Axure RP vs. UXPin

Axure RP is a great user experience design toolkit that gives UX designers the ability to create user flows, Low-Fidelity, and High-Fidelity mockups all within the same tool. Overall, it works well with teams of designers looking to collaborate on the same project(s). Axure RP allows you to set up masters and components, giving you and your team the ability to share and re-use styled objects. This not only cuts down on the time allotted for wireframing, but it also means design styles are upheld and the overall software becomes more consistent. I would not recommend Axure for High-Fidelity visual design mockups (use Sketch App instead), as Axure is limited in it's the ability to style components.

Incentivized

If you're a very simple designer, with very simple requirements UXPin is very good, especially because you can share the designs very easily. If you are an advanced designer with specific client requirements never use UXPin. Don't even get started because you will waste your time. Example is their component feature, it has a lot, but misses very crucial aspects to be functional on a broader scale.

• High fidelity prototypes: Axure is excellent for creating prototypes that are visually indistinguishable from the real product. You do not need advanced Photoshop or other image editing software skills to create mockups that look real with Axure. If you do have Photoshop skills though it definitely can help as you can easily bring in edited images into Axure from it.
• Realistic interactions: On top of creating prototypes that look real, you can also easily make them interact like a real site would. This is useful for not only showing developers and stakeholders but for user testing as well.
• Sharing prototypes: Sharing Axure prototypes with others is easy, even if they don't have the Axure software. You can either upload your file to Axshare, Azure's free hosting service or host it on your own servers and share the link with viewers. The link allows users to interact with the site as though it were real as well as easily switch between pages with a collapsible site map.

Incentivized

• Collaboration with teammates.
• Rapid prototyping.
• Design Systems.
• JSON File for content importing.
• Bulk editing via library components.
• Interactions, and micro UX.
• Sharing and requesting feedback.
• Version branching.
• Spec mode for developers (access to assets).
• Automatically produced visual style guide with fonts, colors, and imported assets.
• Imports from sketch while keeping the shapes, colors, and fonts fully editable.
• Boolean Pen (bezzier pen) for vector drawing, and pathfinder.
• Annotation capability via documentation mode.
• Password protect prototypes.
• Upload custom fonts (enterprise, or Pro version is key imho).
• 1,000s of built in icons (iOS, Android, Font Awesome etc).
• Prebuilt design component libraries (Material Design, Booptstrap, iOS).
• Video tutorials in-app.
• Moderate learning curve - UI is familiar, and customizable.
• Copy/paste interactions, and element properties.
• Canvas properties (grids, adaptive screen sizes, scrolling).
• Asynchronous Spell check.
• UXPin's customer support is top tier.

• VERY steep learning curve, the interface is not very intuitive.
• Difficult to make even small changes to interactions, especially elements such as dynamic panels.
• No straightforward keyboard shortcuts, which slows down design process.
• Tends to crash more than other software, as it's so large, but not so frequently that it's a great annoyance.
• The interface generally feels outdated.

Incentivized

• Sometimes, it can be a bit buggy and slow if the prototype is complex with dozens of layers.
• The learning curve can be steep the first time you use it. Or, if you haven't used the app for awhile; I sometimes need to relearn it if I haven't used it for a month or so.
• The loading times can be quite slow where a page gets stuck. It would be great if this didn't happen.

Incentivized

We'll definitely continue to use UXPin. Right now it provides us with everything we need in order to deliver quality projects to our clients. If at any point in time, UXPin doesn't provide us with what we need, we'll start vetting other software out there that may be similar. My guess is that UXPin will continue to make updates and improvements so we'll likely stick with it for quite some time.

Incentivized

Axure feels like a tool that started with a simple interface that wasn't redesigned over time. Simple tasks sometimes require clicking through multiple layers. Crucial pieces of functionality are hidden under text links, or just flatly aren't discoverable. Much of the quirks of the interface only come from having screwed up numerous times, and knowing that certain things are just difficult to accomplish.

Incentivized

I've never used the support for Axure but they do have an online community that can be helpful when you're unsure how to accomplish a specific bit of interactivity. Overall the community for Axure is a great benefit for the software. There are also a lot of shared library assets which can help reduce the time you spend on projects.

Incentivized

As far as I know, my teams have only had to use the UXPin support once. The experience went really well. We just needed a bit of assistance with using the Documentation feature. UXPin's support was quick and helped my team in a matter of minutes. We will definitely reach out to their support without hesitation in the future.

Incentivized

I think that the online training videos cover all product features and are a great resource to point people to. The newsletter is also frequent and passes on a range of tips and techniques for users that are eager to learn more, or just want to keep themselves up to date

Axure stacks up pretty nicely against other tools, in terms of available functionality and support for users. It’s probably the best tool I have used to create the most realistic and complex prototypes for sales purposes. However, its interface is outdated compared to other tools, and it’s a less efficient tool than other tools, such as Sketch, that enable users to create and iterate upon designs more quickly. We will continue to use Axure for complex designs, particularly for prototypes that need to be external-facing, but we’ll opt to stick with Adobe XD or another tool for internal use, to save time and energy by using a more straightforward tool.

Incentivized

I went through several tools trying to find something that was easy to use and made me faster. Visio was such a pain at creating something reusable to make me faster, too much building. Axure and Balsamiq looked like great options but were too cumbersome for my needs and I couldn't get to the live link fast enough. Moqups was my first choice before I heard about UXPin. I switched to UXPin because the had more built in features, more icons and just an overall better and more usable interface that appealed to my design side.

Incentivized

• When understanding the minimal needs to describe multiple dimensions of UX using this tool, a designer can very quickly create a prototype using this tool and can help reduce the time needed to assess very usability requirements and business validity for an application.
• The generated files source code absolutely cannot be used in the application code. Measures should be taken to ensure the code is not used in the application code or else you risk rework in development/implementation.

Incentivized

• Saving money by using one tool for lo-fi wireframing, high fidelity wireframing, prototyping, and user testing, rather than four separate tools.
• The ability to create and use team libraries enables us to create visually consistent designs with less effort than creating every single design from scratch, which allows us to save considerable time (and therefore money!)
• In-platform collaboration saves our team a lot of time and energy. With everything in one place (wireframes, prototypes, user feedback, collaboration comments), we can all be on the same page about the design workflow and pinpoint discussion points that are based on up-to-date designs.

Incentivized