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Open Source Microsoft Visio Alternatives

The best open source alternative to Microsoft Office Visio is diagrams.net. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Microsoft Office Visio and 19 is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Microsoft Office Visio are Dia, LibreOffice - Draw, Pencil Project and PlantUML.

Microsoft Office Visio alternatives are mainly Diagram Editors but may also be Mind Mapping Tools or UML Modeling Tools. Filter by these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Microsoft Office Visio.
This page was last updated Mar 30, 2022
Microsoft Office Visio
  246
  • Windows
  • Windows S

Microsoft Office Visio makes it easy for IT and business professionals to visualize, explore, and communicate complex...

Learn more about Microsoft Office Visio

  1. diagrams.net

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    • Free • Open Source
    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • Chrome OS
    • Self-Hosted
    • PortableApps.com
    • Notion
    • Google Drive
    • Microsoft OneDrive
    • GitHub
    • Microsoft Teams
    • Microsoft SharePoint
    • Google Slides
    • Google Drive - Sheets
    • Google Drive - Docs

    diagrams.net (previously draw.io) 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, .

    diagrams.net vs Microsoft Office Visio opinions
    Almost everyone thinks diagrams.net is a great alternative to Microsoft Office Visio.
     all • positive • negative      relevance • date
    makerj

    It is very convenient and contains many features.

    Top positive comment  over 5 years ago
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    9

    It's really easy to use, and has so many features for a web app.

    Top positive comment  about 5 years ago
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    4

    Simplified, easy to use interface. Free and Open Source. Clean UI design and look and feel.

    Positive comment • 3 months ago
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    0
    VasudeoSinha

    it has excellent features

    Positive comment • 9 months ago
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    0
    davidacardon

    This is an excellent alternative to MS Visio, and it's free. It's very easy to use and to learn. One nice feature is that it supports LaTeX mathematical formulas, which I use since I am a math professor.

    Positive comment • 11 months ago
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    0
    3isenHeiM

    It's an awesome alternative ! The dekstop version works completely OFFLINE, and the diagrams layout is WAY MORE SEXY than Visio's

    Positive comment • over 1 year ago
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    0
    chtfn

    Loving the clear, modern interface (suspiciously similar to Google Docs ;) ), and how intuitive it is to get started: no need to make sense of confusing menus and icons. Well done, recommending this open source tool from now on.

    Positive comment • about 2 years ago
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    0
    Show more comments ▾
    7 of 15 comments

  2. Dia

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    • Free • Open Source
    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • PortableApps.com
    • FreeBSD
    • Xfce
    • DragonFly BSD
    • NetBSD
    • OpenBSD

    Dia is a GTK+ based diagram creation program for Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and Windows released under the GPL license.

    Dia vs Microsoft Office Visio opinions
    Most users think Dia is a great alternative to Microsoft Office Visio.

    Clumpsy Handling, old fashion style look

    Negative comment • almost 6 years ago
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    8

    Dia has no cross platform copy paste capability.

    Negative comment • over 5 years ago
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    -4

  4. Draw lets you produce anything from a quick sketch to a complex plan, and gives you the means to communicate with graphics and diagrams. With a maximum page size of 300cm by 300cm, Draw is a an excellent package for producing technical drawings, general posters, and much else.

    LibreOffice - Draw vs Microsoft Office Visio opinions
    Most users think LibreOffice - Draw is a great alternative to Microsoft Office Visio.

    Can draw flowcharts and diagrams with almost all the features of Visio. You can drag a box, press F2, and start typing, for example.

    Top positive comment  almost 5 years ago
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    4

    It's free and open source, while Visio is proprietary and expensive.

    Top positive comment  over 4 years ago
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    4
    Raf10

    It's free/libre software, with layers, etc.

    Positive comment • over 1 year ago
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    0

    It is hard to tell you that when I haven't started using it yet, but it appears to have the functionality I require without the expensive price, for sure.

    Positive comment • almost 4 years ago
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    0

    Draw is very similar to Visio. It's basically the free and open source version of it. You can create flowcharts with it like you can in Visio, and other things you can't do with Visio. Although Visio is more focused at creating flowcharts & diagrams and does very well at it, it's extremely expensive while Draw is free and open source.

    Positive comment • almost 4 years ago
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    0

  5. Pencil is a standalone app that lets you create diagrams or UI mockups. It doesn't have collaboration/multi-user features.

    Discontinued

    The last release/commit was in October 2019.

    Pencil Project vs Microsoft Office Visio opinions
    Most users think Pencil Project is a great alternative to Microsoft Office Visio.

    Used to make sketchups for a mobile GUI.

    Top positive comment  over 5 years ago
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    1
    guss77

    Good for UI mockups, not for UML

    Top positive comment  about 6 years ago
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    -1

    Does not map network layout easily enough, which is what Visio was designed to do from the start

    Top negative comment  about 5 years ago
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    4

    Great for UI mockups and planning.

    Negative comment • about 3 years ago
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    0

    Visio is a native application while Pencil is a webpage disguised as an application, with the usual drawbacks, like poor performance and OS integration, etc...

    Negative comment • almost 5 years ago
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    -5

    Cannot use for Networking

    Negative comment • about 5 years ago
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    0

  6. PlantUML

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    • Free • Open Source
    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • Android
    • Chrome OS

    PlantUML is an open-source tool that uses simple textual descriptions to draw UML diagrams. The generator can be run anywhere within JVM and integrated with various application such as wiki, text editor, IDE, programming language, documentation generator, and others.

    Almost everyone thinks PlantUML is a great alternative to Microsoft Office Visio.

  8. Penpot

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    • Free • Open Source
    • Online
    • Self-Hosted

    Penpot is the first Open Source design and prototyping platform meant for cross-domain teams. Non dependent on operating systems, Penpot is web based and works with open web standards (SVG). For all and empowered by the community.

  9. Apache OpenOffice Draw

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    • Free • Open Source
    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux

    Draw, part of the Apache OpenOffice suite, is a graphics editor that gives you the tools to communicate with visuals and diagrams. With a maximum page size of 300cm by 300cm, Draw is powerful tool for posters, graphs, charts, and more.

    Most users think Apache OpenOffice Draw is a great alternative to Microsoft Office Visio.

  10. ThinkComposer

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    • Free • Open Source
    • Windows

    Create deep visual documents, adaptable and multi-level diagrams, flowcharts, concept maps, mind maps and models.

  11. Graphviz

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    • Free • Open Source
    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online

    Graphviz is open source graph visualization software. Graph visualization is a way of representing structural information as diagrams of abstract graphs and networks.

  12. Wireflow

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    • Free • Open Source
    • Online
    • Self-Hosted

    Wireflow is free, online, real-time collaborative, open source tool for creating beautiful user flow prototypes.

Showing 10 of 19 alternatives