A hallmark of the 2021 release was its speed—handling massive, multi-artboard projects without significant lag, which was a competitive advantage at the time.
While the 2021 releases were powerful, it is important to note that Adobe XD entered a "maintenance mode" following the failed acquisition of Figma, with no major new feature development reported in 2024 or 2025. The 2021, 54.1.12 version is therefore viewed as a mature point in the software's life cycle before it became a "legacy" product. Everything You Need To Know - Adobe XD Update (2022) Adobe XD CC 2021 54.1.12
A major selling point for existing Adobe users was the seamless integration with Creative Cloud. Assets from Illustrator and Photoshop could be directly imported or copied into XD, and projects could be sent to After Effects for advanced animation. A hallmark of the 2021 release was its
Version 54 continued to enhance XD's core strength in rapid prototyping. Key features included Auto-Animate , allowing designers to create complex, animated transitions between artboards by simply defining changes. This enabled smooth, realistic micro-interactions, essential for realistic mobile and web app testing. Everything You Need To Know - Adobe XD
2021 versions refined component management, enabling multiple states for components (e.g., hover, clicked, toggled). This reduced the need for redundant artboards, improving efficiency for complex UI design systems.