I almost didn’t bother with this post after running a quick Google search on Jing vs
Skitch and finding nearly
1,000 results, but I went through a fair number and couldn’t find anything that actually compared them side by side, so I went ahead.
Both Jing and Skitch are free (currently) programs for Mac OS X that allow the user to take and then annotate a static screen shot. But they each do a whole lot more as well. Here’s a chart comparing some of the features of each:
| Feature | Jing | Skitch | |
| Remote Hosting | Free | Free | |
| Save locally | X | X | |
| Upload to: | |||
| Flickr | X | X | |
| FTP | X | X | |
| .Mac | X | ||
| Send to Bluetooth | X | ||
| Send to Printer | X | ||
| Attach to Email | X | ||
| File Format Outputs | |||
| PNG | X | X | |
| JPG | X | ||
| TIF | X | ||
| X | |||
| SWF | For video |
||
| SVG | X | ||
| Video Capture | X | ||
| iSight Capture (still) | X | ||
| Annotation | |||
| Text | X | X | |
| Arrows | X | X | |
| Highlight | X | X | |
| Boxes | X | X | |
| Circles | X | ||
| Pencil | X | ||
| Line | X | ||
| Erase and Cut | X | ||
| Fill Area | X | ||
| Undo | X | X | |
| Effects | |||
| Shadow | X | ||
| Flip | X | ||
| Rotate | X | ||
| Customized hotkeys | X | X | |
| Resize after capture | X | ||
| Drag snapshot into application | X | ||
So on options, Skitch is the clear winner, but that ability to record quick video with Jing is a damn good reason to keep it around. Plus it’s important to note that I’m kind comparing apples and oranges here, as Jing never set out to be an all-inclusive screen capture product.
There’s another important thing to consider too, and something a table can’t capture (ha!) is the usability of each product. You know I can’t resist a quick screencast, so here’s how I use each one:
Comments
3 Responses to “OSX Screenshot Showdown – Jing vs Skitch”
Great post. Objective. I like it.
We also just launched My Twitter and My MailDrop for Skitch.com. I believe these add a new dimension to the visual conversation. You should definitely check them out.
Excellent, excellent post. I think I’ll go ahead and install both Jing and Skitch on my iMac as each are clearly useful in their own way.
Great post. I sent this off to Techsmith twitter team as well to see comparison. I would say I use Skitch now 90% but when I was only on windows I was a big snagit fan for much of the same features.