Update: Good news for Adobe XD users since Adobe won’t acquire Figma after all. You can read more about this news at The Verge.
Adobe XD was an answer to the rapid development and growth of Sketch in the early 2010s. At one point, Sketch was the de facto standard for everything designers did for UI and UX design in the first half of the last decade. However, Adobe XD was able to penetrate the market because it offered similar tools to Sketch while also being available in Windows.
I think that Sketch ignoring Windows which has around 90% of the market share was a big mistake because there are also a lot of designers and developers using Windows as their main OS. Adobe offering Adobe XD to all platforms made a huge impact on the market share and it became the one recommended by most designers. I, for example, recommended XD to my coworkers and students because the resources and tutorials were accessible as they work for either operating system. Not many people could afford an Apple computer and that includes companies as well.
After Adobe acquired Figma in 2022, it was clear that the writing on the wall is set for the death of Adobe XD. The acquisition makes Adobe XD redundant just as Fireworks was made redundant by Photoshop and Illustrator for web designers. Thus, It was an expected move for Adobe to kill Adobe XD even if it is one of the most popular UX/UI design tools available.
Today, most designers have migrated to Figma as it is still growing, and with the support from Adobe, it is clear that it is the tool to use in the present and near future. The latest update in Figma includes a DevMode that allows developers to copy and paste generated code by Figma to speed up the development process. The feature is not perfect with the generated code, but it is a good indication of the future of the tool and what can we expect with new updates. Adobe XD is dead, but Figma is offering more features that were not available in Adobe XD.
