draw.io is an online diagramming tool with integrations with Jira, Google, and Confluence available free online or at cost depending on integration chosen.
$5
per month
Rhino
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Robert McNeel and Associates headquartered in Seattle offers Rhinoceros 3D (or Rhino 3D), a 3D modeling and design application. Rhino can create, edit, analyze, document, render, animate, and translate NURBS curves, surfaces and solids, subdivision geometry (SubD), point clouds, and polygon meshes.
It's very easy to collaborate on the same file with team members and create simple concepts and flowcharts that you can use in the development process. It is also very handy for creating graphs and tables for presentations. Since this is a web application, we can use it anywhere, anytime and on any device; which provides great flexibility and accessibility. It also offers the functionality to save your work as you develop it, which is very helpful.
One of the main highlights of Rhino is the built-in visual programming system "Grasshopper". It is widely used for parametric architectural design, by a variety of world-class architectural offices. It is also very popular within architectural schools and universities. Its usefulness has increased a lot by having add-ins, plug-ins, scripts, and integrations with Revit and ARCHICAD for BIM workflows.
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.
Parametric Modeling - Grasshopper allows for easy/rapid iterative process
White box renders display - looks great as a quick diagram export with no post-production required.
robust command prompts - rhino was originally made for industrial design and it flexes a lot of unique modeling commands that put it up there with SolidWorks
One element that was hard to use was converting pre-existing drawings and workflows from Gliffy to Draw.io once our company made the change. While we were able to complete the migration, when going back we noticed, oftentimes, some formatting and dependencies did not make it or were not compatible.
While the template repository is vast, it has a heavy focus on network style maps. It would be ideal for added diversity in the templates with a focus on workflows just as much.
While the integrations are strong, the cloud collaborative environment could still use some work. While you can save and edit in the cloud. Group editing and live dynamic sharing/editing similar to Microsoft office are still missing.
Draw.io could add some version control functionality for ease of rollback, auditing, & comparison.
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.
A majority of the support for Rhinoceros 3D does not come from the company itself, but from online forums and boards where other Rhinoceros 3D users outline their issues and solutions. The Rhinoceros 3D website does not offer much in-depth support and just outlines general how to's. At the same time, online forums allow for more specific issues to be addressed and solved by the Rhinoceros 3D community.
Draw.io is totally free and it has most of the features a commercial product like Visio would have, so I think it is a go-to. It has good integration with Google Drive and it can export to a variety of files. You are not constrained by some commercial proprietary file format. It can be used in a browser on any device or downloaded as a desktop app.
It's hard to compare Rhino to other modeling software as Rhino is in a niche of its own. No other software (to my knowledge) is as customizable/programmable and has such a large community and such a large amount of free, open-source addons. Rhino (and Grasshopper) can be intimidating at first but once you get familiar with it and grow your toolbox with your own scripts, so much time will be saved
