# Kite vs Sketch (slim)

> Sketch scores 53.6 (D) to Kite's 47 (D) for design files. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-new-vs-sketch.md (~5,050 tokens) · this version ~3,330 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-new-vs-sketch.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-new-vs-sketch
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-02
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Sketch scores 53.6 (D) on agent readiness against Kite's 47 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Kite leads on security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do design files.

- Kite: D 47, rank #1039 of 1268 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kite-new.min.md
- Sketch: D 53.6, rank #851 of 1268 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sketch.min.md
- Kite, good for Agents that make banners, social posts, landing pages and screens for a team that will edit and comment on them in a shared file, drawing in HTML and CSS against the team's design system and picking up changes from @-mention comments, without a desktop app or browser tab kept open. Ahead on Security & auth, 50 against 34; Maintenance & community, 78 against 65. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.
- Sketch, good for A designer or developer at a Mac who wants an agent to inspect, audit, export or edit an open Sketch document, or turn a frame into code. Ahead on Reliability, 53 against 33; Agent ergonomics, 70 against 44; Transparency & trust, 67 against 44. Also No key needed to call it; Runs on your own machine.

| Category | Kite | Sketch |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 33 | 53 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 62 | 64 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 44 | 70 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 50 | 34 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 78 | 65 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 44 | 67 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Kite | Sketch |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | MCP server |
| Vendor | Kite | Sketch B.V. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://kite.new/api/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under Kite's terms of use (updated 8 September 2026). No source is published; the only public code is an MIT plugin manifest repository (itsloukman/kite-agent-plugins) that points agents at the hosted server | Proprietary Mac app under Sketch's End User Licence Agreement and Terms of Service. The connector in sketch-hq/agents is MIT and the skills are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 59 | 8 |
| MCP registry | `new.kite/kite` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-11-01 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-14 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 97 stars |

Why the edge:
- Agent ergonomics, Sketch +26: Kite 44 (MCP reading. 59 tools (61 through the Mac app) with no toolsets, read-only subset or dynamic loading; guide_read moves the long instructions out of tool descriptions into on-demand reads, but tools/list still carries 59 definitions (5 of 25). Output is sized by asking for one page in file_outline, one node in layer_source and layer_render, layer_search by name, words or type, file_search over content, comment_list with unread_only and include_resolved, request_list per file; file_list is newest-first with no documented paging (14 of 20). OAuth errors are documented with recovery steps, web_capture says when a page was cut short and an unknown shader base is refused, but a picture Kite cannot fetch is left out silently and no tool error shape is documented (9 of 20). No readOnlyHint or destructiveHint documented and no idempotency keys; version_save before a big change and version_restore undoable both ways, file_archive reversible and no permanent delete, layer_draw's replace argument for swapping a node (7 of 20). Few required parameters (file_new takes a title, layer_draw a file and HTML, finish_working a file), defaults in the drawing guide, and an MIT plugin repository for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Grok Bot; no SDK, since the vendor points at the official MCP SDKs (9 of 15). 5+14+9+7+9 = 44.); Sketch 70 (Eight compact tools (25). `get_layer_tree_summary` takes a root layer and a depth, and `get_design_assets` filters by kind, library and name. No pagination was found (14 of 20). The docs say script errors go back to the agent to correct, and a troubleshooting guide is served by `get_guide`. No error codes are documented (8 of 20). The connector source sets readOnlyHint and destructiveHint on every tool, seven read-only and `run_code` destructive. No idempotency or dry run, and undo is the user's in the app (14 of 20). Three tools need no parameter and the rest need a document ID. No SDK applies, and plugin bundles ship for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and GitHub Copilot (9 of 15).)
- Transparency & trust, Sketch +23: Kite 44 (Closed service. The terms of use (8 September 2026) run to about 200 words on content, prohibited use, links, availability and changes and name no legal entity, address or governing law, so the contracting party is unknown (8 of 30). The privacy policy (14 October 2026) names eight services, says files are not read, trained on or sold, discloses masked session replays and error replays, gives the agent token's 7-day life renewable to 90 days (matching auth.md and the integration page), the 30-day purge of deleted pages and the one-month deletion of a closed account's files, and the Figma token's handling; no DPA and no retention period for logs beyond the providers' own (20 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices; the terms promise email or in-app notice of changes that matter and the changelog dates additions, not removals (4 of 20). Telemetry (PostHog, Sentry) is disclosed with what it excludes and no opt-out beyond product-news emails; service locations are given only for PostHog and Sentry (US) (10 of 20). 8+20+4+10 = 42.); Sketch 67 (Closed application under a published End User Licence Agreement of 6 March 2025 and Terms of Service of 6 October 2026. The connector is MIT and the skills are Apache-2.0 (17 of 30). The Terms of Service and the Privacy Statement, both dated 6 October 2026, describe the MCP server in matching words, and the statement gives retention rules and points to a DPA (24 of 30). The terms let Sketch drop backend support for Mac app versions older than a year, and the developer docs list API deprecations per release. No policy or notice period covers the MCP tools (8 of 20). The Privacy Statement lists what the Mac app collects automatically (IP address, device details, Mac unique ID, licence identifier), and a sub-processor list of 10 July 2026 gives locations. No opt-out for that collection was found (10 of 20).)
- Reliability, Sketch +20: Kite 33 (Hosted reading, for the platform and its remote MCP server. No public status page was found. None is linked from the docs or the footer, https://kite.new/status answers 404 and status.kite.new does not resolve (0). No readable incident history, so the floor (5). Limits are published with numbers on the account page, 200 agent actions a day on Free, reset at midnight UTC, unlimited on Pro; 60 new files an hour; 20 comments on one file every 10 minutes; 600 exported layers an hour; 20 keys; file caps of 400 MB and 250,000 layers. auth.md says registration and agent calls are rate-limited without a per-minute figure (12 of 15). 429 is documented in auth.md with 'back off' and no Retry-After, 401 with a refresh-once-then-rediscover rule, and the drawing guide says to edit layers in place rather than redraw; no idempotency key on any write and no safe-retry guidance for layer_draw, so a retried draw adds a second frame (6 of 15). No SLA. The terms (8 September 2026) say Kite is provided as is, uptime is not guaranteed and files may be lost (0). The hosted server carries no beta label and the registry entry is 1.0.0; the product launched on 6 October 2026 and the desktop apps are 0.1.16 (10). 0+5+12+6+0+10 = 33.); Sketch 53 (Read with the local-software lines, because the server runs inside the Mac app on the owner's machine. The app downloads from sketch.com with macOS 15 or newer stated for 2026.3, and the connector states Node 22 or later (20). The app is closed source, and the sketch-hq/agents repository has no CI workflow or tests (0 of 25). No public issue tracker for the app. The agents repository shows 0 open issues, and the changelog lists fixes in every release, 143 in one (10 of 25). Versions run year, release, patch with a detailed changelog and API deprecations listed per release, but the MCP notes say only that tools were added (8 of 15). The docs do not mark the server as beta, and it has shipped since 2025.2.4 on 17 October 2025 (15). The cloud status page is not scored here.)
- Security & auth, Kite +16: Kite 50 (OAuth 2.1 with the authorization code flow, PKCE S256, dynamic registration of public clients, 7-day access tokens, 90-day refresh tokens that rotate on every use and revoke the connection if replayed, a revocation endpoint, bearer in the header only, and per-connection disconnect in Settings; one scope, pages, with the agent working under the user's full rights, and API keys that are per tool and revocable but unscoped (24 of 30). Least privilege comes from the file, not the token. A file shared view-only lets an agent read and comment but not draw, comment and download settings apply to agents, an agent cannot delete a file for good or touch the account, workspace or people, and each Mac-run request reaches only its file; no read-only mode on the hosted server and no confirmation for layer_remove, page_remove or version_restore (12 of 20). Comments, skills written by any editor, captured web pages and Figma pastes reach the model. The skill says a file's skills apply to that file only and never to sharing or people, and the Mac docs keep Agents Run Any Tool off by default because an agent reads comments and web pages and one could try to trick it; no guidance for the hosted server's own tools (8 of 15). Settings, Agents lists each connected app and key with when it connected and was last used, the board shows the agent's name while it works, and version history records agent saves; no per-call log for the operator (6 of 15). No security.txt (404), disclosure policy, bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001; SSO and SAML on Team (0 of 20). 24+12+8+6+0 = 50.); Sketch 34 (The server has no credential. The docs describe it as local-only, off by default and started by the user, and macOS asks for Local Network access. No token or per-client permission was found, so any local process that reaches port 31126 could call `run_code` (10 of 30). No read-only mode. The on and off switch is the only control in the app, and the terms say approval depends on the connected AI tool (6 of 20). Tools return document text, layer names and library content, which can come from other people. The terms warn about what a connected tool may send to an AI provider, and no injection guidance was found (3 of 15). `run_code` requires a `title` stating its purpose. No call log is documented (2 of 15). ISO 27001 certificate, a Responsible Disclosure Policy of 29 September 2026 with a reply promised in five business days, and a yearly external penetration test per the security page. No bug bounty and no security.txt (13 of 20).)
- Maintenance & community, Kite +13: Kite 78 (Closed service with a dated changelog. The latest entry is 1 November 2026 (30). 15 dated entries between 6 October and 1 November 2026, including Pro on 18 October, Windows, shaders and website design systems on 23 October and the agent page, version, comment and export tools on 25 October (20). Support is hello@kite.new, a Support link in the docs, 'your feedback first in line' on Pro and dedicated support on Team; no community channel, forum or issue tracker, and the plugin repository has no issues (8 of 15). new.kite/kite 1.0.0 is in the official MCP registry under a DNS-verified namespace since 21 October 2026 (15). No packages to judge; the MIT plugin repository was pushed once on 7 October 2026 and the desktop apps update themselves (5 of 10). 30+20+8+15+5 = 78.); Sketch 65 (2026.3.1 on 14 September 2026 (30). 2026.2.1 on 14 July, 2026.3 on 26 August and 2026.3.1 inside 90 days (20). The app is closed, with a public changelog, a support form and a community Discord. The agents repository has 0 open issues and five merged pull requests (10 of 15). Not found in the official MCP registry in the first two result pages for a search on the name. A third page timed out (0 of 15). The connector pins the MCP SDK at ^1.28.0 with a lockfile, last changed on 25 June 2026, with no CI (5 of 10).)