When comparing Lucidchart vs Freemind, the Slant community recommends Freemind for most people. In the question“What are the best mind mapping tools?” Freemind is ranked 7th while Lucidchart is ranked 17th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Integrates with a variety of services
Lucidchart has Google Drive, Google Apps, JIRA, Confluence, Jive, and Box integration.
Pro Revision history
Keeps track of previous version of files and is capable of reverting any changes made.
Pro Simple UI
Pro Secure
Pro Tutorials
A selection of tutorials are available.
Pro No data ownership
Users keep all rights to documents created using Lucidchart services.
Pro Can import and export Microsoft Visio documents
Pro Free and open source
Pro Intuitive UI with drag and drop support
For the most part, navigating the editor is pretty intuitive - moving around is done by clicking and dragging the background, clicking on nodes will expand/collapse them, dragging and dropping in files will add them, etc. It also offers shortcuts for power users. For example, ctrl + up/down will rearrange ideas up/down, alt +up/down will zoom in/out, etc.
Pro Lots of export options, including html with folding
Freemind offers many choices when exporting. It allows exporting the project as Java Applet, Flash file, Open Office Writer document, picture (png, jpg), PDF, SVG, multiple variants of (x)html, among other options.
Pro Can copy entire hierarchy to/from Word with a simple copy/paste action
Freemind allows quickly copying over structure of the mindmap as a bulleted, tab-indented list starting at the node selected. It can also take a bulleted, tab-indented list and create a mindmap from it.
Pro Fullscreen mode available with a patch
A user-contributed patch is available that adds fullscreen mode to FreeMind.
Pro Good documentation
Pro Cross-platform desktop and mobile
Works on Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS and Android.
Pro Revision control
Pro Supports media files, recognizes URLs and commands
Freemind accepts drag-and-drop for any kind of file, URL or command as part of the mindmap. Files it recognizes, like images, will be displayed. Other files will open in a separate, appropriate application. URLs, links to folders, and executable commands pasted in will be recognized and turned in to clickable links.
Pro Supports node and map encryption
Pro Multi-user support
Cons
Con Limited functionalities for customizing look & feel
Con Limitation for free users
Limit to 60 components per document and up to 3 documents.
Con Only web version available
Desktop or other platforms are not supported.
Con Unintuitive interface
The interface and shortcuts are unintuitive and difficult to customize.