When comparing Balsamiq vs Lucidchart, the Slant community recommends Balsamiq for most people. In the question“What are the best mockup and wireframing tools for websites?” Balsamiq is ranked 2nd while Lucidchart is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Balsamiq is:
All the Balsamiq UI elements are drawn by hand and have a really nice low-fidelity design.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Low-fidelity UI elements
All the Balsamiq UI elements are drawn by hand and have a really nice low-fidelity design.
Pro Clean and easy to use interface
Balsamiq has a very easy to use drag and drop interface that lets you quickly build and adjust your mockups. The UI is centered around low-fidelity wireframes that help focus the reviews on the core layout and functionality instead of getting hung-up on visual design.
Pro Large & extensible UI element library
Balsamiq has a built in library of over 75 built-in user interface components and 187 icons, as well as community generated plug-ins.
Pro Awesome team collaboration features
myBalsamiq has been built with teams in mind and has a variety of featured to support collaborating on the mockups:
Notifications - Real-time notifications to enable you to keep track of team member actions
Revision Control - All mockups have a revision history to enable reverting to previous versions and keeping track of design decisions.
Skype Integration - Easy to use Skype integration to host design reviews.
Access Control - Access controls allow sharing projects with team members as well as allowing external reviewers to leave comments on the designs.
Pro Usability testing features
You can link together pages to create shareable user demos
Pro 30-day trial available
Pro Keyboard shortcuts
You can use common keyboard shortcuts like Shift to select multiple elements or to resize while maintaing proportions, F2 for renaming labels etc.
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
Cons
Con Stifling innovation
Doing anything that is not directly supported by Balsamiq's conservative component library is next to impossible. User is forced to think within the corset of yesterday's standards.
Con No easy way to quickly play with the product
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.