draw.io icon
draw.io icon

draw.io

Feature-rich diagram editor offering privacy-focused, ad-free experience with real-time collaboration, offline usage, dark mode, and cloud storage support. No registration required and compatible with various diagram formats, it excels in simplicity by not tracking user data.

Use the diagram editor in dark mode. Go to app.diagrams.net/?splash=0&ui=dark

Cost / License

Application type

Platforms

  • Mac  no app store app, download .dmg from github or gitlab
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Online
  • Chrome OS
  • Notion
  • Self-Hosted
  • Nextcloud  [https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/drawio](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/drawio)
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Flathub
  • Microsoft OneDrive
  • PortableApps.com
  • Google Drive
  • Google Docs
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Google Slides
  • Flatpak
  • Google Sheets
1055likes
0articles
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Features

Properties

  1.  Lightweight
  2.  Privacy focused
  3.  Support for Themes

Integrations

  1.  Office Online
  2. Dropbox icon  Dropbox
  3. Microsoft OneDrive icon  Onedrive
  4. Nextcloud icon  Nextcloud

Features

  1.  Flow Chart
  2.  Works Offline
  3.  Export to PDF
  4.  Mind Mapping
  5.  Web-Based
  6.  Sync with Google Drive
  7.  Multiple export options
  8.  Export to SVG
  9.  Dark Mode
  10.  Interior Design
  11.  Ad-free
  12.  Workflow
  13.  Document templates
  14.  Single Line Diagram
  15.  No registration required
  16.  Drawing Board
  17.  Auto aligment rulers
  18.  Flow diagram visualisation
  19.  Visio stencils
  20.  Hierarchical Structure
  21.  No Tracking
  22.  Export to PNG
  23.  No Coding Required
  24.  Website wireframing
  25.  Export to JPEG
  26.  Export to XML
  27.  Live Preview
  28.  Real time collaboration
  29.  Support for Layers
  30.  WYSIWYG Support
  31. LaTeX icon  Support for LaTeX
  32.  Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
  33.  Cloud Sync
  34. Dropbox icon  Sync with Dropbox
  35.  Export to HTML
  36.  Electron based
  37.  GCP Diagrams
  38.  Team Collaboration

draw.io News & Activities

Highlights All activities

Recent News

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Recent activities

  • TerraVision icon
    Patrick-Chugh added draw.io as alternative to TerraVision
  • Arialine icon
    inxanity added draw.io as alternative to Arialine
  • Orgivo icon
    RuudLemmen added draw.io as alternative to Orgivo
  • PlyLoom icon
    ZM-PlyLoom added draw.io as alternative to PlyLoom
  • Srđan reviewed draw.io  

    I used draw.io extensively when designing PRP, and it was great. Used on Ubuntu, but had a few issues with dark mode.

  • Sketchora icon
    MalahimHaseeb added draw.io as alternative to Sketchora
  • Vellum Diagram Editor icon
    Paul added draw.io as alternative to Vellum Diagram Editor
  • Lewis John Villamor liked draw.io
  • Excalidrawz icon
    romyr1717 added draw.io as alternative to Excalidrawz
  • flowChart icon
    saransh121 added draw.io as alternative to flowChart

Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: Draw.io is praised for its simplicity, user-friendly design, and being a versatile, free, open-source diagramming tool. It allows users to save files in various formats and is available both online and offline. Many appreciate its integration with cloud services like Google Drive, making collaboration easier, though some find its UI outdated. It's a solid alternative to Visio and Lucidchart, but lacks certain professional features like vector graphics support.
Top Positive Comment
Kagerjay
10

i tried a bunch of other softwares out there to see which diagramming tool I like the most. I don't like visio its bloated and slow

I like this program because its simple to use and understand, flexible and useful. But it took me awhile to figure out how I wanted to set it up for long term scalability

There's a number of options here to setup for backup, as of writing this post

  • google drive
  • github
  • dropbox
  • onedrive
  • device

If you use google drive, the file just gets saved in the root folder making it a really big pain to manage If you save it in github, you have to select a repo everytime + commit which is way too time consuming. Plus it doesn't autosave One drive is crap, I suggest you not touch it at all Device is okay but is limited with backup functionality, You could dump it into your cloud storage from here but I suggest just integrating it all together

I suggest using dropbox. It will save into dropbox/apps/draw.io. The reason why is because it autosaves every change you make.

Also, if you save using this automatic method, it saves as a .html file instead of .xml so you can just click the file and see what revision changes were made

There's 2 ways to use draw.io. There's the webapp and there's a desktop app

  • desktop app you can pin a shortcut to it
  • webapp self explanatory

in either case you probably want it attached to dropbox or one of those other solutions if you intend to use your diagrams across multiple pc's

dropbox is best here

whenever you want to opening the file, i suggest doing it straight from your dropbox/apps/draw.io folder, the open dialog box is horrendous in draw.io right now. this way you can open the file with multiple pc's etc.

in fact you could just double click the file inside dropbox its better off

Whenever you make a diagram just keep your revision notes off to the side because you can make the daigram as big as you need it to be

also your better off using the desktop version if you use dropbox since this program is saving every few seconds dropbox will spam you with notifications

[Edited by Kagerjay, June 02]

[Edited by Kagerjay, June 02]

[Edited by Kagerjay, June 02]

Top Negative Comment
altenativeto
3

It's useful for Creativity but the Export functions are very limited: PDF and PNG work well but SVG is not standard compliant and HTML-Export produces an HTML page with the PNG as full page.

Maevac99
Replying to @altenativeto

The 2021 version has extended export to SVG, HTML, XML & PDF. All standard compliant

Srđan
0
Founder at PRP

I used draw.io extensively when designing PRP, and it was great. Used on Ubuntu, but had a few issues with dark mode.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
very_unfortunate
1

Update: it's not fully open source apparently. Some code is obfuscated.

rattan homels
0
coder at Fanhua

Just switched to draw.io for my flowcharts—so much better than Visio! Love how it autosaves to Dropbox, though the notifications can get spammy. Wish it had a built-in visor de mermaid en línea for quick previews, but still my go-to for clean diagrams. Anyone else using the desktop version?

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
very_unfortunate
0

It's just super good for diagrams

Shaz Shah
0
Co-host at Radio Bros

I've always been on the lookout for MS Visio alternatives and the free web application is just way too limited. After trying a number of alternatives, I finally settled with diagrams.net (formerly known as draw.io).

It's amazingly powerful and feature rich, and free! The main bonus for me is the ability to connect to cloud services for collaboration. At work we use Office 365, so I use OneDrive/Sharepoint for sharing.

If you don't connect it with a cloud service be aware that you will have to download to your machine to keep the diagrams. And there's no auto-save. Personally, I connected it Google Drive.

7 of 64 comments

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What is draw.io?

Draw.io (aka Diagram.net) 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.

You can also store your diagrams on cloud (e.g. Google Drive), and edit them in real time collaboratively with other users of Draw.io.

You can also create a diagram from a CSV file that specifies which node is connected to which other node.

draw.io information

  • Developed by

    GB flagJGraph Ltd
  • Licensing

    Open Source (Apache-2.0) and Free product.
  • Written in

  • Rating

    Average rating of 4.7 (47 ratings)
  • Alternatives

    169 alternatives listed
  • Badge

    Get an embeddable badge for draw.io
  • Supported Languages

    • English
    • Bulgarian
    • German
    • Spanish
    • French
    • Italian
    • Portuguese
    • Romanian
    • Russian
    • Indonesian
    • Danish
    • Kalaallisut, Greenlandic
    • Latvian

AlternativeTo Categories

Development, Office & Productivity, Photos & Graphics, Business & Commerce, Remote Work & Education, Web Browsers

GitHub repository

  •  8,591 Stars
  •  1,296 Forks
  •  38 Open Issues
  •   Updated  
View on GitHub

Our users have written 64 comments and reviews about draw.io, and it has gotten 1055 likes

draw.io was added to AlternativeTo by davidjgraph on and this page was last updated . draw.io is sometimes referred to as diagram.ly, diagramly, draw.io, diagrams.net.