Abstract Reviews & Insights

Score4.7 out of 10

20 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Abstract are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Intuitive Interface: Users appreciate the intuitiveness of Abstract's interface, which simplifies tasks and makes them easy to accomplish. Multiple reviewers have highlighted this feature, making it a common sentiment among users.

Enhanced Collaboration: The ability to work on the same set of files in parallel with other designers is highly valued by users. This functionality enhances collaboration and allows for exploring different concepts without interfering with the master files. Several users have expressed their appreciation for this feature.

GitHub-Like Interface: Users who are familiar with GitHub or version control find Abstract's interface intuitive and easy to navigate. They appreciate the software's ability to maintain multiple versions of a project and request reviews before merging changes. Several reviewers have made comparisons between Abstract and GitHub in terms of its version control features, further highlighting their positive experience with Abstract's interface.

Reviews

4 Reviews

A source of truth for design operations

Rating: 2 out of 10

Incentivized

November 21, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The Design, Product, and Engineering teams use Abstract as a point of design collaboration and design/engineering handoff. In addition, the Product Design team uses Abstract to facilitate a feature branch workflow—allowing team members to work on granular elements of larger projects—for sketch files, design reviews, and management of sketch pattern libraries. All communications within Abstract create a captured timeline of interactions that are useful for managers to see how projects progress through the design lifecycle.

Pros

Feature branch workflow
Design/engineering handoff
Design reviews
Pattern library management
Source of truth for UI design artifacts

Cons

People and permission management.
Sharing particular states (presentation, inspection, etc.).
New projects from templates.
Pattern library migration (new users).

Likelihood to Recommend

Large teams with dedicated design operations support
UX managers that want a facilitated workflow for their teams
Disciplined teams of individual contributors that want to adopt a process in their UI workflow
Cross-discipline teams that want a central collaboration space for reviewing and critiquing UI artifacts
If your files are named "FOR-REALS_FINAL_FINAL_FINAL_Super-Important-Project (copy).sketch"
If you're managing multiple pattern libraries

Verified User

Team Lead in Product Management (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Keep your design department happy.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 20, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

A great tool for our design department who use Abstract together with Sketch and Adobe. It is a great tool for collaboration and integration with the different design tools used. It's especially great as we have designers working across the pond who need to work together as a team from different time zones. It gives a good option to work in files and document the process together, with the option of rolling back to old versions.

Pros

Versioning for desginers
Collaboration between team members

Cons

Integrations only work on Mac.
You need to use a seat as admin, even though we're not daily users.

Likelihood to Recommend

Our design department is indeed very happy with Abstract to solve their issues with regard to versioning and collaboration, etc. The admin side of the program is not that great. It's easy and simple, however, it would be nice to limit access more easily and maybe even link Abstract with our directory. The flexibility for accessing the work designers do can't be beaten!

Christopher Fritz

Head of Global IT in Information Technology at Vertic (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

Abstract will eliminate the headache of design file management and collaborative design

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 25, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Abstract helps us maintain version management of the design files. It is especially useful for teams to work on the same files in parallel. The idea of using Git to keep your design resources up to date and working is brought to life by Abstract. It is one of the best tools for a designer to maintain and rollback to various versions of their design and nothing is ever lost.

Pros

Branch management for design files.
Good collaborative features like comments and sharing.

Cons

Asset exports are not as great as Zeplin and others.
Filtering within files.

Likelihood to Recommend

Abstract is very useful for decently sized design teams, but might not be as useful for single designers. It is also only to be used within the design team for work management and sharing with anyone outside the design team is not advised. I personally find it useful to maintain archives of work in the cloud that I can access from anywhere. It also helps maintain a hygienic work structure.

Verified User

Contributor in Research & Development (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

A Necessary Addition to any Sketch-Based Product Team

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

January 24, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our product team uses Abstract in conjunction with Sketch for collaboration, file management, and versioning. It's imperative for us. Our team has three user experience designers and six user interface designers. So while we have a long to-do list, we are always working in groups on a single feature set from wireframing all the way to final designs for IT handoff.
Due to that, Abstract allows for robust versioning and file management without losing work. Before finding Abstract a few years ago, my team at the time had to carefully plan what features would be worked on and by who. Then make sure we don't have the same files open via Google Drive and clearly explain what artboards were changed and need to be addressed. It was a nightmare.
Abstract scans each of the Sketch files and looks for differences combine work and allows all of us to be working in one file at once.

Pros

Allows for collaboration within Sketch.
Allows for approval of work by team leads.

Cons

Frequent bugs between Abstract and Sketch.
Takes a lot of processing power and battery.

Likelihood to Recommend

Abstract, to me, is a necessary addition to a large team using Sketch. Without it, file management and sharing designs updates are impossible. However, if you have a small team, it's not worth the money. For us, a team of 9, it's a lifesaver. Even more so, because we are not all co-located, and ability to share a link to a specific file/artboard is a needed workaround from pointing at someone's screen.

Verified User

Director (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience