Why Adobe XD Still Feels Like a Unfinished Product
Adobe XD often feels unfinished despite being a capable tool — from collaboration architecture and ecosystem economics to Adobe’s shifting priorities in a Figma-dominated market.
Introduction
Adobe XD is one of those tools designers still describe with affection:
- fast to open
- clean UI
- solid prototyping basics
- surprisingly pleasant micro-interactions
And yet, it’s also the tool many teams describe with the same sentence:
“It’s great… but it still feels like beta.”
This article isn’t a teardown. It’s a research-style explanation of why XD can feel unfinished, even when it does many things well — and why the underlying causes aren’t only “missing features,” but a mix of architecture, ecosystem economics, and product strategy in a Figma-shaped market.
What “Beta” Feels Like in a Design Tool
When designers call something “beta,” they usually don’t mean “crashes.” They mean:
- The edges aren’t rounded: common workflows feel like 80% solutions.
- The ecosystem is quiet: fewer plugins, templates, community patterns, and shared knowledge.
- Collaboration feels secondary: handoff, comments, versioning, and “working together” feel bolted on.
- The tool doesn’t feel inevitable: you’re never fully sure the product will be better next year.
That last point is subtle, but important: product confidence is a feature.
The Real Competition Isn’t Features — It’s Gravity
Figma didn’t just win because it shipped more buttons. It changed the default expectation of what a design tool is:
- A multiplayer workspace (presence, cursors, comments, roles).
- A living system (components, tokens, libraries, branching, review loops).
- A platform (plugins, community files, education content, hiring markets).
In practice, Figma’s advantage behaves like gravity:
| Category | XD feels like… | Figma feels like… |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | optional | default |
| Sharing | export-centric | link-centric |
| “How we work” | per file | per system |
| Learning curve | individual | communal |
Even if XD matched 90% of features, it would still be fighting a network effect: teams don’t buy features, they buy momentum.
A Less-Discussed Constraint
Collaboration Architecture Is a Different Product
Here’s the “unknown” part most designers don’t think about: real-time collaboration is not just UI polish. It’s infrastructure.
To make multiplayer editing feel invisible, tools usually need:
- conflict resolution strategies (OT or CRDT approaches)
- server-side state and permissions
- version history that is meaningful, not just “saved at time X”
- performance under messy realities (latency, offline edits, partial sync)
A design tool can be “feature complete” and still feel beta if collaboration is treated as an add-on instead of the foundation.
Because XD began as a desktop-first app in a world where “design file = local file,” building Figma-like collaboration later is often closer to rebuilding the product than upgrading it.
The Maintenance Trap
When a Tool Is Good Enough, It Stops Being Urgent
The paradox: XD is good enough for many workflows — especially if you:
- design solo or in a small team
- don’t need heavy design systems
- prefer strong prototyping for presentations
But “good enough” creates a maintenance trap:
- Customers keep paying via bundles.
- The tool doesn’t create public excitement.
- The internal business case to invest heavily becomes harder every quarter.
If users don’t churn immediately, a product can quietly slide from “strategic” to “stable,” and then from “stable” to “frozen.”
Where the “Beta Feeling” Actually Comes From
Hypotheses
No single reason explains XD’s stagnation. But these dynamics tend to show up in product organizations:
1) Bundled economics reduce pressure
When a tool lives inside a subscription bundle, the revenue signal is blurred.
“People pay for Creative Cloud” doesn’t tell you whether they pay for XD specifically — which can weaken urgency compared to a single-product business.
2) The platform problem
Plugins, templates, community files, and shared conventions create an ecosystem moat.
Once a competitor becomes the “default hiring requirement,” the cost to re-enter the market is huge — even with a technically good product.
3) Switching costs are social, not technical
Tool switching isn’t only migration scripts and exports. It’s:
- retraining the team
- recreating libraries
- changing how PMs and devs review work
- losing shared references (“just check that component in the library”)
If an organization already standardized on Figma, XD’s improvements don’t matter unless they change the social workflow — and that’s rare.
4) Internal priority drift
Even in large companies, engineering teams are finite.
When leadership priorities shift toward areas with higher growth narratives (AI features, new product lines, enterprise platform work), mature tools often receive “keep it running” attention.
If XD Is Still a Great App, What Should Adobe Do?
If XD ever returns as a serious competitor, the path is not “ship 20 small features.” It’s:
- Make collaboration core (not an export path).
- Treat XD as a system tool (tokens, libraries, governance).
- Rebuild the ecosystem loop: community, plugins, templates, education.
- Reduce uncertainty: publish a clear roadmap and commit to it.
“Because the real issue isn’t UX polish — it’s trust.”
Practical Takeaways for Teams Using XD Today
- If your work is mostly solo and prototypes are your selling tool, XD can still be efficient.
- If your work is cross-functional (design/dev/product working daily), evaluate whether the collaboration gap costs you more than the migration.
- If you’re stuck with legacy files, treat XD as an archive + export tool, and build new systems in the tool your team actually collaborates in.
Conclusion
Adobe XD doesn’t feel “beta” because it’s bad. It feels beta because the market moved.
In 2026, a design tool is judged less like a drawing app and more like a collaborative operating system for product teams.
XD can still be a great app — but without visible momentum, community energy, and collaboration-first architecture, it will keep feeling like it never fully “launched,” even if it already did.
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