HEAD TO HEAD
Figma vs Sketch: could you build either?
Both JUST PAY, both for the rendering engine — but Sketch is a native Mac app with no realtime layer, which makes it the marginally less impossible of the two.
Side by side
| Figma | Sketch | |
|---|---|---|
| verdict | Just pay | Just pay |
| vibe score | 68/100 | 57/100 |
| time to code | not worth starting | not worth starting |
| their price | $20/mo | $10/mo |
| per year | $240/yr | $120/yr |
| agent cost to build | $86–$172 | $86–$172 |
| hosting after | $5–$10/mo | $0/mo |
| category | design | design |
| last checked | 2026-08 | 2026-08 |
These land in the same place — both worth paying for. Neither is a rebuild worth starting. Figma lists at $20/mo against $10/mo for Sketch — 2× the price, a difference of $120 a year.
Why Figma gets Just pay
- The rendering engine is custom-built (WebGL/WASM) by a team that did little else for years
- Real-time multiplayer on an infinite canvas is a distributed-systems problem wearing a design tool's clothes
- The ecosystem — plugins, libraries, handoff conventions — is where the working value lives, and it doesn't come with a rebuild
Why Sketch gets Just pay
- Basic shape tools and layers are achievable — several open-source projects already prove it
- For simple icon or wireframe work, a much lighter tool genuinely suffices
- Plugin support via a documented API is bounded, well-understood integration work
Where the builds overlap
Both rebuilds are made of parts from the Vibe Codeability Database. The shared ones are work you'd do once either way — the split ones are what actually separates these two.
SHARED — 2 parts
| Landing page | 99 |
| Custom canvas/rendering engine | 15 |
ONLY FIGMA
- User login 92
- Realtime collaboration 67
ONLY SKETCH
Nothing — every part of this rebuild is also in Figma.
What you lose leaving Figma
- If you're not collaborating, free tiers and open-source editors (for vectors, for wireframes) may cover you at $0 — the honest alternative to building is checking whether you need the paid seat at all
- AI agents increasingly generate UI straight to code, which quietly shrinks how much canvas time some workflows need
What you lose leaving Sketch
- A performant native vector renderer with precise pen-tool bezier editing is the same order of engineering as Figma's canvas — this is exactly why that component exists in the database
- Their plugin ecosystem represents years of third-party developer investment
- Design system and component libraries with shared styles across a team are real, deep collaboration features
Read the full verdicts
Questions
Is Figma or Sketch easier to build yourself?
These land in the same place — both worth paying for. Neither is a rebuild worth starting. Figma lists at $20/mo against $10/mo for Sketch — 2× the price, a difference of $120 a year.
Can I build Figma?
Just pay. A multiplayer vector canvas that stays in sync at 60fps across a design team is one of the hardest things shipped on the web this decade. This is what moats look like.
Can I build Sketch?
Just pay. Shares Figma's exact problem: a vector canvas that renders smoothly and precisely is specialist rendering-engine work, not a weekend feature. Sketch just wraps it in a native Mac app instead of a browser tab.
What do Figma and Sketch have in common technically?
Both rebuilds need landing page, custom canvas/rendering engine. That shared foundation is why they score similarly on the parts they overlap on — the difference comes from what each one adds on top.
Other comparisons
Browse all design tools · every comparison · how scoring works
New verdicts, when they land
An occasional email when new apps get reviewed — the verdict, the effort, and what changed. No tracking pixels, no drip sequence, one click to leave.