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: