When comparing yEd vs Coggle, the Slant community recommends yEd for most people. In the question“What are the best flowchart / diagram softwares?” yEd is ranked 4th while Coggle is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose yEd is:
With automatic layout you get great looking diagrams with very little effort. yEd has the most versatile and most complete collection of automatic layout algorithms.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Automatic Layout
With automatic layout you get great looking diagrams with very little effort. yEd has the most versatile and most complete collection of automatic layout algorithms.
Pro Completely free
Pro Multi-platform
Runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX. There also is a Web application.
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.
Pro Collaborative
Coggle allows inviting friends and colleagues to work collaboratively on notes and diagrams in real-time.
Pro Pretty diagrams
No effort to create beautiful diagrams.
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.
Pro Allows easy color-coding of paths
Pro Versioning support
Enter history mode to view all changes to a diagram over time, and make a copy from that point.
Pro Optional Chrome store App
Pro Free
Pro Lots of export options
Exports to PDF, image, plaintext and .mm files.
Cons
Con Clumsy UI
Con Not free-as-in-freedom
Not released under an open-source license.
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.
Con Unconventional note taking style
Coggle is a mind mapping application, not a traditional text based note storage platform.