Adobe discontinued active development of Adobe XD in 2023 — this is the most important fact in this comparison. XD still works for existing users and receives security patches, but it no longer receives new features, and Adobe has directed users toward Figma (which Adobe attempted to acquire for $20 billion before regulators blocked the deal in late 2023). If you are starting a new project or team today, choosing Adobe XD means betting on end-of-life software. Figma is the clear choice: browser-based, actively developed, with a free Starter plan and a $15/editor/month Professional tier that covers the vast majority of design teams.
Quick comparison
| Feature | Figma | Adobe XD |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free plan | $10/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| G2 rating | Not listed | Not listed |
| Best for | any design team starting or scaling a UI/UX workflow in 2024 or later — Figma is the active, well-supported option | existing XD users with established workflows who have not yet migrated — Adobe XD still functions but is in maintenance mode |
| Active development | Yes — regular feature releases, AI features (Make Designs, Figma AI), Dev Mode | No — Adobe discontinued new feature development in 2023; security patches only |
| Starting price | Free Starter plan; Professional at $15/editor/month billed annually | Included with Creative Cloud subscription (~$54/month); standalone plan discontinued |
| Free plan | Yes — 3 projects, unlimited collaborators in view/comment mode | No — requires a Creative Cloud subscription |
| Platform | Browser-based (Windows, Mac, Linux) plus desktop app | Windows and macOS desktop app |
| Real-time collaboration | Yes — live multiplayer cursors and co-editing built in | Limited co-editing was added but never fully matured before development stopped |
| Open source | No | No |
| Long-term viability | High — actively developed, backed by large independent company | Low — end-of-life trajectory; no new features planned |
| Adobe ecosystem integration | Third-party integrations available; not native Adobe | Deep integration with Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects |
Long-term viability and active development
Adobe formally announced in early 2023 that Adobe XD would no longer receive new feature development. The product entered maintenance mode — meaning it receives critical security updates but no new capabilities, no roadmap, and no active investment. This followed the collapse of Adobe's $20 billion acquisition of Figma, which was blocked by EU and UK regulators in December 2023 on competition grounds. Adobe's guidance to XD users has been to evaluate Figma and other tools. For any new project or team, this makes the choice straightforward: building on XD today means building on software with a confirmed dead end. Figma, by contrast, is actively investing in AI-assisted design features, an expanded Dev Mode for developer handoff, and FigJam as a whiteboarding companion.
Collaboration and team workflow
Figma was built from the ground up as a collaborative, multiplayer design tool. Multiple designers can edit the same file simultaneously, stakeholders can comment directly on specific elements without a paid seat, and share links work in any browser without installing software. Adobe XD added co-editing features in 2020, but collaboration was always a secondary concern for a tool designed primarily for individual Mac and Windows desktop users. The co-editing implementation was functional but never as seamless as Figma's. For remote teams, agencies that present to clients, or product teams where engineers inspect designs daily, Figma's collaboration model eliminates entire categories of friction that XD never fully resolved.
Feature depth and prototyping
At peak development, Adobe XD had competitive prototyping capabilities — voice prototypes, auto-animate transitions, and tighter After Effects integration for micro-animation. Figma has since matched or surpassed all of these. Figma's interactive components, variable-driven prototypes, and built-in Dev Mode give teams a more integrated design-to-code workflow. XD's prototyping features have been frozen at their 2023 state; Figma's have continued to advance. The one genuine advantage XD retains for some workflows is its After Effects and Photoshop integration — designers who rely heavily on Creative Cloud assets can pull them into XD more naturally than into Figma, which requires manual export/import steps.
Design systems and component management
Figma's component system — with variants, interactive states, and the variables system for design tokens — is the most mature in the market. The Figma Community library has thousands of free and paid design system templates, icon sets, and UI kits. Third-party tools like Tokens Studio connect Figma variables directly to CSS custom properties and code design tokens. Adobe XD had a component and symbol system, and Character Styles, but it never developed a design token or variables layer. For teams building multi-brand design systems or trying to synchronize design decisions with production code, Figma's tooling is substantially better.
Adobe Creative Cloud integration
The one area where Adobe XD genuinely beats Figma is native Creative Cloud integration. XD can directly open and link Photoshop layers, pull vector assets from Illustrator, and connect to After Effects for animation handoff — all within the Adobe ecosystem without file conversion. For design teams deeply embedded in Creative Cloud workflows — branding agencies that live in Illustrator, motion designers who pass specs to After Effects — this tight integration reduces manual export steps. However, this advantage is narrow and shrinking: Figma has built integrations for most of these touchpoints, and the underlying XD product is no longer evolving, so this integration benefit degrades over time as Creative Cloud apps add new features that XD cannot support.
Pricing and cost of ownership
Adobe XD as a standalone product was discontinued; it is now only available as part of a Creative Cloud subscription starting at approximately $54/month for all apps, or the single-app plan at around $22/month (if Creative Cloud still bundles XD access). This makes XD effectively free if you already pay for Creative Cloud — but it also means you are paying for a product with no active development roadmap. Figma's Professional plan at $15/editor/month ($180/year) is a clear investment in an active product. For teams that do not already pay for Creative Cloud, Figma is straightforwardly cheaper and far more future-proof. For teams fully embedded in Creative Cloud subscriptions, the financial comparison is murkier, but the product-viability argument for Figma remains decisive.
Pricing deep-dive
Figma
- Starter: $0 — 3 Figma files, 3 FigJam files, unlimited viewers and commenters
- Professional: $15/editor/month billed annually ($18/month billed monthly) — unlimited files, version history, team libraries
- Organization: $45/editor/month — SSO, advanced admin, design system analytics
- Enterprise: $75/editor/month — dedicated workspaces, compliance controls
Adobe XD
- Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps: ~$54/month — includes XD along with Photoshop, Illustrator, and 20+ other apps
- Single-app plans: ~$22/month — XD access depends on current Adobe bundle availability
- No standalone XD subscription; no permanent free tier (30-day trial only)
- Note: Adobe XD is in maintenance mode — no new features are being developed
Pricing verdict: For any team evaluating tools in 2024 or later, the pricing comparison is almost irrelevant because Adobe XD is end-of-life software. Even if XD were free, committing your team's design workflow to a product with no active development is a mistake. Figma at $15/editor/month is an investment in a tool with a roadmap, a community, and active development. If budget is a hard constraint, Figma's free Starter plan covers small teams and freelancers without spending anything.
How to migrate from Adobe XD to Figma
What real users say
Figma: Figma users consistently praise the real-time collaboration, the free tier generosity, and the breadth of the plugin and community ecosystem. Post-acquisition-blocking, sentiment toward Figma as an independent company improved. The most common complaints are occasional performance issues on large files and price increases at the Organization tier.
Adobe XD: Adobe XD users in its active years appreciated its clean interface, fast native performance, and tight Creative Cloud integration. Since the end-of-life announcement, sentiment has shifted to resignation and transition planning. Current XD users most commonly express frustration that Adobe did not provide a clear migration path after the Figma acquisition fell through, leaving them with an orphaned tool.
Sources: Synthesized from official pricing pages, Adobe and Figma announcements, G2/Capterra reviews, and design community discussions on Twitter/X and Designer News.
Final verdict
Choose Figma if...
- Choose Figma for any new project, team, or design system — it is the only actively developed option between these two tools.
- Choose Figma if your team has any Windows or Linux users, or if non-designer stakeholders need to view and comment on designs without paying for seats.
- Choose Figma if you want developer handoff via built-in Dev Mode, a large plugin ecosystem, and a community of templates and UI kits that grows weekly.
Choose Adobe XD if...
- Stick with Adobe XD only if you are an existing user in a stable, low-change project with no timeline to migrate — it still functions for current workflows.
- Consider XD temporarily if your organization already pays for Creative Cloud and you need the native After Effects or Photoshop integration while planning a migration to Figma.
- Do not choose Adobe XD for any new team, new project, or long-term design system work — the product has no active development roadmap.
Consider neither if: Consider Penpot if you need an actively developed, open-source, self-hosted alternative to Figma. Consider Sketch if your team is Mac-only and values native performance over collaboration breadth. Consider Framer if you need high-fidelity interactive prototypes or want to publish interactive sites directly from the design tool.