Design and diagrams decision
Sketch
A small team or experienced engineer can build a useful, narrower web-based design and handoff tool, but reproducing Sketch’s native macOS polish, enterprise features, plugin ecosystem, and brand presence is infeasible; keeping the hosted product is reasonable for teams needing those capabilities.
Visit website↗$12/mo
$144/yr
Per seat. Read off the official pricing page.
$100one-off80 h to build
$0/mo8 h/mo upkeep
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 1 seat.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Sketch alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Create and edit vector-based UI screens, organize layers/components, export assets for developers (SVG/PNG), and preview simple click-through prototypes in a browser.
What it still won’t have
- Native macOS performance, platform-specific features and offline-first Mac app
- Polished enterprise features (SSO, SCIM, BYOK, private-cloud hosting)
- Large plugin ecosystem and marketplace
- Brand recognition, long-term trust and customer base
- Mobile iOS/iPad companion apps and mirroring
What remains hard
- Brand trust
We’re an independent company making decisions for our customers and ourselves.
- Brand trust
Download Sketch today and join thousands of designers — from freelancers to the Fortune 500.
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 1 seat.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal web-based UI design tool using React + TypeScript, SVG for the canvas, Node.js + Express backend, and Postgres for document storage. In scope: (1) a canvas supporting shapes, paths, text, layers and basic transforms; (2) a document model with save/load and versioning; (3) a reusable component/symbol system with instance overrides; (4) asset export endpoints that produce PNG and SVG; (5) a simple prototype mode that maps hotspots to pages and provides shareable preview URLs; (6) an auth system (email/password) and Workspace sharing with viewer/editor roles. Out of scope: native macOS app, SSO/SCIM, BYOK/private cloud, plugin ecosystem, advanced image editing. Include robust error handling, input validation, and unit + integration tests for the document API and canvas serialization. Provide Dockerfiles for local dev and a simple deployment script for a single VPS or managed host (e.g., Vercel for frontend and Render/Heroku for backend).
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 4 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Evidence score67
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 4
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productSketch — official product page
- official pricingSketch pricing
- official docsSketch features
- open sourcepenpot/penpot
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.