Abstract vs. Pigeon Messengr

• 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

Incentivized

Pigeon Messengr functions well as a general communication tool. In my experience, the only area it is not well suited for is transferring documents with specialized file formats. I also am not aware of what its auditability is like, but we are using it so it must be there.

• Versioning for desginers
• Collaboration between team members

Incentivized

• Notifications - I can minimize the window while I'm working and new messages will pop up on my screen so I don't have to remember to check the channel.
• Statuses - we always put up a status of what we're working on, I like how you can hover over user names and it will show you their statuses.
• Overall look - I don't know if my company chose the color scheme but it's really sharp. Also love that I can use Dark Mode, easier on my eyes for sure!

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

Incentivized

• Sometimes a message will get broken up and I am unable to view it all at once.
• It would be nice if it had a way to select a message as being unread. I like to leave messages unread as reminders but sometimes need to just read them first.
• It won't allow me to upload a picture because it has to be of a very small size. Would be more personal if I could use a picture on my profile.

Abstract has a difficult learning curve. If a feature-branch workflow is new to you, then it will take some getting used to. They make a lot of updates to the interface and these feature releases get ahead of their documentation. They rely heavily on an excellent customer support team and are present on various Slack channels to help design professionals with issues.

Incentivized

I've never had it be not available.

Occasionally, files can take forever to upload and download, and the calendar integrations also don't work sometimes.

Abstract by nature is complex and has to respond to whatever changes in Sketch. So there are frequent issues. Support can be slow to respond and are not always helpful, but they are quick to find and patch the bugs. Overall, it's not the best support, but it hasn't been detrimental.

Incentivized

I purchased and administer Abstract. It was requested by our design department who evaluated it.

Incentivized

Pigeon Messengr has everything in one, although there are some things that could be improved, what product doesn't? I prefer it over some of the other platforms because it is more organized for our business needs and communications, and it has several updates a month to make sure everything is working properly.

I have not noticed any issues for a company of about 400 employees. I imagine the channel functionality would enable fairly unlimited scaling.

• Single source of truth for the team.
• Could quickly get expensive with corporate accounts.

Incentivized

• Positive - less time wasted on emails
• Positive - less expensive than having a chat tool and a video tool (and phones!)
• Negative - sometimes tone is hard to convey in text, and this has led to a couple of misunderstandings