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Invision vs Proto

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When comparing Invision vs Proto, the Slant community recommends Invision for most people. In the question“What are the best tools for prototyping mobile interactions/animations?” Invision is ranked 5th while Proto is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Invision is:

Invision offers a free plan to anyone that is limited to one project. While the free plan is a bit limited it does allow the user to trial the software for as long as they like to decide on its merits and whether it is worth paying for the more robust options.

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Common Questions

What are the best tools for prototyping mobile interactions/animations?

Pros

Pro
Free plan

Pro
Presents designs in a way that mimics an actual web browsing experience

Once uploaded on Invision, the screen will be presented in a way that will behave as an actual web page. This is especially easy for showing the work to clients, more so if compared to just showing them a .PDF, which may make it look like the page is "too crowded".

Pro
Supports gestures, transitions & animations for web, iOS & Android

Hotspot links can be created for every page, and once it's done, for each one of them gestures and transitions can be registered.

Invision supports various gesture types: swiping, double tapping, sliding, etc...

Pro
Real-time collaboration and VOIP chat

Live Share allows you to collaborate in real-time using an in-browser screen share. Each collaborator gets their own mouse, so you can easily point and see what someone is talking about. You can also sketch, and chat right inside the Live Share interface.

Invision's Live Share gives team members the ability to collaborate in real-time through a screen share inside their browser. Each collaborator has their cursor which they can use and edit or add notes in real-time. On top of that, Invision also has a VOIP chat which works inside the browser.

Pro
Design files are automatically synced and their version history tracked

Invision uses Invision Sync or Dropbox to automatically save design files on the cloud. Furthermore, it has version control built in. This is especially helpful if a team is going through different versions for a specific design and they want to return again and again to previous designs.

Pro
Great built-in feedback features

Invision allows clients, stakeholders or any team members to leave comments and feedback inside the design which will be displayed as a point on the page itself. These paints can be discussed or even be turned into tasks. This makes it easy for designers to go through what they need to work on, and once it's done, the task can be checked off.

Pro
It allows you to use JSON animations (such as Lottie)

That's awesome.

Pro
Has one of the largest gestural support libraries in the market

Proto supports one of the (if not the) largest gestural support libraries out of all the prototyping tools. With gestures such as:

Pinchin/out
Swipes
Double tap
Tap
Hold
Release

and more...

Pro
Native prototype testing

Developers can build prototypes through the browser with Proto, but the testing itself is done on the devices. Proto has released native apps for both iOS and Android that developers to test their designs right on the native device itself.

Pro
Easy to use with it's intuitive drag-and-drop interface

Proto is very easy to use even for beginners, or programmers who are not well-versed in Photoshop or Sketch or any other drawing application. With it's easy drag-and-drop interface and with a wide library of commonly used UI elements for Android and iOS, prototyping with Proto is very simple.

Pro
Design and prototype all in one tool

Better UX to not switch between multiple tools.

Pro
Preview prototypes on the device (e.g. iPhone, Android phone)

Pro
User testing / screen recording capabilities

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Cons

Con
While Invision acts as an all-in-one environment for design, it may become a nuisance

These times, teams are not using just a single app or tool for everything. It's not unheard of for teams to be using up to a dozen different tools for their work. Invision works as an all-in-one environment for product design and unfortunately it does not integrate with other tools. This may be a nuisance for teams that want to integrate different tools in their workflow.

Con
Expensive for just a hosting platform

Invision is a tool for building click through prototypes and getting feedback on them, you need to design everything in another app and upload them, it isn't a design tool.

Con
The mobile app for previews doesn't look as good as the preview on the browser

That can be very disappointing. Once you have everything perfect the design becomes different when you open it on your mobile app.

Con
Since it opens on browser, it can get very laggy

Once you start using lots of images, vectors and animations you can go into deep trouble.

Con
Only a free trial

Other prototyping tools offer free plans to trial as long as one wants, but Proto only offers a trial that while has full functionality has a 15 day time limit.

Con
Prototyping can be relatively slow

Proto's animations and interactions are very detailed. As far as prototyping goes Proto is probably the best tool to get as close to the actual app as possible. But this brings the downside that prototyping with Proto becomes quite slow and can take several hours to finish to get everything to work perfectly.