Balsamiq is a wireframing tool that helps lean product teams turn early ideas into clear, actionable direction. The tool helps product managers, founders, and engineers worldwide share concepts, reduce rework, and build better products.
$12
per month (up to 2 projects)
Microsoft Visio
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft offers Visio, a diagramming tool for building flowcharts, diagrams (e.g. network diagrams), org charts and floor plans, available online as a subscription and also in enterprise level packages (e.g. Visio Professional).
$5
per month per user
Pricing
Balsamiq
Microsoft Visio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Visio Plan 1
$5.00
per month per user
Visio Plan 2
$15.00
per month per user
Visio Standard 2024
$309.99
one-time fee On-premises diagramming solution, licensed for one PC
Visio Professional 2024
$579.99
one-time fee On-premises diagramming solution, licensed for one PC
We think Balsamiq does a good job compared to Visio and we do go to Balsamiq first. We typically know after trying to put together the first wireframe if it will work well in Balsamiq. And we are familiar enough with both tools to get an idea. If it is not working right away in …
This is not exactly the same type of thing, but for some of our applications, Balsamiq is a viable option. We use Visio because it is more accepted in our organization. However, if someone joined the group, and had a good case for using Balsamiq, we potentially would …
Balsamiq is a great tool for quickly getting ideas into visual form. At first it seems like there are not that many UI assets, but this constraint actually adds to the speed. There are less things for you to fuss over, you can focus on getting your ideas down. This is a tool for lofi rough drawings not a tool for building beautiful prototypes for developers to code to. It is fantastic for ideation because you mostly just drag and drop components onto the canvas and move things around. It's great in a live workshop setting for that reason.
Visio is by far and away the best tool that I have used to do Value Stream Mapping sessions with the warehouse I support. It has all of the shapes needed built in to be able to represent all areas of the processes. I also like how you are able to make the drawing as big as needed and when printing it out of Visio you have the ability to use the necessary paper size. The biggest complaint that I have with the software if how it can be cumbersome for non-Visio users (that is, people without a license in the orgnaization) to interact with the Visio Map. We normally have to dedicate one Visio SME to be able to make the changes that Process SME's find since they do not have access to the software.
Mock ups are obviously only just mock ups (this is important as if users see mock-ups in HTML, for example, they tend to think the system is ready to use or not far off)
Has a good selection of standard shapes that mock real world fields / controls
Allows not for profit organisations use it for free
Microsoft Visio is excellent for organizing thought processes related to our more complex research.
The diagrams created with Microsoft Visio are ideal for graphically displaying the internal organization of work and research groups through flow diagrams.
Microsoft Visio is a great tool for managing our students' activities by creating flowcharts that help us graphically visualize the steps of their group work.
The sketch-like style can be off-putting to some stakeholders, and it’s not initially very clear that there is the option to turn this “off.” While I do think there is benefit to the default style, knowing from the start that this flexibility existed would have helped us be able to use this tool more often in the past and in different situations.
There are very limited collaborative functionalities. When it’s early in the design process, it’s often really helpful to have a number of people in the design to offer in-app feedback so the designer doesn’t have the burden of collecting feedback from many disparate sources in order to incorporate the feedback.
There are limited UI elements. As design evolves, there are more and more UI elements to consider, and many to stop using. Our Balsamiq wireframes would be a lot more effective in communicating design ideas to stakeholders if there was a wider range of UI elements to choose from.
When navigating through swim lanes, the user must be careful between switching from the point to the connection features as it can be difficult to remember which mode you’re in.
When drawing “decision points,” it can be difficult to type words like “yes” or “no” between the connection lines.
The exporting options aren’t ideal. They are hard to create in PDF format.
I'm not sure how else we would be able to complete our work without Balsamiq or another similar tool. All of my experience with Balsamiq has been positive and they continue to develop new features so that my job gets easier. I would be very surprised if we didn't renew Balsamiq
We use Microsoft Visio to keep our diagrams updated and to that end we will need the subscription to keep using the software. Otherwise we will be left with PDF versions of the diagrams.
Very intuitive and easy to understand. It only takes minutes to get the hang of it and get back to work. For new analysts (like, brand new, fresh out of school) it's not difficult and they need minimal to no hand-holding. The training content that is embedded is easy to find and use.
I have always struggled with some basics, such as connection points, object alignment, font consistency, arranging layers and their order (bring forward, send backward), and managing overlap. I usually need to create an initial rough draft and then do a separate cleanup pass to bring the diagram up to my quality standards. If I skip that step, the result generally does not look very good. And once a diagram becomes busy or the file gets large, Visio has been unstable for me in the past, including occasional crashes that caused non-recoverable edits.
Overall, I feel that Microsoft's support is weak. They are now such a behemoth that their model of putting documentation online for their users to sift through is totally outgrown. Given the amount of money you pay for these licenses, Microsoft should provide easy one-on-one support for their products via email or chat. The idea of paying their rates for support incidents is ridiculous. If you have an enormous amount of time on your hands, use their support websites and you will eventually find a solution most of the time.
Creating digital wireframes in Photoshop is a nightmare. Photoshop was not really designed for this purpose. It doesn't have good collaboration options and it doesn't allow pattern libraries, which are essential for consistency and efficiency. We use UXPin and Axure for some time, but found that these platforms were a bit bloated. Balsamiq is much simpler than any of these options. It's a perfect wireframing platform for non-designers or for designers that want to focus on content and element-placement prior to design
Even though it’s a more expensive solution, Vizio is built for the enterprise. Therefore, it integrates perfectly with our existing Microsoft stack, and quite frankly, because it’s such a more mature product, it provides exactly the functionality we need and expect.
The product works very well for showing product owners and developers design ideas for purposes of discussion, debate and refinement.
The products also works very well for specifying new designs for developers. This is best done in a series of screens that show various screen states and user interactions.
I also use the products to document bugs in software products and websites we have developed. This includes outlining and documenting bugs and changes to user interactions and refinements to the usability of completed interfaces and user experiences.
Reduces the amount of time I need to create process flow diagrams. In the past I would use Powerpoint or Word which required a lot more effort and time and never looked as good. Visio just takes that headache away.
Only negative is that I personally believe it should always have been part and parcel of the Office suite, thus giving more users the opportunity to use it rather than specifically having to justify its separate purchase within our organisation. Different now with Office 365 of course!
