team is frontend-heavy: the frontend engineer judge's weighted total is 6.8 for Sketch against 5.3 for Figma.
Your data protection officer must sign off: that judge's weighted total is 5 for Sketch against 4.3 for Figma.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Product Designer
Owns the design system of a B2B software product. Wants components with variants, tokens with modes, prototypes that test a real flow, and library releases that are versioned and reviewable — a design system is a product, not a page of nicely arranged buttons.
Figma
Sketch
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Design, prototyping & design systems
Figma
Team-wide design libraries that publish resources across teams, shared styles for colour, text, grids and effects, and an agent that generates full component sets in multiple sizes, states and themes from your real tokens and variables — the core of a design system managed in the tool is documented. What I could not find is the governed layer: library releases versioned and reviewable, prototype transitions and conditional logic, token export in a documented format, and accessibility checks in the editor. Seven, because the system is real but its release discipline is not evidenced.
Sketch
Libraries are a real product here — Symbol sources, instance overrides for text, colours and nested symbols, starred library versions that gate which changes teammates receive, and editors choosing which updates to pull — and prototypes go beyond click-throughs with hover, press and toggle triggers, overlays, scroll areas and pinned elements. But we found no public information on variables or tokens with modes, component variants and properties, or conditional prototype logic, which is what separates a shared library from a governed design system.
Collaboration, review & developer handoff
Figma
Free viewers and developers get measurements, asset export, comments with mentions and prototype presentation without a paid seat, and Dev Mode carries a real inspection and code story — CSS, Swift and XML panels plus an MCP Server on Professional. The documented code covers visual properties and spacing only, and I found no public information on version history with restore, branching, or a documented API. Strong handoff surface, weaker review mechanics.
Sketch
Commenting is genuinely built out — threads, mentions, markdown, resolve states, an inbox, scoped notifications and comments on shared prototypes — and handoff is free and browser-based for developers and guests, backed by an inspect view, a local MCP server, a developer platform and plugins. We found no public information on restoring from version history, branching before changes reach the main file, or named integrations with issue trackers and code tools, so it stops short of the top band.
Brand assets & governance
Figma
A logo-to-brand-kit generator producing colour palettes, typography pairings and brand assets directly on the canvas, plus team and community templates, gives non-designers something to start from. I found no public information on locked templates, rights and expiry metadata on licensed assets, approval workflows, or access by team and market — and the captured brand pages mostly govern Figma's own marks rather than the customer's. The kit generation is genuine; the governance half is not evidenced.
Sketch
Shared Libraries of Symbols and shared styles are documented — a team asset set editors pull updates from with permission-based edit restrictions — but this is design-system sharing rather than brand governance. We found no public information on brand guidelines published in the tool, locked templates non-designers can fill, or rights, usage and expiry metadata on assets.
Files, formats & portability
Figma
The terms state the customer retains all right, title and interest in their content, with a 30-day electronic retrieval window after termination, and export to SVG, PNG and CSS is documented per asset. I found no public information on a documented file format, whole-file download to a local copy, bulk export, or import from other named tools. Ownership is written into the terms; the mechanics of leaving are thin on these pages.
Sketch
The file format is the standout: documents are ZIP archives of JSON published as an independently versioned JSON Schema on npm with auto-generated TypeScript types, so anyone can generate, read or modify documents without opening Sketch, and Figma import is documented. A one-time €108 Mac license that works offline and a Private Cloud plan with choice of hosting locations round it out, but we found no public information on what happens to Workspace files after a downgrade or cancelled contract, bulk team export, or transfer of removed users' files.
AI features & rights to the work
Figma
The AI terms put training behind a Content Training toggle in administrative settings and state that input and output are customer content in which the customer retains all rights, while disclaiming any warranty on output. I found no public information on model providers, processing locations, content credentials, stock licences or indemnity. That is the control set I want in writing, without the transparency layer above it.
Sketch
The privacy statement is specific where it matters: the MCP server runs locally on the Mac and is disabled by default, background removal is on-device with images not sent to Sketch or any provider, and it states plainly that information routed to a third-party AI provider is governed by that provider's policy, including possible model training. We found no public information on admin-level AI controls for an organisation, commercial-use rights for generated output, content credentials, or any indemnity.
European sovereignty
Figma
The terms are with Figma, Inc. under California law, and the privacy policy states all personal information is transferred to, processed and stored in the United States; I found no information on an EU hosting option. A published data processing addendum with Standard Contractual Clauses and a German imprint entity in Berlin are European elements, but the hosting chain itself is stated as US-only.
Sketch
Sketch B.V. signs the pages, Dutch law is cited for retention periods, a Data Processing Addendum and a subprocessor list are published, and the Private Cloud plan offers a choice of hosting locations — while the privacy statement discloses transfers to the United States under the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. We found no public information naming where Workspace files are stored on standard plans or the locations of the published subprocessors, so the chain is only partly visible.
Pricing transparency
Figma
Every seat type — Full, Collab, Dev — carries a euro price across Professional, Organization and Enterprise with included monthly AI credits stated per seat, free viewers on paid plans, mid-term seats explained through daily proration or quarterly invoicing, and cancellation paths named. The credit mechanics — subscription and pay-as-you-go, monthly expiry, budget controls, thirty-day price-change notice — are documented in unusual detail. What keeps it from the top is the missing pay-as-you-go unit price and any storage pricing on these pages.
Sketch
Three workspace plans are priced per editor with the billing period stated and features listed — €11, €22 and €44 monthly per editor billed yearly — plus a €108 one-time Mac licence, 50GB storage per editor, unlimited free viewers, free developer handoff, and Single Sign-On named from the second plan. The gaps a buyer will hit: Private Cloud is contact-for-pricing with an unnamed one-time setup fee, and we found no public information on VAT treatment, how and when added seats are billed, or AI feature pricing.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Figma
Sketch
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
US CLOUD Act reach
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates Sketch higher: 3/5 against 2.5/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 0 of the 6 judges pick Figma and 6 pick Sketch. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is Figma or Sketch European?
Figma is not European by provenance (Rest of world). Sketch is European (EU-Made). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Do Figma and Sketch have a free plan?
As of 28 Oct 2026, Figma’s own pages state a free plan; Sketch’s pages as captured do not. Each product page links the pricing page it was read from.