When comparing Sketch vs Invision, the Slant community recommends Sketch for most people. In the question“What are the best mockup and wireframing tools for websites?” Sketch is ranked 7th while Invision is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose Sketch is:
Sketch is essentially a version of Photoshop built from the ground up to suit the workflow of web designers.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Designed specifically for web and mobile UI design & workflows
Sketch is essentially a version of Photoshop built from the ground up to suit the workflow of web designers.
Pro Active community with a lot of resources
Sketch is hugely popular among designers so there are a lot of well maintained community resources for everything from iPhone frames to iOS/Android UI elements & icons.
Pro Clean UI
Reactive panels keep the UI for Sketch clean from the sort of clutter the panel system in Photoshop suffers from. The panels in Sketch change based on the object in question, saving you from having to have a multiple separate panels.
Pro Symbols and shared styles
Sketch lets you re-use the same design in multiple places, with changes synced throughout the various places it is used. You can also create text styles to sync typography changes.
Pro "Artboards" are great for working on multiple views simultaneously
Artboards let you easily work on multiple views side by side. Great for having a separate artboard on each page for the various responsive sizes.
Pro Vector based yet pixel aware
You can rescale assets without quality loss, easily export x2 assets for retina designs and design high quality icons & artwork. Being pixel aware lets you set a grid and snap objects to it as well as round to the nearest pixel edge to clean up your layers.
Pro Makes it easy to export assets
Sketch has a built in exporter that supports PDF, JPG and PNG.
Pro Built-in grid system
You can set the square grid to whatever dimensions you like as well as set thicker lines every x blocks. You can also configure the color of the lines to make them as obvious or subtle as you wish and toggle the grid with a keyboard shortcut (crtl+g).
Pro "Mirror" makes it really easy to test designs on multiple devices
Mirror lets you connect your iPhone to sketch and see how your current artboard looks on mobile. It's really useful as you can live check changes which lets you rapidly iterate mobile design.
Pro Easily align layers with smart guides
Holding down alt will show the smart guides that show the distances between any layer you hover over to nearby layers or the edges of the artboard. Very useful for checking your spacing or aligning layers.
Pro Free plan
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.
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.
Cons
Con No Windows support
Con No Linux version
Sketch is currently only available on Mac, which can make it hard to collaborate if you have teammates using Linux.
Con License based payment model
Sketch has recently decided to cease development of major version (2.0, 3.0, 4.0) with free updates in between, and has switched to a license based subscription model. A yearly license costs $99 and includes the latest version of the Sketch software, plus a year of free updates. After this license expires, you can renew for another year of updates - or continue to use the current software without updates.
Con Buggy releases and lack of quality assurance
The fast rate of change means new releases often break files and cause havoc. Duplicate symbols are really bad in the latest releases so you have to keep updating.
Con Very feeble raster tools
You have to go elsewhere if you want something more complex than basic vector masking of raster images.
Con Limited compatibility with Photoshop and Illustrator
Although it is possible to export certain Adobe file types in Sketch, compatibility is mostly hit and miss. For example, some elements seem a little offset in Adobe products.
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.