When comparing OmniGraffle to its top 72 alternatives, Adobe Illustrator has the highest rating, with Visio as the runner-up, and OmniGraffle ranking 24th place. Adobe Illustrator has the most reviews with a total of 7,791, while OmniGraffle has 37. Users say Adobe Illustrator tops the list for value for money followed by Samepage, while. OmniGraffle is a special interface designing platform that allows developers to formulate new diagrams and frameworks with fascinating color combinations by dealing professionally. It is a great solution for creating valuable projects according to the different display programming like Mac and IOS operating systems. I use Typinator for Mac. This app is a shareware, you can either use it free or buy it. However, I find that the free version is enough for everyday usage as a blogger with slightly HTML editing.
A few weeks ago I told you about the simple outlining tool Tree that I use instead of the very expensive industry darling, OmniGroup’s OmniOutliner. This week I’d like to tell you about a free diagram/flowchart tool you might want to use instead of the very expensive OmniGraffle.
OmniGraffle for Mac is $100…for their standard version. Their pro version is $200. $100 is a lot of money for a casual use program these days. The OmniGroup also sells an iOS version but it’s $50 for standard and $100 for the Pro version. So just a casual user would be out $150 to use it on their Mac and iOS devices.
So that’s problem one. Problem 1.5 is that even if you do buy OmniGraffle, they do what they call major point releases pretty often (every 1-2 years) and the upgrade pricing is huge. After paying $100 for the standard version of OmniGraffle 5, the upgrade price was another $50! I’ve done the upgrade dance from 4 to 5 to 6 not because I saw a huge improvement in the tool, but because every single time I opened the app I had to close a window to tell them I didn’t want to upgrade. I literally paid them to leave me alone.
This all might be ok if I was in love with OmniGraffle. But I’m not. Problem number 2 to be solved for me is that I find it very difficult to use, I think the menus are confusing and I swear a great deal while I’m using it.
Draw.io is a free alternative that’s web-based, and works across Macs, PCs, iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
File Storage
If you’re going to draw diagrams online, you’ll need to store them somewhere so the first question you’re faced with when you go to draw.io is whether you want to save to Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive or your local device. You’re not stuck with that decision; every time you open draw.io you let it know where you want to save your work.
User Interface
The center of the screen in draw.io is where you’ll be drawing your diagrams. It has a fine grid on it that you can turn off if you choose. The left panel is filled with shapes to add to your diagram. There are 11 categories of shapes, including entity relation, BPMN, and UML, and also general shapes like rectangles and circles and lines and arrows and flowchart elements. If that’s not enough, you can turn on even MORE shape groups, like Software, Networking, and even building and floorpan tools. They’ve even got toilets! And of course you can drop in your own images.
The right panel of the screen is a contextual set of menus to modify whatever elements you have selected on screen. For example, if you click on a rounded rectangle from the shapes menu, it will drop into the upper left of the center page view. While it’s selected, the right sidebar will show you options for fill colors, gradients, and line thicknesses. You can change opacity or add a dropshadow.
One of my (many) beefs I have with OmniGraffle is that there’s no way to change the style of a multiple shapes at once. Let’s say you have 10 rounded rectangles filled with yellow. You can’t go back later and make all of them filled with red without selecting every single one individually and changing its style. Or at least I never found that option. In draw.io, you can simply select the shape you like, hit Copy Style from the style panel on the right and then shift select the other shapes and hit Paste Style. I am already happier in draw.io.
Connecting Shapes
One of the reasons you use a diagramming tool instead of a regular drawing tool is because you want to have some intelligence to the shapes and arrows. If I put in two rectangles and drag an arrow between them, I want to be able to drag one rectangle around and have the connecting arrow between them move with it.
In OmniGraffle, you apply magnets to the edges of shapes. These magnets are the places where lines can stick. For some reason they don’t put enough magnets on the default rectangles for my tastes, so I have to add magnets using a menu pick. This works, but it’s a laborious way to go about it. For the life of me, through three paid revisions of OmniGraffle, I have never been able to figure out how to change the default so that every rectangle has 8 magnets the way I like it. I’m not saying it’s not in there somewhere but I’ve never found it.
In draw.io, you simply drop in a couple of shapes, select one, and you’ll see a blue arrow on each side. If you click and drag where the arrow is, a line is automatically created which you can drag to the other shape. You get green dots showing you where you can connect them. If you want to connect to a different area on the edge, you can slide the line and choose a new connection point. No magnets, no mess.
If you drag to the center of the shape instead of the edge, the lines attaching the shapes will change where on the edge they connect dynamically as you move them around. I’m liking draw.io better than OmniGraffle.
I mentioned that if you click on a shape in the palettes on the left, it drops the shape into the upper left hand corner. You can also drag and drop the shape right where you want it. When choosing some of the more complex elements in the left sidebar, it might be kind of hard to read in their small icon size, so if you single click, draw.io shows you an enlarged version, without inserting into your diagram. Hover over an element and it will give you the name they use. It’s worth learning the names of your favorite tools because there’s a Search Shapes box at the top left.
One of my favorite shapes is a nice rounded rectangle. With draw.io you can easily change the radius by dragging a little orange dot around in the upper right corner. Simple and intuitive. I mentioned earlier that you can add colors and gradients to your shapes, but you can get even fancier and make them look like glass buttons using the styles in the right sidebar.
Adding text is just as easy as adding shapes, click on a shape and start typing. The Text panel on the right side let you have full control of color, font, alignment up/down/right/left. You can change to vertical text, add a border, change spacing, just about everything you could think of. Want that text, or even an object to be a hot link? Double click on it and yet another set of text formatting panel shows up on the left. From here you can add links, html, sub/superscript, bulleted or numbered lists, indent/outdent, add images and tables. I really can’t think of anything more they could have added!
Arrange
Probably the only weak point I could find in draw.io for my needs, is that it doesn’t allow control of layers. In the Arrange menu on the right, you can move things to the front or back, but you can’t tell an object to go back just one layer. This means you can have a little puzzle on your hands where you have to figure out the order in which to tell the objects to go forward and back in order to get them placed just the way you want them. It works, but not elegant.
Also under the Arrange menu is the ability to provide fine control to size, position and angle of your shapes by typing in precise values. You can choose to lock the aspect ratio of specific objects which could be handy if you forget to hold down the shift key when resizing.
Export
draw.io can export either the entire diagram, or just the selected elements as a PNG image, an SVG vector art file, HTML, PDF, or XML. Even though you can download as html, you still need an Internet connection to display your file because it uses a JavaScript script at draw.io to render. Could be a cool way to embed a diagram into your website though.
Anything Not to Like?
The only thing I didn’t like about draw.io is that I was getting constant notifications from Dropbox. I realized then that it’s constantly saving to my cloud service, which is a good thing. That got me curious to dig into the menus a bit and I found one called Revision History. In there I found you can scroll back through all of the save points AND see visually what your diagram looked like when the save was made! That will make selecting so much easier if you have to go back in time.
There’s a lot more I could tell you about draw.io but I figure by now I’ve at least got your curiosity up enough to go try it for yourself. But there’s one more question we haven’t answered – and that’s why is draw.io free? draw.io was created by a company called Atlasssian that has a corporate collaboration suite of tools called Confluence. They have a page where they explain what’s free and what’s not and actually make commitments about it.
Why is it free? support.draw.io/….
So if you don’t have $150 to spare for drawing diagrams and flow charts with your Mac, PC, tablet or phone, check out draw.io!
Draw.io is one of the best diagramming tools there is. It is packed with graphics features that let you design engineering, software development, and even wireframes visual representations. In fact, it offers ready-to-use layouts that saves time in creating project illustration from scratch. Another notable feature that gives you an excellent user experience ishow the shapes, functions, and settings are laid out nicely in the interface of the tool. However, there’s no denying that each tool has its deficiency. That said, we provided Draw.io alternatives you will find helpful.
Top 8 Free Alternatives to Draw.io
GitMind
GitMind is a free mind mapping and flowchart maker that is accessible from almost any device using a web browser. You can immediately use the tool after quick and easy registration. This grants you access to every function of the tool including the templates from the library. Using this best Draw.io alternative, you’re not limited when it comes to customizing your project illustration. You can edit the text, color, add shapes and so much more.
Moreover, if you prefer to use desktop tool then this app also have an offline version, which you can get from the link below.
DOWNLOADCacoo
Omnigraffle Professional
Cacoo is another online tool designed for team collaboration and comprehensive diagramming. This allows you to insert diagrams to Google Docs, Visio, and Confluence. Aside from that, you can also store and share maps to cloud storage like Google Drive. Moreover, the tool is cloud-based allowing teams to work remotely that makes this one of the best alternatives to Draw.io.
OmniGraffle
Make a professional visual plan of your project and organize your thoughts using impressive visuals with OmniGraffle. You can use this tool on your iOS devices including Mac, iPad, and iPhone allowing you to design diagrams anywhere. Aside from creating diagrams, this Draw.io alternative is a sought-after rapid-prototyping tool for mobile app development. This helps you build the app’s architecture, graphic designs, and animation with precision.
Dia Diagram Editor
Using Dia Diagram editor as a replacement for Draw.io is also a good choice. Though its interface is not visually appealing, the tool lets you create from a simple flowchart, circuit diagram to a complex computer network diagram. What makes this the best Draw.io alternative is that you are free to set up the canvas however you want, add your desire shapes or icons from the toolbox, and a lot more.
MindManager
MindManager is a mind mapping tool compatible with Windows and Mac. More than creating mind maps, this tool is capable of creating Gantt charts, add schedules, and even lets you turn your maps and charts into a presentation. Also, this Draw.io alternative app features app integration. With it, you can sync your files to platforms like Outlook and Slack. This is especially helpful if you are working with a team to keep track of their progress.
Roadmap Planner
If you are a project manager, you will need to make plans most of your time. That’s is the very reason why Roadmap Planner is developed. This tool lets you create display plans and tasks in a hierarchy that allows you to finish them efficiently. In addition, it’s one of the alternatives to Draw.io that offers live data visualization that helps in effectively conveying thoughts and for information to easily sink in.
yEd Graph Editor
Another great tool you should consider using is yEd Graph Editor. It comes with a set of elements readily available to create almost any kind of diagram. There are shape nodes, UML elements, BPMN symbols, as well as ER diagram symbols. On top of that, this Draw.io alternative provides a variety of layout options. This includes Hierarchical, organic, UML-style, and tree layout to serve and support every diagraming layout.
Gliffy
Just like any other program that does not require app installation, Gliffy should be on your list of best alternatives to Draw.io. It has a templates library to instantly create mind maps and wireframes for both Web and mobile. Moreover, the tool comes with a drag-and-drop editor to easily input shapes and complex icons that are resizable.
Conclusion
Omnigraffle Download
There are a lot of choices when it comes to Draw.io alternatives. They only differ with functionalities. Other tool are best suited for engineering and other complex diagrams while some tools are helpful for basic and simple diagramming purposes. Hence, it all boils down to your specific needs.