Axure RP is a software prototyping tool used by UX designers, from Axure Software Solutions in San Diego.
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draw.io
Score 7.8 out of 10
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draw.io is an online diagramming tool with integrations with Jira, Google, and Confluence available free online or at cost depending on integration chosen.
Still the best IMHO for dynamic prototyping. Sometimes you need to wireframe novel on-page widgets, such as draggable search areas (in the context of map-based search), or interactive annotations on diagrams. And sometimes real data values are necessary for test participants to give good feedback. However, this is something of a niche scenario. The majority of uxers prefer xd or Figma and find that static prototypes (screen1->click->screen2) is sufficient.
draw.io can be more suitable for technical documentation for architectures, flow diagrams/charts, and conceptual images of an application infrastructure. However, this tool is not made for business intelligence work nor for dashboarding to monitor the technical components. From the administrative standpoint, this is not well suited for agile ceremony structures like retrospective boards or planning or even quarterly planning boards. The strength of draw.io lies strongly in being a lightweight diagramming tool.
Adaptive views enable us to create truly responsive designs, even when they are very complex.
The platform’s many available templates and ability to create a library of reusable designs enables us to prototype faster and more efficiently than creating every single design from the ground up.
The company provides a lot of support options, from training videos to online forums. This is a pretty complex tool, so knowing that we can always look up or ask a question and get a quick answer has helped us immensely.
Axure’s comprehensive suite of tools to portray interactivity in prototypes has truly helped us show stakeholders and clients what an end product will look like, which has really helped us gain necessary internal and external buy-in.
Draw.io offers a lot of shapes and customizability of how the diagrams are laid out. We've been able to create a lot of different things with it, and have barely scratched the surface of the sorts of things that we could do.
Draw.io is fairly intuitive in the way that you draw shapes and connect shapes together, I was able to figure it out without a tutorial.
Draw.io is fast and performant for me compared with some of the alternatives.
Axure feels like a tool that started with a simple interface that wasn't redesigned over time. Simple tasks sometimes require clicking through multiple layers. Crucial pieces of functionality are hidden under text links, or just flatly aren't discoverable. Much of the quirks of the interface only come from having screwed up numerous times, and knowing that certain things are just difficult to accomplish.
The UI is intuitive. It allows a new user to start diagramming almost instantly. Manipulating elements, linking them together, etc. are all easy to do. Draw.io nevertheless a broad variety of diagram templates to help get started and also of shapes to use in diagrams. Some situations can make it a bit tricky to use, such as when having multiple shapes on top of each other (e.g. shapes placed within swimlanes) but that's a minor issue.
I've never used the support for Axure but they do have an online community that can be helpful when you're unsure how to accomplish a specific bit of interactivity. Overall the community for Axure is a great benefit for the software. There are also a lot of shared library assets which can help reduce the time you spend on projects.
The support for draw.io is pretty decent, considering it is a free website. I had a question one time when I was trying to do something, so I sent an email to their support email and got a response fairly quickly with an answer to my question. They also have some excellent support tools on their support website for helping you get more familiar with their program, and I found that very helpful.
I think that the online training videos cover all product features and are a great resource to point people to. The newsletter is also frequent and passes on a range of tips and techniques for users that are eager to learn more, or just want to keep themselves up to date
Since Axure RP is a desktop software that can work without a cloud connection, it is easy to have approved within a highly restricted corporate environment for a low cost with a small team. iRise is a solution that requires greater amounts of management, best service a group of designers in a corporate environment. InVision is cloud-based and, although not impossible, would require a long-term agreement to be made between the corporate and InVision. These could take years. Origami is free and desktop based and has great control of the transitions and data - but is so granular that additional time commitments may have to be made to make a prototype of this fidelity
draw.io is open-source and free for many uses, which means minimal upfront cost and good value.It works in the browser, also has a desktop version (so you can use offline) which helps teams that may not always be online or want local backups. Useful when you want a diagram tool that “just works” without huge ecosystem lock-in.For organisations that value control, less vendor-dependency, this is a plus.
Axure allows for us to quickly get the entire sales team trained on a specific narrative and gives them a fool proof click path for them to use in the demo.
Axure is relatively inexpensive and allows for purchasing the software without having to pay a monthly subscription (although they do have that option).
The Sketch integration has allowed for a 10 fold increase in productivity by taking designs already created in another program and quickly adding them to Axure.
