InVision Shut Down: What to Use to Design and Prototype a Mobile App in 2026

InVision is gone, and Adobe XD is in maintenance mode. If you are planning a mobile app in 2026, use Figma for most projects, Penpot if you want open source, and Balsamiq if you only need rough wireframes. The rest of this page explains what shut down, what each option costs, and how to choose.

This guide is for founders and product people, not only designers. It replaces the InVision pages that many older articles still link to. Prices below come from the vendors' own pages, checked on October 17, 2026. InVision's dates come from its own archived support FAQ.

What shut down, and when

We could not find an official date for the end of InVision Studio or Craft, so we have left them out. If you still have files from either, treat them as lost unless you exported them. The lesson is the same for every tool on this page: keep a copy of your work somewhere you control.

The 2026 options compared

Prices are as shown on each vendor's pricing page on October 17, 2026. Where a page did not show a number, we link to it instead of guessing.

Two notes. Framer was once known for app prototyping. Today it is mainly a website builder, so do not pick it to design a native mobile app. And Adobe XD is not in the table because we would not start a new project in it.

Why this keeps happening

Cloud design tools keep your files on the vendor's servers. When the vendor changes direction, the files and the links to them go with it. InVision gave almost a year of notice, and any prototypes, comments and share links that were not exported were deleted. Articles written years ago still point to pages that now redirect to a different company.

You can't remove that risk, but you can shrink it. Pick a tool with open or widely supported file formats, and keep a copy of the work outside the tool. It takes little time and can save a rebuild.

How to choose

1. You are a founder sketching an MVP. Start with paper or wireframing in Balsamiq or Figma. Draw the five to ten screens a user needs to finish one job. Show them to five target users before you spend on polish.
2. You have a designer and a Flutter developer. Use Figma. Developers can inspect spacing, colors and text styles, and the handoff is well understood. Read our Figma to Flutter handoff guide before you start.
3. You need realistic interactions for user testing. Use ProtoPie, or build the key flow in Figma first and move to ProtoPie only if testers need real gestures or device behavior. Pay for the extra tool only when a clickable Figma flow is not enough.
4. You want open source and no lock-in. Use Penpot. It is free, and you can self-host it. The InVision shutdown is a good reason to care about where your files live.
5. Your whole team is on Macs and likes native apps. Sketch still works well. Its Mac-only license is a one-time $120 per seat, but it leaves out collaboration and online sharing, so most teams will want the Standard plan.

Not sure what good screens look like? Our short explainer on UI and UX design covers the basics.

Checklist for moving off a dead tool

• Export everything you can today. Download images, PDFs and any file format the old tool offers. Do this before you decide on a new tool.
• Save screenshots of every screen and flow. Even a folder of PNGs is better than nothing.
• Keep the source in a widely supported format. Prefer tools that can import and export common formats such as SVG, PNG and PDF. Open source tools such as Penpot publish their formats openly.
• Store a second copy outside the vendor. Use your own cloud drive or repository, not only the design tool's cloud.
• Write down the logic. List each screen, what every button does, and what data it shows. Developers need this more than they need a perfect prototype.
• Name things clearly. Use plain screen names, consistent colors and reusable components. It makes handoff faster in any tool.
• Hand off with a short walkthrough. Give developers the file, the exported assets, the screen list and a 15-minute call.

Need a hand?

App369 is Simon Dziak's studio. He builds and runs Workspace369, a production Flutter and Firebase SaaS.

When your designs are ready to become software, the closest fixed-price offer is the Web App MVP Sprint. It starts with a $450 scoping step. You get a written scope (users and roles, screens, data model and integrations) and a fixed price and timeline for the build within 3 business days. The build itself starts from $6,000 and takes about four weeks. It is for web apps, not native mobile apps, so if you need a mobile app, get in touch first.