So you can imagine how pleased we were when Apple released their M1 processors. And as we’ve discussed in the past, the best way to speed up the process is with faster network connections and better hardware. The faster we can do this, the shorter the time between you hitting save on your Mac and a new preview being ready for other stakeholders to view in whatever browser they use. Still, the most CPU-intensive work that the render farm does is still rendering images for web previews. Being able to run the exact same logic in your local Sketch instance as well as on the server lets us offer real-time collaboration in a native app. In fact, the render farm does so much more these days than render - it also provides the brains of our real-time collaboration experience. But what started as a way to offload your local Sketch copy by drawing document previews on the server has steadily evolved into a central pillar of the Sketch experience. We’ve written before about one part of this server stack how we’re supporting team collaboration by operating a server-side render farm that shifts the task of processing Sketch documents away from your Mac. To support these new features, we’ve steadily built up a solid server backend.

Last month we celebrated the latest step in that evolution with the addition of real-time collaboration in the Mac app, upgraded Workspaces for easier sharing and collaboration, and powerful controls that help you manage and share Libraries. We’ve gone from a local, only-on-your-Mac experience that supported third-party tools for things like version control and developer handoff, to a single design platform that can handle all of a design-driven company’s needs.

Over the last couple of years, Sketch has been evolving.

Davinci resolve mac mini m1