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 Skeptic
Has read "free for viewers", "commercially safe AI" and "export anytime" on every page in this category. Reads instead for the click that turns a reviewer into a billed editor, the plan the IP indemnity actually covers, and whether the export keeps a single component.
Figma
Sketch
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Design, prototyping & design systems
Figma
Team libraries that publish across teams, tokens and variables the AI generator binds to, component variants across sizes, states and themes, shared styles for colour, text, grids and effects, and an interactive prototype template are all documented — though largely via the AI agent and plan feature pages. We found no public information on library publishing with versions, token export in a documented format, per-component usage analytics or accessibility checks in the editor. The documented evidence sits between a shared-systems tool and a governed one.
Sketch
Prototyping is documented well past linked screens — hover, press and toggle triggers, overlays, scroll areas that hold scroll position between frames, layer visibility rules and multiple start points — and Libraries are genuinely managed, with starred versions acting as releases and Editors choosing which updates to pull in. We found no public information on colour, type or spacing variables with modes or themes, or on component variants, so the design-system evidence stops short of governed.
Collaboration, review & developer handoff
Figma
The reviewer economics are clean: viewers join with no billing account and can comment with mentions, take measurements, copy CSS, iOS and Android code and export assets, and Dev Mode is documented down to a code panel in CSS, Swift and XML that carries visual properties only, with no logic exported. An integrations directory and an MCP Server at Professional are named. We found no public information on version history with restore, branching, or an access audit log.
Sketch
The click that turns a reviewer into a billed editor is answered in writing: unlimited free viewers are listed in the entry plan, developers inspect in a browser without the Mac app or a paid seat, and Guests can be granted download-and-inspect rights. Comments carry mentions, threads, resolution and notification scopes, but version restore is not described and we found no public information on branching or named issue-tracker integrations.
Brand assets & governance
Figma
The captured brand pages are Figma's own trademark rulebook and an AI generator that turns a customer's logo into colour palettes, typography pairings and brand assets as editable layers on the canvas — a brand kit as output, not a managed central library. Community templates run past 1,000 and shared libraries and fonts appear at Organization. We found no public information on locked templates, approval workflows, or rights, usage and expiry metadata on assets.
Sketch
What exists is a shared component library — Symbols insertable, customizable per instance, and editable only with source-Library permission — which amounts to a basic shared template set. We found no public information on brand guidelines, locked templates for non-designers, tagging and search across assets, or rights and expiry metadata.
Files, formats & portability
Figma
Layer-level escape is documented — copy as SVG, PNG or CSS and an export panel for everything marked exportable — and the terms are clear on ownership: the customer retains all right, title and interest in their content, with a 30-day electronic retrieval window after termination before deletion. We found no public information on whole-file download with structure, an open or publicly documented file format, or bulk export of a team's files.
Sketch
The file format is the real thing: documents are ZIP archives of JSON, the specification is published as JSON Schema on npm with auto-generated TypeScript types and versioned independently of the app, and documents can be generated or modified without opening Sketch. Figma import is documented and the Mac app works offline, but we found no public information on export to other named tools, bulk export of a team's files, or what happens to workspace files after cancellation.
AI features & rights to the work
Figma
The training question gets a real answer: customer content trains the models only when a Content Training toggle is on in administrative settings, and input and output are Customer Content in which the customer retains all right, title and interest — commercial rights settle through ownership. But we found no public information on model providers, processing locations, content credentials, stock licences or an indemnity for generated output, and the default state of the training toggle is not stated; the AI terms instead say Figma makes no warranty and will in no way be liable for use of Output.
Sketch
Two behaviours are documented precisely: background removal runs on-device with images never sent to Sketch or an external provider, and the MCP server runs locally, disabled by default, with the user choosing third-party AI tools. The same page states a chosen provider's policy governs the data and may include model training, with control at user level only, and we found no public information on commercial-use rights for output, model names and locations, or any indemnity.
European sovereignty
Figma
The terms are entered into with Figma, Inc., and the privacy policy states all personal information is transferred to, processed and stored in the United States, where headquarters and main servers are, and no EU residency option is stated on the captured pages. A published DPA with Module 2 Standard Contractual Clauses and a Berlin imprint for Figma GmbH exist, but these are transfer safeguards wrapped around a proven US chain, not European hosting or a European contract.
Sketch
One European element is proven with the rest of the chain unstated: a Data Processing Addendum and a subprocessor list are published, the entity is named Sketch B.V., and retention periods are anchored to Dutch civil and fiscal law. No captured page states where files or backups are hosted; the privacy statement only confirms transfers outside the EEA to the United States under Standard Contractual Clauses, and the private-cloud plan's choice of hosting locations names none.
Pricing transparency
Figma
Almost everything a buyer needs is public: euro prices for every plan and seat type — Full seat €16/mo at Professional, €55/mo at Organization, €90/mo at Enterprise, with Collab and Dev seats priced separately — free view-and-comment access, daily-prorated mid-term seats with quarterly invoicing on the annual plans, AI credits bundled per seat with Starter at 150 a day capped at 500 a month, taxes excluded, and Governance+ named as Enterprise-only. The holes: the per-credit price for pay-as-you-go and the price of the AI credits subscription do not appear in the captured figures, and the plan unlocking SSO is not named.
Sketch
Three workspace plans carry public per-Editor prices with the yearly billing period stated and per-plan features listed, storage is explicit at 50GB per Editor, SSO is named on the Professional plan, and the seat economics I probe are in writing: unlimited free viewers, free browser-based developer inspection, and a 30-day trial without a credit card. The private-cloud plan is contact-for-pricing with an unspecified one-time setup fee, and we found no public information on VAT treatment, how added seats are billed, or any AI credit 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.