Brief 14 Great Software to Draw Architect Diagrams

Larry Deng
3 min readApr 19, 2023

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draw.io

draw.io is a collaborative tool for drawing diagrams. It provides online tool and offline desktop application.

Key features:

  • Realtime collaboration;
  • Support both online and offline;
  • Store diagrams locally in the browser;
  • Store diagrams with Google Drive, OneDrive, GitHub, GitLab, Dropbox, Notion etc.
  • Many icon packs.

ProccessOn

ProccessOn is the best online tool for Chinese.

Excalidraw

Excalidraw is a collaborative virtual whiteboard tool. The Excalidraw+ is a paid option with more features.

Some features:

  • Rapid sketching with handwriting style;
  • beautiful libraries.

OmniGraffle

OmniGraffle is a macOS and iOS desktop application for diagramming and prototyping. It support Mac/iPad/iPhone.

Gliffy

Gliffy is best diagramming app for confluence. But it’s not free.

PlantUML

PlantUML is an open source tool and syntax that allows you to make sequence, use case, class, object, and other diagrams from code.

Mermaid

Like PlantUML, Mermaid follows the diagrams-as-code model. It is supported by GitHub and uses Markdown-style notation to create and modify diagrams. This makes diagramming with Mermaid very convenient if you’re developing software on GitHub.

Visio

LucidChart

LucidChart is the intelligent diagramming application that brings teams together to make better decisions and build the future.

It looks great but it’s not free.

Tldraw

Tldraw is also a collaborative online tool for sketching diagrams. It’s free and open source.

Miro

Miro is a collaborative whiteboarding tool with templating and team-based tooling to help facilitate workshops.

CloudSkew

CloudSkew is an online tool for drawing cloud architecture diagrams.

Price:

Whimsical

Whimsical is online tool for diagramming.

Pricing:

Zen Flowchart

Zen Flowchart is helping people to make flowchart.

Pricing:

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