Flowcharts may not be what one thinks of as good timing, but there's no denying that they're incredibly useful. In fact, we've previously described creative ways to use flowcharts to simplify your life and work, just in case you need ideas.
While there are great flowchart makers for Windows and other platforms, you can even create flowcharts in Excel How to Create a Flowchart in Excel How to Create a Flowchart in Excel If you subscribe to Office 365, you can create flowcharts flow in Microsoft Excel. Here's how to set up a flowchart environment and create flowcharts right out of the box. Read More This is because they do not require a specific hardware configuration or operating system to function; all you need is a web browser.
The services we will be looking at today are:
When it comes to these diagrams, Lucidchart is one of the best and most trusted flowchart makers available online.
The fast and fluid drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create and manage flowcharts. There are pre-made templates to choose from, or you can start with a new blank canvas. Even free accounts have access to basic shapes, arrows, and text boxes. That's enough to get you started.
Collaboration is also available for the free tier.. But there are some limitations. For example, a team user can collaborate with a free user, but the free user can only edit if he has 60 items or less and there are no paid tier items on him.
You can save Lucidchart documents in multiple formats. Lucidchart supports JPEG, PDF, PNG, SVG, and Visio (VDX) formats. There's even support for importing from Amazon Web Service (AWS), Visio (VSDX), Omnigraffle, and more. And if you need to finish a flowchart later, all your data will be stored in your cloud, so you'll just pick up where you left off.
Lucidchart has a free basic account level, as well as paid plans starting at $5.95 per month for Home, $8.95 for Pro, and $20 for Team. Paid options provide more features, like more storage, unlimited forms and documents, data binding, Microsoft Visio import, and more. If you stay with a free account, you get 25 MB of storage and up to five documents.
Lucidchart is a great option to consider if you're looking for an alternative flowchart maker to Visio Lucidchart is the Visio alternative you've been waiting for. Lucidchart is the Visio alternative you've been waiting for. You may not have heard of Lucidchart before, but I bet you've heard of Microsoft Visio. Read more . It is accessible from any device with a web browser, has a simplified and intuitive design, and is affordable.
Try our top-ranked service:Lucidchart
daw.io suits everyone who is looking for a completely free flowchart solution.
There is no account to register with draw.io. All you need to do to get started is choose your storage space, which will be remembered for later. Options include Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and local storage. If you need collaboration with others, Google Drive is the best option as draw.io takes advantage of the collaboration features of Google Drive.
Once you choose the storage space option, you can create a new flowchart from scratch or use a template from the ones provided. There are only five flowchart templates to choose from (whereas Lucidchart has over 10 templates). There are other non-flowchart templates if you need them.
If draw.io has the kind of flowchart you need, then go for it. You can add shapes, arrows and other objects from the side menu just by releasing it. It's all pretty straightforward with draw.io, although it's not as intuitive or straightforward as Lucidchart.
draw.io supports file import, and can import from JPEG, PNG, SVG, Gliffy, Lucidchart, and VSDX. Diagrams you create with draw.io are saved or exported as HTML, JPEG, PDF, PNG, SVG, and XML.
Unlike many of the other options, draw.io is completely free, with no option for paid accounts. It has a somewhat limited feature set and isn't as good as some other tools, but you can't beat the price for free.
If real-time collaboration is a requirement for your online flowchart maker, then Cacoo has the rest beaten.
Like Lucidchart, Cacoo comes with a super streamlined and fluid interface that's easy on the eyes. Cacoo comes with a multitude of templates for your project, be it flowcharts, wireframes, Venn diagrams, and a wide variety of other diagrams. For flowcharts, Cacoo has a wide range of shapes to choose from, no matter the type of project. And it's all done by a simple drag and drop.
The best feature of Cacoo is real-time collaboration.. Multiple people on your team can work on the flowchart at the same time. Plus, there's a chat feature so you can view and comment on changes as they happen. And since things can get a bit complicated with multiple people working on a document at the same time, Cacoo provides note fields so you can keep track of who's involved.
Cacoo seems to have been designed with teams in mind, which is clearly seen in the project folders and security settings for members. Cacoo is still great for individual users, as you get 1000 sheet storage, unlimited sharing, SVG import and export, and more.
The price for Cacoo is quite reasonable. Individual users can get a plan starting at $4.95 per month, and then there's the Team tier starting at $18 per month for three users (and going up from there). The Enterprise tier lets you install Cacoo on your own private server, and that starts at $600 a year for 10 users. All account levels come with a 14-day free trial .
For times when you just need a simple, lightweight tool for the job, consider Gliffy.
Compared to the other services, Gliffy is a bit more barebones. It's a good choice when you need to flowchart an idea quickly and easily.
You can create any flowchart with a few clicks. There are basic templates available that make it even easier to get to your final product. However, when you start to go down and fine-tune your flowcharts, the editing process is not as smooth as others, such as Lucidchart. There are some quirks that can slow it down a bit, but it's nice to have snap grids and other alignment tools.
As an HTML5 cloud app, it can also work offline. And when you need to collaborate, Gliffy provides ways to share and even invite others to view, edit or leave comments, but collaboration isn't as powerful as other flowchart tools.
Gliffy offers plans starting at $7.99 per month for individual users, and a team plan for $4.99 per month, both billed annually. For business users, it includes everything in the team plan, but with even more security and features.
Another completely free option for your consideration is Wireflow. It is the perfect tool for web developers and application designers.
Wireflow is a beautiful flowchart tool for designing user flows and wireframes. A beautiful and intuitive interface offers a variety of different chart layouts, which you can drag and drop onto a new canvas. There are many connectors to choose from, and everything is manageable via drag and drop.
When you are done creating your diagram, you can export the final product as a JPG. This is the biggest drawback of Wireflow, since you can't choose a different format. Again, it's free to use with no options for paid plans, so that's to be expected. There's also a lot of scrolling involved since there are so many different types of graphs to cycle through.
If all you need is to create flowcharts to demonstrate the software's user flows, Wireflow does the job.
Need to create flowcharts but don't want to deal with tricky positioning of shape objects and arrows? Then Textographo is for you..
Textographo is a unique flowchart tool that uses text.. All the user needs to do is write their chart in a specific text syntax that uses hashtags, keywords, and some branding. Textographo takes this text and turns it into static and animated diagrams including flowcharts, mind maps, organization charts, decision trees, and much more.
Once you have plotted the text, Textographo automatically gets to work and organizes everything in diagram form. It's super easy, intuitive and streamlined. Users can also customize it by choosing a theme they like or changing the layout to something else that better suits their needs.
As Textographo saves all documents in its cloud, you can collaborate with your team by inviting them to view, send comments and share ideas.
There are two account levels for Textographo:Essentials and Premium. Essentials starts at $8 per month if billed annually, or $12 per month. The premium costs $14 per month per year, or $19 per month. Considering the distinctive and convenient system that Textographo uses, the cost is quite reasonable.
If you're already using a Google account, then there's a free option already available to you:Google Drawings.
To access Google Drawings, you will first need to access your Google Drive. Then just click Create new and choose Google Drawings under the More option.
Use the long shapes in Google drawings.. Add basic shapes, arrows, summons, and even equation symbols to your blank canvas. You can move everything around with a simple drag and drop, and you can resize and rotate as needed.
And since Google Drawings is through Google Drive, sharing and collaboration is not a problem. Just invite others by email and give them permission to view, edit or comment. You can export your flowchart as an image or SVG file, or you can even publish it to the web.
Google Drawings is free to use as it is through your Google account where you get 15GB of free storage across all Google apps. Storage space can be upgraded to 100GB, 1TB, or 10TB for $1.99, $9.99, or $99.99 per month, respectively.
Flowcharts are an incredibly powerful tool. They organize complex processes in a much simpler and easier to understand way, and complicated projects no longer seem so scary.
We've just looked at the best options for online-only flowchart services:some are completely free, and some offer only free trials of their premium plans. But like everything in life, you get what you pay for. That's why we prefer Lucidchart when making flowcharts online.
