Gliffy is an online diagramming tool with collaboration features from the San Francisco company of the same name, offering standalone versions of Gliffy and integrated versions for Jira and Confluence.
$6
per month
Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
The Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite empowers teams to ideate, plan, design, build, and launch game-changing solutions from a shared infinite canvas.
Gliffy is user-friendly, with a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to create clear and visually appealing diagrams without steep learning curves. It’s perfect for creating straightforward, quick wireframes. Gliffy lacks features for detailed UI/UX wireframing and prototyping compared to specialized tools like Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD.
It is hard to think of ways in which Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite would not be best suited to provide an effective tool for any organization to find success in its use. Whether it is a visual display to map an organizational structure, a collaboration to find an answer of how to improve workflow, or even to display the upcoming budget needs, working in Lucid can seamlessly provide that!
First it's important to point out that Gliffy has priced itself incredibly well for small to medium sized businesses. Most other similar solutions are so expensive that organizations will avoid getting workflow software overall. Gliffy can take pride in knowing they're helping small business operate better.
Gliffy is incredibly easy to use for a first time user. I rarely have to train someone on how to use it. It's a lot of fun to see people get excited about systems and processes when using Gliffy. If you need to get up and running quickly I can't think of a better solution for workflow visualization.
I also like using Gliffy for mindmapping. I'm sure some mindmapping experts can tell me how I'm doing that incorrectly, but it just works for me. This points to the ease with which Gliffy allows you to get your thoughts down quickly and easily.
Serverless. You don't need to install another program to create diagrams, you just open a new tab and there you are, ready to go.
Collaboration. You don't need to update your colleague diagram by creating a new file and creating a new file version, you both are in the same diagram and you and all the team are free to update it at any time, at the same time, you are seeing the same thing. That is really helpful and time-saving.
Shapes. It has any shape that you can think of and Lucidchart is always updating them, I can create an Azure solution architecture, an AWS one, an old on-premise solution. Or just put standard shapes to describe a business process. Providing so many specific shapes help the diagram to express specific information, and for specific teams, that's less text and more visual information, you don't need to put a text below a standard database shape (this is an Azure SQL database), you just put the azure shape and done. That....is beautifully helpful.
Gliffy does need to improve its pricing model. I believe they were early to market with their product and offerings, however, with the increased competitors they are falling behind in keeping their prices competitive.
Gliffy does need to increase its export conversion migration tools. I can understand why they would not want to port items uses by their products to another product but we are in a world where products need to play nice with others in good faith. It can be done, but you do need to check over what you port either incoming or outgoing.
Would like to see Gliffy allow us to build templates and import them into the repository and have increased the ability to archive those, share and have owners.
Because of its great versatility and ease of use. From diagramming to roadmpas and even user interface wireframes. Once a draft or first version is done we like to use the Confluence integration so we can collaborate and have one single source of truth
I based my assessment on aggregated user feedback and reviews from platforms like G2 and Software Advice. Many users highlight the simplicity and versatility of Gliffy’s interface, which makes it accessible for both beginners and professionals. Features like drag-and-drop functionality, a variety of templates, and integration options (e.g., Atlassian tools) contribute to its high rating.However, it doesn’t score a perfect 10 because some users report performance issues with complex diagrams, limited advanced features compared to competitors, and occasional difficulties with collaboration features. Balancing these strengths and weaknesses lands Gliffy in the 8-9 range for usability
The interface is easy to use and understand and most features feel very familiar from the start. There are so many features and functions that users may not know it can be done without some instruction. Lucid's champion network is a great, fun resource to learn more about the product.
I would rate the overall support for Lucidchart as a 9. The support provided is generally robust and responsive. Their help center, tutorials, and webinars offer extensive resources for users. The ticket-based support system is effective, providing timely resolutions to most issues. Moreover, they actively gather user feedback, demonstrating a commitment to continuous improvement
Gliffy is easier to use together with Confluence since it provides an integration where you can edit an image directly on the page. Visio and PowerPoint is better drawing tools but we have moved away from them since there isn’t a good way to keep track of the original file of the vector/bitmap included in the Confluence page.
Based on my personal experience, Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite is head and shoulders above any other competitor. Canva is good, but not intuitive at all. Miro is good as well, but not nearly as appealing and still lacks some of the logical functions that LucidSpark has. I’ve also used Apple FreeForm quite a bit, which is a free software with Apple. Once again you can accomplish the same things in any of these software, but Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite is so much better to the point that it is 3-4 times faster to use Lucid than Free Form or Canva.
Hard to quantify actual $ROI (always is!), though qualitatively I've receive consistent feedback that live modeling with Gliffy is highly valuable for both our customers and internal team:
a) For customers, it's live feedback to demonstrate we are listening and an opportunity to comment / add feedback to ensure we are hitting on key points
b) For internal teams, it's a great reference to track key points on calls and ensure alignment going into the next call
This is particularly important when discussions stall for months. Having Gliffy as a visual has helped us to win business because of the speed with which we could return to "the arena" and keep the ball moving forward.
Though I can't necessarily provide hard numbers, I can confidently say that Lucidchart has saved countless hours for myself and my teams as we don't need to try to develop some type of complex diagram using markup or any kind of code.
I have previously been able to build a complete ERD using Lucidchart in a past position, which the company never had before. It ended up being used by countless teams in the company and ultimately in a large-scale data stack migration effort.
