Visio alternatives for windows

Top 12 free microsoft visio alternatives 1. Unlike other similar software, it does not offer dedicated sections carrying elements to create a. What is microsoft visio good for? What puts this diagramming software at the forefront is a massive library of more than types of diagrams such as fishbone diagrams, flowcharts, uml diagrams, and floor plans. With visio, you can organize complex ideas visually. You can use this free microsoft visio alternative tool to create flowcharts, network diagrams, and uml diagrams.

Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Tags: alternative , free , visio , windows. Source : www. It has been around for a long time, and it has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

Despite being free, it has very advanced capabilities, so you can use it regardless of whether you are an individual, educator, businessperson, or anyone else who needs to create diagrams.

One of the reasons yEd is such a great Visio alternative is that it has a huge selection of icons, elements, clip art, shapes, and other objects you can quickly add to diagrams or flowcharts. Of course, you can also create and upload your own shapes and images. The drag and drop editor makes yEd incredibly easy to use. You can also import data from Excel and other sources to quickly turn that data into diagrams. There is a wide range of export format options available as well, including HTML, so you can easily export your diagrams for insertion into Microsoft documents, your own website, or other places.

It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The downside is that there is no online web editor, so you will need to download the software to your desktop to use it. There are dozens of shapes, arrows, call-outs, and more you can add to your drawing.

You can also add a text box and customize the text by changing the font, size, alignment, etc. You can drag and drop shapes or resize them, and you can do the same for text boxes. You can add text inside shapes, for example. It has the same general layout as Google Docs and includes similar editing options. You can also simply keep it in your online Google account. All of your drawings will automatically be saved to the cloud for you to access later, from any device, with your Google account.

You can make the document available offline as well. If you do that, you will be able to continue editing while offline, and changes made offline will be synced and saved once you get your internet connection back. Google Drawings is also perfect for collaboration. Like all Google documents, you have a multitude of sharing options. You can get a link to the document by clicking on the blue Share button in the top right corner of the screen.

You can then choose to let anyone with the link access the document, or only people you specifically add. Even if you let everyone with the link access the document, you can choose between three levels of access: viewer, editor, and commenter. In other words, you can let people who have the link view the document only, add comments, or edit it.

I will be honest and say that the interface feels a bit outdated. The latest versions work on Windows XP to Windows 8. Despite the somewhat outdated user interface, Dia works. It has a wide selection of shapes, icons, and arrows you can add to create diagrams and charts. Pencil Project is a free Visio alternative. Unlike Visio, it is open source, and it supports the creation of diagrams.

There is a wide selection of shapes and arrows available in Pencil Project. Each section carries elements to make a specific diagram. In this software, you can also import the Visio project VDX and edit it. Now, check out the main features of this Visio alternative. It is another great free open source Visio alternatives because it offers elements to create a wide range of diagrams.

ThinkComposer is yet another free open source Visio alternative for Windows. In this software, you can create coherent, multilevel, and detailed diagrams of various types just like Visio. Along with a diagram, you can also use it to create mind maps and concept maps. As soon as you select a domain, you can view the editing area along with elements to create the selected type of diagram. After that, you can drag and drop diagram elements to the main editing area and then arrange elements to make a diagram.

During the diagram designing process, you can select a color for each element block from the Styles section. It is an impressive open source Visio alternative in which you can create elaborative diagrams of various types. Dynamic Draw is the next free open source Visio alternative for Windows. It mainly a diagram maker software in which you can find many shapes and elements to create different types of diagrams.

Unlike other similar software, it does not offer dedicated sections carrying elements to create a specific type of diagram. For some, this gives it an edge over other programs, particularly because it supports web-only platforms like Chrome OS, a popular choice for some business users. You can also start with a blank diagram if you so wish. The user interface looks nearly identical to Google Drive as long as you select Drive as your storage utility , and remapping your flowchart or diagram with the built-in tools is super easy.

You can easily delete or add additional modules into your flowchart, and you can edit existing flowcharts with a couple of button clicks. Every box can be moved around on the graph-outlined page, and your arrows will automatically extend and shrink as you adjust your chart to match your needs. Plus, Draw. Overall, Draw. Lucidchart is another web-based alternative to Visio, in the spirit of Draw. Instead of operating with your favorite cloud storage client, Lucidchart features its own dedicated user interface, with a slick appearance that feels both professional and functional.

Students, teachers, IT professionals, even marketing and sales member—all of these categories are available as options within Lucidchart, making it easy to get acclimated to the app rather quickly.

Sharing Lucidchart documents with other users is easy, and you can control whether those users can edit or view the document. There are some limitations to being a free user with Lucidchart, including a limit of three active documents at once. You can delete documents as you finish and export your final projects, or simply wait a full month, where Lucidchart will add another document onto your account for free.

Overall, even with the limitations in place for free users, Lucidchart is an excellent web-based alternative for Visio users, though the paid options get pricey rather quickly when compared to a standard Office membership. OpenOffice has been a popular alternative to Microsoft Office since debuting in , first released by Sun Microsystems. Though the original OpenOffice.

And even though the platform has had difficulty attracting developers to the software, OpenOffice remains undoubtedly popular under Apache, averaging over , downloads per day.