When comparing Origami vs Proto, the Slant community recommends Origami for most people. In the question“What are the best tools for prototyping mobile interactions/animations?” Origami is ranked 3rd while Proto is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Origami is:
Origami is offered to the public completely free, no monthly plans, no upfront cost whatsoever.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Completely free
Origami is offered to the public completely free, no monthly plans, no upfront cost whatsoever.
Pro Powerful animations and interactions
Origami was actually built to help Facebook designers work on Paper, one of Facebook's latest apps. Every animation that is coded into Origami was first made for Paper. It uses powerful 3D effects and some of the most advanced features for scrolling, tapping and swiping to create a faithful and interactive prototype.
Pro Native testing
Developers can develop their prototypes with origami through their desktops, but the testing itself is done on the native devices.
Pro No code required
Origami is built by designers for designers. As such, it allows for quick prototyping without writing a single line of code.
Pro Open source
Origami is free and open source and it is hosted on GitHub.
Pro Like only-Mac-integration! Great app! Thank you.
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
Cons
Con Steep learning curve
Origami is a toolkit for Quartz Composer, and unfortunately the learning curve for it is quite steep. Especially for beginners.
Con Mac only
Since Origami is not an app in and on itself, but a plugin for Quartz Composer, which is built by Apple. Therefore, Origami is only available for Mac and for a developer to download and use it, they need to register as an Apple Developer.
Con Mouse driven interactions
There's no way to directly test the tactile interface.
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.
