Axure RP vs. OmniGraffle

Axure is a robust tool for teams who seek a reliable, proven, and powerful prototyping tool (and have the budget for it!). Because it has been around for a longer time than some similar products, it includes a ton of features to make incredibly realistic and interactive prototypes. Teams who use Axure will likely benefit from how the tool enables users to create master designs that designers can share and reuse, saving time that may otherwise have been spent building a design from the ground up. However, this tool can be very difficult for new users to learn, so it’s not a great solution for teams who don’t have a lot of wiggle room between adopting the tool and using it to create designs on a deadline. Also, the tool is less intuitive than some of its other competitors, which can make it more time-consuming to whip up a design. For teams who often need to iterate on prototypes quickly, Axure is likely not to be the most efficient solution.

Incentivized

Omnigraffle is great for documentation, mapping, flowcharting, and other technical diagramming scenarios. It's simple enough to bang out a quick illustration and powerful enough to build complex blueprints for complicated technical systems. If you need cross-platform compatibility, though, you're probably better off looking elsewhere. If you want complex integration with data sources (ala Visio's SQL Server integration for shape metadata), OmniGraffle also falls short — but those scenarios are few and far between in my experience.

Incentivized

• Axure RP allows you to use adaptive views which is great for responsive design and development.
• Axure RP is a very robust prototyping tool that has the ability to add realistic interactions.
• There are numerous templates and formats available for wires, user flows, etc.
• Master styles make it easy to update design features across numerous project pages, taking out the monotonous work.

Incentivized

• OmniGraffle is fairly simple to use, but the one thing I think it does best is working with curved lines, particularly if you are using some of the available arc templates. Drop an arc onto your page, then tell it the dimensions it needs to be, and viola! Done. Manipulating the arcs is as simple as clicking and dragging offset points.
• OmniGraffle has also done an excellent job in stirring up the creative minds of many people who create templates and tools to work with OmniGraffle (not that Microsoft hasn't done so either), and managed to get the bulk of those into well organized repositories.
• What it all boils down to for me is: it just works. One doesn't need to have a computer science degree to work with it either. It is as simple or complex as you want it to be.

Incentivized

• Sharing and versioning of the prototypes when working with multiple designers. It uses Subversion to checkout pages and components while they are being worked on, but issues and errors occur frequently.
• The functions that allow interactions can be basic and cumbersome so when it comes to complex animations or transitions, Axure could really use improvements. . Collision can happen with interactions causing unintended results. Workarounds have to be made to create a complex interaction to describe how the interaction should function.
• Too many interactions or a large prototype can cause slow performance. So its better to keep the prototype small. However, a larger project would need a different solution or approach to manage features. Can be difficult when aiming for consistency within the interactive wire.

Incentivized

• There could be more scaffolding to support new users in getting to know how to best use all of the many features and tools it provides.
• There could be more support for printing. Many of our process flows extend beyond just one page, and OmniGraffle is rather finicky about printing multipage documents.
• We could use this tool more effectively if there was the ability to have real-time team collaboration. Document handoffs can be a point of missed communication, so it’d be great if we could ever have the option of working together in the same place at the same time.

Incentivized

Best product for my needs on the market

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

OmniGraffle is an excellent application for chart and diagrams development. Been using it for a while now and it's a multiple platform application.

Incentivized

Axure is more full features than most of its competitors. We needed the interactivity that Axure provides and that others were lacking in. We also had some individuals on the team that were familiar with Axure from their prior experience and we wanted to take advantage of that knowledge to quickly roll it out.

Incentivized

To sum up:

• use Omnigraffle for diagraming or for quick wireframe drafting
• use Sketch for more in-depth wireframing that you can then flesh out into a high fidelity mock-up, export assets for production, and integrate with prototyping tools like Proto.io and UXPin.

Incentivized

• Putting designs to paper makes it easier for those on the business side to evaluate the cost of the project beyond just looking at written requirements.
• Axure licenses are very expensive and may not be well suited for small businesses or individuals.
• Axure licenses are permanent rather than being subscription based which saves money in the long run.

Incentivized

• Instrumental in smoothly transitioning a 3rd party development team from designs to requirements.
• Across cultures, US, Chinese, and Icelandic, OmniGraffle allowed our teams to speak the same language.
• The depth of the software make some elements that are useful less accessible than they should be.

Incentivized