Yes. A LOT. As designers we are used to identify problems and offer solutions to them. That aspect has two effects: 1. We do that on the things that are close to us - like our own workflow / productivity. 2. We tend to adopt every new thing that comes out to improve our workflow / productivity.

It's seriously becoming a problem since as designers we should not be so self centered. We should be solving REAL problems for the other 99%. It's not always what you can do, but it's what you can aspire to do by not doing shiny products for privileged designers.

In general - competition is good. The emergence of Sketch kicked Adobe in its lazy ass and pushed it FW in about anything - from pricing to functionality. That was amazing. And if we only had that it would have been a balanced act as well.

But now, every other day a new tool comes out, spinning designers and teams out of focus to learn something new, only to discover the old tool was quite as good.

It's depressing to see an industry that revolves around ideas getting addicted to and abducted by - tools.

Tools are the means to do great things. Great things is what matters and they can be achieved by talent. not a (little) better tool.

Don't see too much excitment of the designer community towards Adobe XD...

Saturated with crap for sure. Good stuff, not much out there.

No! Please make more! I love design tools!

There's still a big gap where Macaw used to be (or aimed for). Gimme Sketch+responsive layout+webkit rendered text and i'll have the tools I need for a while.

It's hard to invest time and energy learning proprietary systems that may very well get absorbed or shut down. We're hitting peak tools because consumer technology has advanced faster than our toolset, but I'd imagine after this cycle settles, we'll all be better for it. In the mean time, it's still vector shapes, pen and paper and lots of talking.

No, we need MOAR!

We definatly don't need anymore prototyping tools, that's for sure.

I don't think so. Healthy competition is good. It drives companies to continually improve their products. Look how much Adobe has had to invest since Sketch arrived. It stops companies getting lazy and only benefits us in the long run.

If Sketch hasn't been created we'd probably still be using and complaining about Photoshop. Yet now Adobe is having to work hard on XD and are now directly using users to influence the decisions and choices they're making. Knowing they need to get it right.

We've got Figma pushing multiplayer design. This new Kickstarter Subform that's doing some really interesting stuff with responsive design.

While I might not sit down and learn everything I can about Figma or XD the fact they exist reassures me that my preferred app Sketch will continue to push and stay on the cutting edge.

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On a side note, I do think there are possibly to many prototying apps, but as long as there are resources that help inform designers to make sure they're picking the right tools I don't think it's a problem.

Tools, schmools. Use what works. You could use Photoshop 7 today and get everything you need done.

Yep. uxtools.co

There are indeed many Designer Tools these days, but is the market saturated? I guess that depend how you look at it. As an interaction designer of websites, I often wish that there were better tools for creating and prototyping. The available tools often have the same focus (UI Design, Mobile, Click prototype or only microinteractions). While I would need also wireframing, responsive, prototyping with logic)

My conclusion: for some goals there are more tools available than needed and for some tools, there is a shortage.

Competition is good for innovation, just 4 years ago there wasn't anything other than PS, AI and FW. And designers turned to rotting skeletons waiting for a new feature to come to these products.

Yes, but none of those tools really solve the problem as one would expect them to.

I don't think so. Plus: the more tools out there, the better. Imagine 1 gem, 1 framework, 1 etc. It would be boring and innovation wouldn't be greater as now. We need more designer tools.

There’s quite a few new tools, because we’re in the middle of a transition period. There’s new tools, because there’s an opportunity for new tools.

Are there too many? No, I don’t think so. And it doesn’t matter if there are. This is what happens when there’s a transition — the ones that are good will survive, and the ones that aren’t will disappear. This has been happening with the explosion of prototyping tools, and the inevitable contraction and consolidation afterwards.

If I’m being incredibly blunt, I’d say none of the new or old visual design tools are what I want. They’re basic in many ways. I don’t always just want to draw solid rounded boxes and circles. If anything, we’ve gone backwards in terms of the artestry that design tools enable. Sure, animation, prototyping and responsive design are important, but so is having control over the finer points of the artwork used in the software we’re trying to create.

There’s lots of opportunity for new tools and new ways to work. Many of us use multiple tools, too. I have no problem at all using lots of different apps that all have different features and qualities — I don’t need or want a single monolith that does everything.

And, as we’ve seen with Pixate and others, there are many reasons why projects get shut down. You may be happy with a tool, but those creating or funding it may not be, and it will go away. Yet another reason to want a few more choices, so you don’t have to rely on something that may not exist in 12 months.

More tools? Yes, please.

Maybe? There's definitely been a proliferation, but also some acquisitions that often come after mini-booms to clean up and consolidate options.

I'm biased but there is a new wave of tools that are different than most of the tools out there today. I think technology is advanced enough to allow designers to create user interfaces and turn them into code, without needing front-end developers.

To me it seems like that's where the future lies, there will be no need for front-end developers. I know it's a crazy idea but I am crazy so I'm fine with that.

Think about a future where you don't communicate your design to a developer but instead you hand-off to the developer a turn-key UI code that she can integrate into the product as-is and focus on the functional code.

So while I do think there is saturation in the current market, I think a new players will shake things up and cause everyone to step up their game.