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draw.io

Score7.3 out of 10

170 Reviews and Ratings

What is draw.io?

draw.io is an online diagramming tool with integrations with Jira, Google, and Confluence available free online or at cost depending on integration chosen.

Categories & Use Cases

One of the best, free and easy to use software for creating flowcharts and diagrams.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In Numerator we use draw.io to create flowcharts, diagrams and organizational charts. We have been using draw.io to create decision tree and workflow of a certain project. It really helps us to clarify some of the complex and challenging business decisions. It make things very clear when we understand it through a diagram made on draw.io.

Pros

  • The drag and drop of visuals make it easy and fast to create diagrams and flowcharts.
  • It is very convenient and simple to connect the visuals from one point to another from different sides of the visuals.
  • It offers so many different visual, flowcharts and network diagrams. We can explore a whole lot of templates in draw.io as per our requirement.
  • We can connect draw.io with Google Drive and save our work over there.

Cons

  • I think draw.io can improve on importing of some file types.
  • I think draw.io should launch its desktop application for PCs and Mac.
  • There is no proper tutorials and technical support services of draw.io

Most Important Features

  • The templates offered by draw.io is very useful for me and my organization to quickly create any diagram.
  • We can collaborate in real-time with other users with the help of shared cursor.
  • Drag and Drop feature is one of my favorite.

Return on Investment

  • draw.io has surely impacted our organization positively by saving some crucial time.
  • It has not really impacted much monetarily to be honest.
  • The ROI we got from draw.io is that it has made complex things clear for everyone in our organization.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Visio

Other Software Used

Keka HR, Atlassian Confluence, Slack, Jira Software

The best diagramming software out there!

Pros

  • draw.io is free to use! No more spending loads of money for licenses of diagramming applications.
  • draw.io is web based - no installation necessary! Due to this, your diagrams become very portable.
  • draw.io is always adding to their application; new features, new icons, etc.

Cons

  • Honestly, I can't come up with any cons.

Return on Investment

  • For me, I can create beautiful diagrams in minutes and share them with ease - all for free.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Visio, Gliffy and Creately

Other Software Used

Parallels Desktop, Microsoft Visual Studio Code, Oracle VM VirtualBox, Slack

Great software for making diagrams

Pros

  • Integration with Google Drive.
  • Friendly interface.

Cons

  • Sometimes it is a bit slow.

Return on Investment

  • Improved the quality of internal presentations.
  • Its implementation improved internal processes.

Alternatives Considered

Lucidchart

Other Software Used

Gitlab

A simple and complete solution at a great price.

Pros

  • Draw.io offers a lot of shapes and customizability of how the diagrams are laid out. We've been able to create a lot of different things with it, and have barely scratched the surface of the sorts of things that we could do.
  • Draw.io is fairly intuitive in the way that you draw shapes and connect shapes together, I was able to figure it out without a tutorial.
  • Draw.io is fast and performant for me compared with some of the alternatives.

Cons

  • Connecting shapes together in slightly less common ways isn't quite as intuitive and took some effort to figure out.
  • It would be nice if the shapes could be auto-positioned and auto-sized accordingly to fit the contents and keep the diagram as neat and tidy as possible.

Return on Investment

  • Draw.io has given us a free place to create basic diagrams, and more options for upgrading in the future when we need more, so it saves a bit of money in that regard.
  • Draw.io allows us to share diagrams with our clients without the burden of making them install new software, thus increasing client happiness and making it more likely we'll get return business.

Alternatives Considered

Lucidchart, Xmind, Microsoft Visio and MindMeister

Other Software Used

Xmind, MindMeister, IntelliJ IDEA, IntelliJ WebStorm, PhpStorm, GitHub, Slack, GoToMeeting

Remember MS Paint? Draw.io is for adults in the workplace. It's that easy. Diagram & Workflows with ease.

Pros

  • Draw.io's ability to plug into other platforms makes it simple to have a single pane of glass operation when working your organization's documents and file system.
  • Draw.io is the refreshing approach to a very simple no-frills software that is easy to learn and get something out the door in minutes if need be.
  • Draw.io had a relatively deep repository of templates and examples to speed up delivery and prevent you from having to re-create the wheel.

Cons

  • 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.

Return on Investment

  • Our organization had a positive ROI migrating to Draw.io with simple cost savings over other products. We saved about 35% on our yearly "workflow, network diagram" software.
  • Migration from Gliffy was easy, but did come with some administrative overhead. Our IT team needed to go back through and check most diagrams for errors.
  • Our office saves a substantial amount of administrative overhead utilizing some of the templates provided within Draw.io.

Other Software Used

Atlassian Confluence, Amazon Chime, Gliffy