yEd is a powerful diagram editor that can be used to quickly create diagrams manually or import external data for analysis and auto-magically arrange even large data sets by just pressing a button. You can use yEd to quickly create flow charts, BPMN and UML diagrams, organization charts, mind maps, and many other kinds of diagrams, graphs, and networks. Choose from a wide range of highly sophisticated layout algorithms to automatically arrange diagrams in no time. An intuitive and visually appealing user interface makes creating diagrams fun. Once a diagram has been created, it’s easy to save, print, or export it to popular formats like PDF, SWF, EMF, SVG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, or HTML image maps.
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• Positive comment • more than a year ago • 4 users agree • 0 replies
I came to this about 10 years ago, went away after a few uses, then came back to it having tried some other apps, and have been using it steadily for 5+ years. This is an excellent graphing tool. For quickly creating a simple diagram to explain something, or to produce an elaborate diagram for an evolving design, this is pretty good. I run it on Windows and Linux and there is no problem with moving between the OS. Stability is good as well. I'd definitely pay money for this app.
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• Review • more than a year ago • 4 users agree • 0 replies
Might work for you if you work in one of the officially sanctioned fields (UML, computer networks, etc), but if you need some flexibility to get it to work with diagrams from a different field, you quickly realize that everything appears to be hardcoded. The very first thing I needed was a triangle pointing to the right.
Impossible to obtain.
For my use case, that's a deal breaker.
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he
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• Negative comment • more than a year ago • 2 users agree • 3 replies
Maybe its focus more on Data Science or some other specific purpose.
It does a good Job when nodes are spread wide over the plane, in a organic layout and so on (just to show how big it is) But a terrible Job if you try to visualize a sorted and structurized network. The bigger the network, the more chaotic the graph, and almost impossible to structurize it with the given tools.
Just look at the forum!
Most answers to questions how most people use this software are like:
Yed can't do this Yed does not offer this. Thats not how this function works It can't... It doesn't The algorythm was planned for some other ...and so on
Even if the asked function would be more logical and useful
-Creating nodes specific data - just by importing from Excel NOT from inside the program -When custom nodes imported, ALL nodes have the SAME custom properties. Even the nodes from stock. Thats mostly not useful. -Import from Excel to EXISTING graph is NOT possible!!! Just to a new one and copying in the existing -Export Node Data - NOT possible
and more
Making general purpose Schemes and Diagrams is a pain with this software, therefore it comes nowhere near MS Visio If this SHOULD BE general purpose, the programmer followed and is still following the wrong concept, i think!
mll
Funny how different my view of yEd is. For me, yEd can do what I couldn't elsewhere, mainly its autoarrange algorithms. For a beautiful price on top of that.
Reply written 9 months ago
sebastianmuller
While there are certainly things yEd cannot do well and definitely there's also stuff that Visio does better, I would not use a forum to measure the usefulness of any software: People simply don't post questions about stuff that works! It's a forum where users are requesting help with their problems; not a review board. Of course all of the questions are about problems and just because there are a lot of questions in a forum doesn't meant that the software doesn't work for the majority of the users. Instead, it gives you an idea about how many people are using it and about the quality of support they get. Actually if you consider that this software is used by literally hundreds of thousands of users, given that there hardly is less than a dozen feature requests or questions which have more than 50 votes, I'd say that most users are actually quite happy with the software. Did you report your specific question/problem to the forum? Instead look at the reviews at this site, e.g. The big majority of the reviewers is quite happy with it.
Reply written 8 months ago
hellih
@sebastianmuller At first: Anyone whose requirements it meets should definitely use it!
You wrote:
"I would not use a forum to measure the usefulness of any software: People simply don't post questions about stuff that works! It's a forum where users are requesting help with their problems; not a review board."
What else would you use on a free software to decide if it is useful or not, while simultaneously testing it??? A look into the forum gives you a wide view on every kind of problem users are struggling with. Also, like most software, you have to test yourself how the features exactly work and what you can use them for. and what they can't do. In case of Yed, people do in fact post a lot of questions on features they expect to work differently as they really do, especially if their expectation would be more logical or the more common usecase.
"Of course all of the questions are about problems and just because there are a lot of questions in a forum doesn't meant that the software doesn't work for the majority of the users. Instead, it gives you an idea about how many people are using it and about the quality of support they get."
I don't know how this is meant, because I've never said that it wouldn't fit on anyone's usecase. I also did not criticize the support quality. In my opiniion the developer does his best to help people with their questions and problems.
"Did you report your specific question/problem to the forum?"
I did, and I wasn't alone with several problems.
"Actually if you consider that this software is used by literally hundreds of thousands of users, given that there hardly is less than a dozen feature requests or questions which have more than 50 votes, I'd say that most users are actually quite happy with the software." ..... "Instead look at the reviews at this site, e.g. The big majority of the reviewers is quite happy with it.
Again, I don' know what you're suggesting, or how this relates to my review. The good reviews brought me to test Yed, but I just didn't come to the same conclusion as other reviewers. This reads almost like you want to say my "average" review isn't justified because such a lot of people are happy with Yed, or you're accusing me wanting to hold someone off to use this software. Both would be ridiculous. What I wrote in my review, especially in the first few sentences, is related to my usecase(s), which usually contain complex networks/function diagrams of up to several hundreds nodes with varying properties and reflects only my experience.
Reply written 8 months ago
Show entire comment and 3 replies
yt
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• Positive comment • more than a year ago • 1 users agree • 0 replies
Like: Fantastic tool to get the job done! Simple no frills.
Down: The lines sometimes become angled. This causes the OCD part of me really nervous. I like my flowchart lines at right angles.
yEd Graph Editor was added to AlternativeTo by on May 7, 2010 and this page was last updated Nov 18, 2020. yEd Graph Editor is sometimes referred to as yEd.
I came to this about 10 years ago, went away after a few uses, then came back to it having tried some other apps, and have been using it steadily for 5+ years. This is an excellent graphing tool. For quickly creating a simple diagram to explain something, or to produce an elaborate diagram for an evolving design, this is pretty good. I run it on Windows and Linux and there is no problem with moving between the OS. Stability is good as well. I'd definitely pay money for this app.
Might work for you if you work in one of the officially sanctioned fields (UML, computer networks, etc), but if you need some flexibility to get it to work with diagrams from a different field, you quickly realize that everything appears to be hardcoded.
The very first thing I needed was a triangle pointing to the right.
Impossible to obtain.
For my use case, that's a deal breaker.
Maybe its focus more on Data Science or some other specific purpose.
It does a good Job when nodes are spread wide over the plane, in a organic layout and so on (just to show how big it is)
But a terrible Job if you try to visualize a sorted and structurized network. The bigger the network, the more chaotic the graph, and almost impossible to structurize it with the given tools.
Just look at the forum!
Most answers to questions how most people use this software are like:
Yed can't do this
Yed does not offer this.
Thats not how this function works
It can't...
It doesn't
The algorythm was planned for some other
...and so on
Even if the asked function would be more logical and useful
-Creating nodes specific data - just by importing from Excel NOT from inside the program
-When custom nodes imported, ALL nodes have the SAME custom properties. Even the nodes from stock. Thats mostly not useful.
-Import from Excel to EXISTING graph is NOT possible!!! Just to a new one and copying in the existing
-Export Node Data - NOT possible
and more
Making general purpose Schemes and Diagrams is a pain with this software, therefore it comes nowhere near MS Visio
If this SHOULD BE general purpose, the programmer followed and is still following the wrong concept, i think!
Funny how different my view of yEd is. For me, yEd can do what I couldn't elsewhere, mainly its autoarrange algorithms. For a beautiful price on top of that.
Reply written 9 months ago
While there are certainly things yEd cannot do well and definitely there's also stuff that Visio does better, I would not use a forum to measure the usefulness of any software: People simply don't post questions about stuff that works! It's a forum where users are requesting help with their problems; not a review board. Of course all of the questions are about problems and just because there are a lot of questions in a forum doesn't meant that the software doesn't work for the majority of the users. Instead, it gives you an idea about how many people are using it and about the quality of support they get. Actually if you consider that this software is used by literally hundreds of thousands of users, given that there hardly is less than a dozen feature requests or questions which have more than 50 votes, I'd say that most users are actually quite happy with the software. Did you report your specific question/problem to the forum?
Instead look at the reviews at this site, e.g. The big majority of the reviewers is quite happy with it.
Reply written 8 months ago
@sebastianmuller
At first:
Anyone whose requirements it meets should definitely use it!
You wrote:
"I would not use a forum to measure the usefulness of any software: People simply don't post questions about stuff that works! It's a forum where users are requesting help with their problems; not a review board."
Also, like most software, you have to test yourself how the features exactly work and what you can use them for. and what they can't do.
In case of Yed, people do in fact post a lot of questions on features they expect to work differently as they really do, especially if their expectation would be more logical or the more common usecase.
"Of course all of the questions are about problems and just because there are a lot of questions in a forum doesn't meant that the software doesn't work for the majority of the users. Instead, it gives you an idea about how many people are using it and about the quality of support they get."
"Did you report your specific question/problem to the forum?"
"Actually if you consider that this software is used by literally hundreds of thousands of users, given that there hardly is less than a dozen feature requests or questions which have more than 50 votes, I'd say that most users are actually quite happy with the software."
..... "Instead look at the reviews at this site, e.g. The big majority of the reviewers is quite happy with it.
This reads almost like you want to say my "average" review isn't justified because such a lot of people are happy with Yed, or you're accusing me wanting to hold someone off to use this software. Both would be ridiculous.
What I wrote in my review, especially in the first few sentences, is related to my usecase(s), which usually contain complex networks/function diagrams of up to several hundreds nodes with varying properties and reflects only my experience.
Reply written 8 months ago
Like: Fantastic tool to get the job done! Simple no frills.
Down: The lines sometimes become angled. This causes the OCD part of me really nervous. I like my flowchart lines at right angles.
Its major strength is fast zoom and pan of large diagrams. Simple operations are easy to do. Perfect for what you would otherwise do on a whiteboard.