Microsoft Visio: Free al­tern­at­ives for creating diagrams and flow charts

From the de­velopers who brought us the GNOME Project, Dia is a visu­al­isa­tion software primarily known through the GNOME Linux desktop en­vir­on­ment of the same name. This al­tern­at­ive to Microsoft Visio is based on the GIMP Toolkit (GTK+) which is written in C – a free component library that offers diverse control elements for the design of user in­ter­faces. As with most GNOME Project ap­plic­a­tions, Dia is subject to the GNU General Public License and available for use free of charge. Most Linux dis­tri­bu­tions contain the in­stall­a­tion files for the programme within the package man­age­ment system, or al­tern­at­ively, can also be found in the GNOME software selection. There are also versions available for macOS and Windows systems, which can be found in the download section of the official website. Dia offers a standard set of general polygon and line objects, which can help you create diagrams and flow­charts for a wide range of in­dus­tries; an ad­min­is­trat­or could compile an overview of a firm’s network, an engineer could outline struc­tur­al systems, or a database spe­cial­ist could even visualise an ER (Entity Re­la­tion­ship) model. Other spe­cial­ist objects for the real­iz­a­tion of your diagrams can also be found in the online “shape re­pos­it­ory”. In order to make the process as easy as possible, the Microsoft Visio al­tern­at­ive also offers many options and shortcuts, which allow you to select, unselect, copy, and delete several shapes. This means you can work with a man­age­able drawing surface, which thanks to the co­ordin­a­tion system, also enables the precise po­s­i­tion­ing of in­di­vidu­al elements.

Created by the German software company yWorks, the yEd Graph Editor is un­doubtedly one of the best free Microsoft Visio al­tern­at­ives on the market. The visu­al­isa­tion software is written in Java and is based on several Open Course com­pon­ents, such as the Batik SVG Toolkit and XML Beans from Apache, or various libraries like dom4j and Twelve­Mon­keys (both under BSD license). However, it is not published under a free license, meaning the source code cannot be changed. But yWorks has made the cross-platform editor, which is suitable for Windows, MacOS, Linux, and the Java Runtime En­vir­on­ment available for use free of charge. Alongside the desktop version, which can be found in the download section of the company’s official website, there is also an ad­di­tion­al online version, which includes some fee-based “Pro Features.”

yEd provides numerous com­pon­ents for the creation of versatile and mul­ti­fa­ceted diagrams. Alongside a large number of geometric nodes and link types, there is also a choice of UML (Unified Modeling Language) symbols for software-specific class and object diagrams, BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) symbols for the depiction of business pro­ced­ures, as well as several flowchart com­pon­ents. This al­tern­at­ive to Microsoft Visio has different functions, which will help you arrange and annotate the desired com­pon­ents of a diagram. Automatic layout al­gorithms, helpful guides, and or­tho­gon­al con­nec­tions, all make po­s­i­tion­ing very simple. At the same time, the programme’s in­scrip­tions provide good read­ab­il­ity. Below are some notable features of the yWorks editor:

• High-per­form­ance search and marking tools

• Undo and Redo functions

• Develop multiple diagrams at the same time

• Versatile and adaptable user interface

• Different viewing options (mouse wheel zooming, etc.)

• Automatic layout gen­er­a­tion for complex volumes of data

• Import different sources of data, like excel tables(.xls), GEDCOM data, XML & GML files,

• Shortcuts for important functions

• Extensive preview area (general overview, object prop­er­ties, object structure)

yEd Graph Editor offers six standard saving formats. These are the main format .graphml, the condensed version .graphmlz, the binary format .ygf, .gml (Graph Modeling Language) and .xgml (.gml with XML-based Syntax) as well as .tgf, the “Trivial Graph“ format. On top of this, there are also various output formats, like .html, .pdf, .jpg, .png or .gif, in which you can export your diagrams from this free Microsoft Visio al­tern­at­ive.

Another Microsoft Visio al­tern­at­ive, Diagram Designer, was released in 2003 by de­velopers Michael Vinther and Mattes Dolak, and was published under the GNU General Public License on sourge­force.net. Since then, Vinther and his company Meesoft are solely re­spons­ible for the software’s further de­vel­op­ment. Although no longer operating under a free license, the programme is still available to use without any charge. The source code of the most recent Open Source version of the software is available through the Source­forge Re­pos­it­ory. The newest version, along with packages in various languages, can be found on FossHub, where Diagram Designer has re­gistered several hundred thousand downloads. Even if Diagram Designer’s user interface is not visually of the same standard as Visio, when it comes to creating diagrams, this freeware programme can certainly be viewed as a viable al­tern­at­ive to its Microsoft coun­ter­part. Par­tic­u­larly im­press­ive is the choice of flowchart and UML com­pon­ents, as well as the range of technical symbols. The available object templates are widely adaptable, while also being con­nect­able with the help of arrows and lines. In addition, there are several packages with finished object templates; all of which are available for download from the official website. The programme allows you to build com­pre­hens­ive flow charts, schem­at­ic­ally represent work and pro­duc­tion processes, or even visualise your design ideas. Here you’ll see some of the most important functions the software has to offer:

• Spell check
• Function graph plotter
• Easy shading options
• Work on several objects at the same time

Apache Open­Of­fice (pre­vi­ously Open­Of­fice.org), with its text pro­cessing ap­plic­a­tions, spread­sheet assembly, high-quality present­a­tion option, and the addition of the drawing programme Draw, is a viable and free office al­tern­at­ive to Microsoft Visio. Since 2012, the software package has been further developed through the Apache Software Found­a­tion, meaning the most recent versions are valid under the Apache License Version 2.0 (ALv2). Like all Office Suite pro­grammes, Draw is written in C++ and com­pat­ible across all platforms. In addition to the official versions for Windows, macOS and Linux, there are also other versions from third-party providers which have enabled use on further platforms, e.g. Android. An overview of all available in­stall­a­tion files can be found on the website’s download section. Draw boasts a large range of functions as a free al­tern­at­ive to Microsoft Visio. Primarily the ap­plic­a­tion serves to produce vector graphics from geometric com­pon­ents. Equally, it can also be used to edit pixel graphics, or to generate complex flow and or­gan­isa­tion charts. The re­la­tion­ship between various objects can be il­lus­trated with the aid of spe­cial­ist lines, also known as con­nect­ors, as well as glue points. Given that Draw is a set part of the office package, tables diagrams or formulae, which may have been compiled by other com­pon­ents like Calc or Math, can easily be in­teg­rated into the software. Likewise, com­pon­ents from Draw can just as easily be im­ple­men­ted into Open Office documents of different types. Some of the most important features of Open­Of­fice Draw are:

• Layer Man­age­ment for the outlining of hier­arch­ic­al and or­gan­isa­tion­al threads

• Magnetic grid point system and rulers allowing for pinpoint po­s­i­tion­ing of in­di­vidu­al elements

• Cus­tom­is­able and ex­tend­able toolbar

• Variety of geometric shapes (standard shapes, symbols, block arrows, flow chart tools, legends, stars and banners)

• Rendering of three-di­men­sion­al drawing objects according to the Flat, Phong, or Gouraud methods

• Uses cubic Bézier curves

Google’s free online service Office Suite is not just made up of the well-known Google Docs (ap­plic­a­tion for communal word pro­cessing), Google Spread­sheets (communal spread­sheets), Google Calendar, and e-mail service Gmail, but also includes the visu­al­isa­tion software Google Drawings. As with all of these Google pro­grammes, you must first log in to be able to access the software. Available over a classic Google web frontend, this Microsoft Visio al­tern­at­ive will auto­mat­ic­ally save your projects in Google Drive – as it does with all docs, tables, or calendar entries. This means it requires a working internet con­nec­tion and browser. On Android and iOS mobile devices, the programme can be accessed through the Google Drive app, which is down­load­able from the Google Play and App Stores. Google chrome also features a plug-in, which makes it possible to work with the tool in an offline capacity. Alongside an extensive selection of shapes, arrows and symbols, Google Drawings also features curved and angled (“Elbow”) con­nect­ors; both of which will further aid your project. In addition, there are also four ready-made diagram templates; bar charts, his­to­grams, pie charts, and line graphs. These can be accessed with one single click, and can also correlate data from Google Spread­sheets. Tables can be easily in­cor­por­ated into your diagrams or flow­charts. Once the required amount of lines and columns has been specified, the drag-and-drop function makes it easy to transfer the table to the desired position. Other features offered by this online al­tern­at­ive to Microsoft Visio include:

• Spell-checker, including custom dic­tion­ary

• In­teg­rated search tool for facts/images from Google Drive and internet

• Numerous sim­pli­fied keyboard shortcuts

• Comment tool

• Range of special char­ac­ters, symbols, and icons available for text fields

• Edits visible for all users

Any dis­cus­sion on the best al­tern­at­ives to Microsoft Visio has to include Draw.io. Sharing many sim­il­ar­it­ies with its Google coun­ter­part, this web ap­plic­a­tion is based on the free JavaS­cript library mxGraph. For this reason it was ori­gin­ally released in 2011 under the name “mxGraph online.” Main­tained and developed by the JGraph company, the programme is available under the free license GPL v3 on the Draw.io website. The ap­plic­a­tion is supported on desktop, tablet, or smart­phone, with the complete source code available to view on GitHub. As a fully client-side software, Draw.io can be used in offline mode with a desktop app available for use on Google Chrome. Regarding the saving of their documents, Draw.io users have several options. Diagrams can be saved using the online cloud services Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox, re­gard­less of which device you are using. But saving locally onto a hard drive is only possible on the desktop version. To get you started quickly, this Microsoft Visio al­tern­at­ive offers numerous useful diagram templates from some of the following areas:

• Business

• Graphics

• Tech­no­logy

• Flow­charts

• Mind maps

• Mock-ups

• Network diagrams

According to the developer Lucid Software, their program “Lu­cid­chart” is used by more than 15 million users as an al­tern­at­ive to Microsoft Visio. The web ap­plic­a­tion, which was released in 2008 and is written in a variety of coding languages including Java, Ruby, PHP and JavaS­cript, can be accessed directly through the official website. A pre­requis­ite is having an in­di­vidu­al user account, where you can choose between a free “Lite” edition and three paid sub­scrip­tion options. The latter three grant access to ad­di­tion­al features like present­a­tion mode, or extended storage space, and also removes the limits on documents and chart scope that exist in the free version.

Lu­cid­chart provides around 100 ready-to-use templates for creating and designing high-quality diagrams. The software covers cat­egor­ies like education, mind-maps, companies, floor plans or entity re­la­tion­ships (ER). Thanks to various icons, shapes and arrows, you can also create your own in­di­vidu­al diagrams, which allow you to get access to special premium com­pon­ents if you are signed up to the “Pro” or “Team” plans, including importing and editing existing Visio projects. You also have the option to save finished projects to their servers, or download them directly to your device in the following formats:

• .pdf
• .png (Standard / with clear back­ground)
• .jpeg
• .svg (Standard / with clear back­ground)
• .vdx
• .csv

The 2009 Microsoft Visio al­tern­at­ive “Creately” was developed by Aus­trali­an developer Cinergix. More than half a million users in more than 100 countries use the software, which is available as both a desktop and web app to create custom diagrams, either in­di­vidu­ally or as part of a team. However, the free version has limited function, with the entire range of Creately functions being reserved for users with an active monthly sub­scrip­tion (or those who purchase the desktop program). If you can work well with 5 documents, a single project folder and access for up to three people, then the free version could be a good free al­tern­at­ive to Microsoft Visio.

Creately shines with a huge selection of chart and flowchart templates. Around 1,000 pro­fes­sion­ally designed templates and millions of sample projects from the community are available to you – whether as a basis for or a source of in­spir­a­tion – at any time, including the following cat­egor­ies:

• Business strategy and processes
• Product life cycle
• IT struc­tures
• Design
• Sales and Marketing
• HR (Human Resources)
• Education

The Vi­et­namese software company Evolus are launched Pencil Project in 2008, a visu­al­isa­tion project based on the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Thanks to this format, the GPL-licensed Microsoft Visio al­tern­at­ive has long been installed and used as a simple Firefox extension. However, this is no longer the case with newer versions, which are now based on the open source framework Electron (formerly Atom Shell). The developer is still providing cross-platform editions for macOS, Windows or Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora) that can be down­loaded free of charge through the official Pencil Projects website.

Pencil Project gives you access to various graphical elements, which can easily be moved with drag-and-drop so that the diagram, prototype or idea flow chart can be created as quickly as possible. In addition to the standard flowchart objects and geometric shapes, the available com­pon­ents include buttons and icons for desktop and web UI’s, as well as typical Android and iOS elements. You can also search for high-quality clipart graphics through an in­teg­rated Open­Cli­part.org interface and add them to your project. The al­tern­at­ive to Visio uses the in-house .epgz format to store files on the local hard drive. In addition, your project can be exported in the following formats:

• .png
• .pdf
• .html
• .svg
• .odt (Open­Of­fice document)