InDesign vs Sketch

Images are a great source of information, they are pictorial representations of something. It has been found that the brain can sense visual scenes in less than 0.1 seconds, which is much faster than sensing textual data. So nearly all the industries like advertisement, entertainment, mechanical, architecture, etc. use images for various purposes. Creating images is a very complex and tedious process that requires lots of time and effort so to help in creating images in an easy manner, many developers build different tools and software, market is full of so many software that it is hard to find the correct one. So we will compare two of the commonly used software which are InDesign and Sketch.

InDesign is an application software created to design page layouts. It was developed by Adobe Incorporation using C++ programming language. It was originally released in 1999 and its stable version which is known as InDesign CC is released on 28 March 2022. It is available in different languages like French, English, Japanese, Chinese, etc. It is used for various purposes like designing magazine pages, e-books, newspapers, brochures, etc.

Advantages of InDesign

• Installation and configuration are easy.
• It provides the functionality of a customized toolbar which can be adjusted as per the user preference.
• Produces high quality images suitable for print media.
• This allows different team members to work on projects at the same time.
• Powerful community support is provided to users.

Disadvantages of InDesign

• It occupies a lot of disk space on the user’s system.
• It needs a heavy processor to work without hanging.
• No backward compatibility means that older versions cannot open files created in newer versions.

Sketch is a computer application designed for working with vector graphics. Developed by the Dutch company Sketch B.V. it has great graphic editing features. Originally launched in 2010, the stable version was released in 2022.  It can also be used as a web platform to simplify users. It is available for Mac OS only.

Advantages of Sketch

• It provides industry-standard design features for making mobile and web designs.
• It supports third party extensions for feature enhancement.
• It provides advance backup and sync features.
• Code and preset exporting is easy.

Disadvantages/Limitations of Sketch

• It is incompatible with other operating systems except for Mac.
• Resource consumption is more.
• No free version for students.

Following is a table of differences between InDesign and Sketch:

	InDesign	Sketch
Definition	It can be understood as desktop publishing software that is also used in page layout designing.	It can be understood as a graphic editing tool to create and manipulate vector designs.
Developer(s)	It was developed by Adobe Incorporation.	It was developed by Sketch B.V.
Default file extension	By default, files are saved with the .indd file extension.	By default files are saved with the .sketch extension.
Written in	It was developed using the C++ programming language.	It was developed using Objective C programming language.
Price	Its subscription starts at $20.99 per month.	Its subscription starts at $9 per month.
Supported Operating Systems	It supports Windows and Mac operating systems.	It supports Mac OS only.
Features	It comes with features like illustrator layers, text frame fitting, linked content, etc.	It has features like smart guides, artboard presets, pixel perfection, etc.
Community Support	More dedicated community support is provided.	Low community support.

Conclusion/Summary

Both the software are good and come with different tools and feature sets so after comparing it is clear that if students or freelancers need designing software then Sketch is good as it is cheaper and provides nice tools. But if designing works in advance and needs advanced image creation software then InDesign is perfect as it is developed by Adobe which provides better tools and support also. Hence we can say that choice of the user is as per the work requirement.