10 best alternatives to Microsoft Visio as of 2019 - Slant

PlantUml

Top Pro

Many, many integrations

For example from Emacs, Sublime Text and so on. You can learn about integrations here. See More

Top Con

The "plantUML-language" is a bit strange and hard to grasp for new people

Top Pro

Easy create diagrams from text

There is even a Visual Basic Macro to draw UML diagrams in Word. See More

Top Con

Slow development due to it being mostly a one-man project

There’s been no recent contribution to the source forge project but from the administrator arnaud_roques. Future contribution might be difficult due to lacking code documentation. See More

Top Pro

Free/libre/open source (GPL)

Source code can be browsed here. See More

Top Con

Not maintained

Top Pro

sphinx-contrib extension for embedding into docs

sphinx-contrib extension on PyPi Allows you to keep your UML definitions under VCS and include them inside generated documentation with ease. See More

Top Pro

Has online editors

Such as. See More

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20 1

Draw.io

Top Pro

Rich functionality for a web-based application

Top Con

Behaves strangely for certain diagram types

For example the snapping function for arrows doesn't work properly for the sequence diagram template See More

Top Pro

Completely free

Top Con

Import from Visio .vsd is useless

I opened a simple diagram and it's all scattered. See More

Top Pro

Integrates with multiple cloud storage services

Draw.io offers saving files directly to services such as Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox along with saving to to computer. See More

Top Pro

Good list of different output formats

Draw.io supports export for PNG, GIF, JPEG, PDF, SVG, HTML, and XML. See More

Top Pro

There is also a Desktop version

Top Pro

Internet Explorer 6-8 and touch device support

Draw.io works with every browser (even IE 6) without plugins. See More

Top Pro

Real-time collaboration

Specs

Platforms:Online, via web browser, desktop

License:Apache v2 (Github repo too)

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47 5

XMind

Top Pro

Free and open source

XMind, except for Plus and Pro features, is open source with code available on GitHub. See More

Top Con

No offline capability

If the Internet goes down, you cannot use this XMind. This is painful on the iOS phone where data link must be online before you can use it. See More

Top Pro

Clean, easy to use UI

XMind's interface is uncluttered and easy to overview. It allows for quick, intuitive navigation and use. For example, Enter adds more items to a node, Tab adds a child node, all commonly used shortcuts works as expected, etc. See More

Top Con

Newer versions become heavyweight and bloated

Even though there are more features, starting with version 8 application is very unstable. A lot of users still prefer version 7.5 or 6.5. See More

Top Pro

Extremely flexible

XMind is capable of displaying information in a multitude of ways (classic mindmaps, charts, timelines, decision trees, etc), it can add labels, clip-art, notes, files, audio recordings, it can then take the project and export it in a variety of ways including an synced gantt chart. See More

Top Con

Used to offer their NOT-free products

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works on Windows, OS X and Linux. See More

Top Con

FreeMind files sometimes don't work

XMind claims it can read FreeMind files, but certain .mm file saves from Freeplane or MindMup generate an error on open. See More

Top Pro

A wide variety of templates available

XMind has preset templates available that allow getting started quickly. There are templates for project planning, status reports, dashboards, organizational charts, swot analysis, timelines, decision trees, weekly plans, among others. See More

Top Pro

Built-in Gantt view

XMind has a build-in Gantt chart view and with the pro version, XMind allows synchronizing it. See More

Top Pro

Can copy entire hierarchy to/from Word with a simple copy/paste action

XMind allows quickly copying over structure of the mindmap as a tab-indented list starting at the node selected. It can also take a tab-indented list and create a mindmap from it. See More

Top Pro

Local Network Sharing

Top Pro

XMind Plus & Pro adds more export options

XMind Plus & Pro can export to Word, PowerPoint, PDF, SVG & MindManager. See More

Top Pro

Task management (pro)

Top Pro

Audio recording (pro)

Top Pro

Very good performance

The app is incredible complete, flexible, and fast. See More

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150 22

Inkscape

Top Pro

Free and open source

Inkscape is GPL-licensed and maintains public repositories. See More

Top Con

Very slow startup on some systems

Depending on factors like how many fonts you have installed, Inkscape can take upwards of 30 seconds to launch. See More

Top Pro

Opens lots of file types

Inkscape supports many common formats for import (including SVG, Photoshop and Illustrator) and its plugin architecture allows more to be added. See More

Top Con

Uses its own SVG-format by default

Inkscape might use SVG as its default format, however this SVG's contains some additional SodiPodi/Inkscape additions that can be troublesome if you want to import the SVG into some other application. See More

Top Pro

Export to different file types

You can export and save your files for example as a "normal" svg, png, jpg, bmp etc. file. See More

Top Con

Based on the GTK widget toolkit

Software is based on GTK, so it might not integrate well in non-GTK environments. It also requires many dependencies on those non-GTK desktops. It also adds dependencies to GTK-environments since it is written in C++ which requires the gtkmm wrapper/interface See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Pre-built binaries are available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Inkscape can be built from source on additional platforms. See More

Top Con

Mac version is in worse shape than Windows/Linux version

Top Pro

Integrates well into a X11-System

Its uses the X11 icon theme and desktop theme(GTK). See More

Top Con

Incompatible with previous versions

Sometimes backward compatibility breaks. For example, pre 0.92 SVGs are incompatible with later releases (due different default resolutions). See More

Top Pro

It's really easy and fun

You can edit and create vector graphics with Inkscape. See More

Top Con

Limited work with ICC CMYK color scheme

Support for ICC color profiles only in SVG files. See More

Top Con

No support for large printing machine system

No support for large printing machine environment, except exporting the resulting artwork to PDF. See More

Top Con

Y-axis inverted

0,0 coordinates begin in lower left corner, not upper left corner as SVG standards define. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Unix

Initial Release:2003

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129 24

Coggle

Top Pro

Supports Markdown (their own variant)

Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax designed so that it can optionally be converted to HTML using a tool by the same name. See More

Top Con

Tree relations only; no non-parent links

Coggle's model allows a node to have multiple children, but only one parent, and no other connections of any sort. See More

Top Pro

Collaborative

Coggle allows inviting friends and colleagues to work collaboratively on notes and diagrams in real-time. See More

Top Con

Unconventional note taking style

Coggle is a mind mapping application, not a traditional text based note storage platform. See More

Top Pro

Pretty diagrams

No effort to create beautiful diagrams. See More

Top Pro

Supports LaTeX

LaTeX is a document preparation system and document markup language. It is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents. See More

Top Pro

Allows easy color-coding of paths

Top Pro

Versioning support

Enter history mode to view all changes to a diagram over time, and make a copy from that point. See More

Top Pro

Optional Chrome store App

Top Pro

Free

Top Pro

Lots of export options

Exports to PDF, image, plaintext and .mm files. See More

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27 12

Creately

Top Con

Watermark on export for free users

If you are free users, exporting document will create watermark See More

Top Pro

Professionally designed templates

The templates are well thought-out and actually helps you get started. Not like many other sites where the details are already filled in. See More

Top Con

Web version requires FLASH

Flash is known to have security flaws and use high resources See More

Top Pro

Intuitive UI

Easy to use drag and drop interface and a contextual toolbar that shows you all the important actions when you select an object. The automatic creation and connecting of next object alone saves tons of time. See More

Top Con

Dekstop version is commercial

If you want to use dekstop version, you need to pay $75.00/ user See More

Top Pro

Real time collaboration

You can invite anyone by their email addresses to collaborate with your diagram. You can see others' changes to the diagram real time with the Creately Online and Desktop app. See More

Top Pro

Visio Import

Top Pro

iSO and Android apps to view diagrams

You can't edit diagram using the apps but provides a nice clean interface to view, share and comment on them. See More

Top Pro

SVG import and export

Creately supports SVG (Scalar Vector Graphics) import and export to make your diagrams more attractive. It allows you to re-size your diagram as much as you want without getting it messed up. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux

Exports:JPEG, PNG, PDF, SVG

Imports:JPEG, PNG, SVG

Real-time collaboration:Yes

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6 3

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