draw.io is an online diagramming tool with integrations with Jira, Google, and Confluence available free online or at cost depending on integration chosen.
$5
per month
SAP PowerDesigner
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
SAP PowerDesigner (formerly from Sybase) is an enterprise data architecture modeling tool, used to Build a blueprint of the current enterprise architecture and visualize the impact of change before it happens.
If you need to create a diagram in the cloud, I haven't found a better tool yet. If you need further customizability or export options not offered, then a larger tool might make more sense, but wherever Draw.io can fit in, I think it's the ideal solution.
SAP PowerDesigner allows our team of data modelers to work and collaborate from a single repository and single data dictionary. This helps enforce consistency as data elements are referenced in other objects. Prior to our use of PD, we might have an element named "ppt" in one table, "participant" in another table and "part" in a third table. By forcing everything to be used from the data dictionary, we avoid these situations because everyone has to go to the dictionary. And we are able to easily do peer reviews on models before they are released because we are collaborating through the use of the repository.
One element that was hard to use was converting pre-existing drawings and workflows from Gliffy to Draw.io once our company made the change. While we were able to complete the migration, when going back we noticed, oftentimes, some formatting and dependencies did not make it or were not compatible.
While the template repository is vast, it has a heavy focus on network style maps. It would be ideal for added diversity in the templates with a focus on workflows just as much.
While the integrations are strong, the cloud collaborative environment could still use some work. While you can save and edit in the cloud. Group editing and live dynamic sharing/editing similar to Microsoft office are still missing.
Draw.io could add some version control functionality for ease of rollback, auditing, & comparison.
The support for draw.io is pretty decent, considering it is a free website. I had a question one time when I was trying to do something, so I sent an email to their support email and got a response fairly quickly with an answer to my question. They also have some excellent support tools on their support website for helping you get more familiar with their program, and I found that very helpful.
We did have to reach out to support to learn how to properly utilize the repository feature and share the data model across many developers. Support was able to help us get this set up correctly. The downside was it took us several weeks before we gave up and contacted support. We should have done that earlier. I would say, however, the documentation wasn't clear on how to do this. So support was a great big help!
Draw.io is a free online diagram drawing application for workflow, BPM, org charts, UML, ER, network diagrams. No login or registration are required and features include the ability to save locally (including svg), a range of stencils, .vsdx, Lucidchart and Gliffy import and real time diagram sharing. When I compare draw.io to Lucidchart, it's natural that the first point of comparison will be templates. Lucidchart provides many more templates for both beginners and professionals than draw.io but draw.io has all the essential tools and templates for both business professionals and students (engineering drawing, floor plans, etc). Lucidchart lets you import all the three Microsoft Visio formats — .vdx, .vsd, and .vsdx as well as diagrams from Gliffy, Draw.io, and Omnigraffle. Draw.io lets you import Google Drive, Dropbox, Trello, Gliffy and GitHub. Overall, if you plan to make simple drawings, Draw.io is perhaps the best tool for you. All you need is a Google account to upload and save documents. If you can live with the three documents and sixty objects rule of Lucidchart, you may want to give it a try instead.
The version of ErWin we had didn't support the repository for document sharing and data dictionary sharing. Our version of PD does so we were able to leverage that and have a central repository that is shared among the team members. That really helped to give us consistency across our databases. PD is easy to use, but getting the repository set up properly was a little tricky.
