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Principle

Animate your ideas, design better apps

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Overview

What Principle does

Principle makes it easy to design animated and interactive user interfaces. Whether you're designing the flow of a multi-screen app, or new interactions and animations, Principle lets you create designs that look and feel amazing.

What people use it for

  • Mobile app prototypes
  • Micro-interactions
  • Animation design
  • User flow design
  • Gesture-based interfaces

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The honest half

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Principle.

  • macOS only with no Windows or Linux editor available
  • No vector morphing capability for complex shape transformations
  • Limited asset creation tools; cannot create vectors or shapes directly within Principle
  • Sketch import flattens certain properties including paths, fills, borders, masks, blur effects, and text layers
  • Limited variable support, logical loops, and data input capabilities compared to tools like ProtoPie or Origami

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Principle

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

  • P
    Principle    vs
    Figma logo
    Figma

    Figma: Cloud-based design tool with animation capabilities and real-time collaboration, cross-platform (not macOS only).

  • P
    Principle    vs
    Framer logo
    Framer

    Framer: React-based interactive design and prototyping tool with code-driven animations and component reusability.

  • P
    Principle    vs
    ProtoPie logo
    ProtoPie

    ProtoPie: Advanced interaction prototyping with support for logic, variables, and complex user flows without coding.

Pricing

What Principle costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

License

$129 /one-time

  • One year of upgrades
  • Full access to all features

Upgrade License

$99 /yr

  • Annual renewal for ongoing upgrades

Capabilities

Features

  • Timeline-based animation

    Timeline-based animation capability

  • Interactive prototypes

    Interactive prototypes capability

  • Touch gestures

    Touch gestures capability

  • Component reuse

    Component reuse capability

  • Video export

    Video export capability

  • Sketch import

    Sketch import capability

  • Figma import

    Figma import capability

  • Driver animations

    Driver animations capability

  • Sketch

    Integration with Sketch

  • Figma

    Integration with Figma

  • Video export

    Integration with Video export

  • Local files

    Local files security feature

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Does Principle run on Windows or Linux?

No. Principle is macOS only and runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. There is no Windows or Linux editor available; however, prototypes can be shared and viewed on any platform via web link.

Source
What is the cost of Principle?

Principle costs $129 for a one-time purchase with 1 year of upgrades included. After 1 year, upgrade licenses cost $99/year. A 14-day free trial is available with all features included.

Source
Can I import designs from Figma or Sketch into Principle?

Yes. Principle supports importing designs from Figma and Sketch with intelligent merging of re-imported files. Some Sketch properties such as paths, fills, borders, blur effects, masks, and text layers are flattened upon import.

Source
How do I share Principle prototypes with others?

Prototypes can be shared via web link with one click (File > Export > Share to Web). Recipients can view and interact with prototypes in any browser on any platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, or iOS. No installation required.

Source
Can I create vector shapes and morphing animations in Principle?

Principle does not support vector morphing, where vector objects transform into other vector shapes. It also has limited asset creation capabilities and editing is restricted to basic operations like scale and rotate.

Source

Behind it

Who makes Principle

Company
Principle Software
Based in
Independent
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Where to go from Principle

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Principle, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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