The headline
Figma is now the default. Adobe XD has not had a meaningful update in over a year and is no longer sold as a standalone product to new users. If you are picking a design tool today, the question is really Figma vs Sketch vs Penpot — not Figma vs XD.
What Figma does better than XD ever did
Real-time multiplayer
You can have ten people in a Figma file at once, cursors visible, commenting and editing live. XD added a watered-down version of this years late, and it never matched.
Dev Mode
Figma's Dev Mode (formerly Inspect) gives engineers measurements, design tokens, CSS, asset exports, and code snippets without leaving the browser. The Figma-to-code workflow is now miles ahead of any competitor.
Plugin ecosystem
Thousands of community plugins, from icon libraries to AI tools to code generators. XD's plugin ecosystem was small and largely abandoned.
Where XD still has fans (briefly)
Designers deeply embedded in the Adobe Creative Cloud ecosystem who already pay for Photoshop and Illustrator can still get XD bundled. The integration with other Adobe apps is tight. But this is a shrinking demographic — most product design teams have migrated.
What to actually consider in 2026
If you're choosing a design tool today, the real comparison is Figma vs a handful of legitimate alternatives:
- Sketch — Mac-only, has a small but loyal following, particularly among indie designers who prefer native apps
- Penpot — Open-source, self-hostable, increasingly viable for privacy-conscious teams
- Framer — Better than Figma for animated prototypes and design-to-deploy websites; weaker for product design
Pricing snapshot
- Figma: Free for 3 collaborator seats; $15/seat/month for Professional
- Sketch: $10/editor/month
- Penpot: Free (self-hosted); paid cloud tier $7/seat/month
Our recommendation
For 95% of teams in 2026: just use Figma. Free tier is generous, the network effect is real (everyone you'll hire already knows it), and Dev Mode pays for itself in saved engineering hours.