draw.io vs. Excalidraw+

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
draw.io
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
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
Excalidraw+
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
An online virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn diagrams, with features supporting visual collaboration. A basic version of Excalidraw can be used free, but team and collaboration features are offered in Excalidraw+.N/A
Pricing
draw.ioExcalidraw+
Editions & Modules
Up to 10 Users
$5
per month
Up to 20 Users
$11
per month
Up to 50 Users
$27.50
per month
Up to 75 Users
$41.25
per month
Up to 100 Users
$55
per month
Up to 200 Users
$95
per month
Up to 500 Users
$152.50
per month
Up to 750 Users
$190
per month
Up to 1,000 Users
$227.50
per month
Up to 2,000 Users
$377.50
per month
Up to 5,000 Users
$827.50
per month
Up to 10,000
1,577.50
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
draw.ioExcalidraw+
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
draw.ioExcalidraw+
Considered Both Products
draw.io
Chose draw.io
draw.io is actually free of cost, while Miro, Visio, and Whimsical are paid or come with paid premium versions. Miro does have excellent collaboration, while Visio and Whimsical are simply basic and normal. draw.io has very limited ways to collaborate. Templates are more …
Chose draw.io
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 …
Chose draw.io
Draw.io surpasses its competitors with its ease of use, the use of external libraries, export functions, layer management, and the possibility of using an online or desktop version.
Chose draw.io
Draw.io has better user interface compared to Visio. It has lot of features which aren't there is Visio.
Chose draw.io
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. …
Chose draw.io
Draw.io has the basic features that allows you to create great diagrams. It's main difference to MS Visio is that Draw.io is free and it doesn't require client installation.
On the other hand, MS Visio is a more complete tool with a lot of extra functions.
My advice is to try …
Chose draw.io
I used Visio on other occasions, and it worked fine, but it was also relatively expensive. I switched over to draw.io because it did all I needed to do but was free. I'm sure there are other programs like it, but draw.io was the first one that I came across, and I liked it, so …
Chose draw.io
draw.io blows all other options out of the water. With the price being free, the amount of icons/templates it has, etc. - it's better than anything else that is out there!
Chose draw.io
Both of them are pretty good on the same level, but draw.io felt more fluid to use than LucidChart. Lucid had a clunky interface for our taste, and Draw.io has a better user experience with respect to usability. It's a pretty compelling reason for us to switch to Draw.io from …
Chose draw.io
Draw.io is a free online diagram drawing application for workflow, BPM, org charts, UML, ER, network diagrams. No login or registration are required and features include the ability to save locally (including svg), a range of stencils, .vsdx, Lucidchart and Gliffy import and …
Chose draw.io
Our organization selected Draw.io over other products due to cost savings and its seamless integration with Confluence. Draw.io seems to be an industry leader if you want simple, effective and low organizational training in a product. This is quick to deploy, use, and get …
Chose draw.io
UXPin and Invision are great applications to use to prototype and create working designs for web development projects. However, they both require some payment from your end as well as design knowledge to validate the financial investment. Draw.io is easy to use, free and …
Chose draw.io
I found draw.io right when I was getting tired of using Visio. It has lots of freedom and flexibility.
Chose draw.io
I found the DRAW.IO to be more efficient and easy to use. It allows me to make quick edits and diagrams as my job requires. Competitor software is good too, however, for me, it was more complicated. Its a diagram, there is no need for it to be too complicated.
Chose draw.io
I find Draw.io to be a happy medium between the options available. It doesn't quite offer the flexibility and power of XMind or Visio, but it lives in the cloud and doesn't require software installations or similar hassles. The main contenders in my mind ended up being …
Chose draw.io
It is positioned very well against its competitors, but what really makes it better is that it is very fast and is available all the time, you only use a browser and good internet speed.
Chose draw.io
Similar to PowerPoint and Keynote only designed specifically for diagramming
Chose draw.io
Draw.io is a solid, no-additional-cost (included with G-Suite) substitute for Omnigraffle for our use case. The client can view and collaborate on documents produced with draw.io without us having to go through an export process, or the client having to own an additional piece …
Excalidraw+
Chose Excalidraw+
The whiteboards in Confluence are too neat and tidy. People feel implicitly responsible for making a nice and neat version of their idea to demonstrate to a team. However, with Excalidraw+ you can make a quick and dirty diagram to make it easy to get the general idea and then …
Chose Excalidraw+
Infinite canvas feature stands out in Excalidraw+, tools to create flowdiagrams, wireframes or simple mindmaps.
Also, while using Excalidraw+, it felt so natural to create diagrams or use it for those, whereas in other competitors we needed to have prior knowledge of the …
Chose Excalidraw+
It's ok.... It's nice to draw sketches and have full control of the drawings, but it's more work to create something you can share than the others, where there are some rules for the different elements and templates available to be used to accelerate your process of ideation at …
Chose Excalidraw+
It's cheaper than Miro, although it doesn't provide as much functionality.
It's less complex and easier to use than draw.io, although a bit more limited in terms of available options.
It offers a more solid user experience when compared to Confluence Whiteboard, although it lacks …
Best Alternatives
draw.ioExcalidraw+
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Medium-sized Companies
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Enterprises
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User Ratings
draw.ioExcalidraw+
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
draw.ioExcalidraw+
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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I use Excalidraw when I want to do some rough sketches of a user flow or a product experience. Or build simple diagrams I can share with my team and key stakeholders. It is where I often start my thinking because, unlike Miro, where you can use Post-its and boxes, this feels more like a drawing tool.
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Pros
  • The drag and drop of visuals make it easy and fast to create diagrams and flowcharts.
  • It is very convenient and simple to connect the visuals from one point to another from different sides of the visuals.
  • It offers so many different visual, flowcharts and network diagrams. We can explore a whole lot of templates in draw.io as per our requirement.
  • We can connect draw.io with Google Drive and save our work over there.
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  • Sketches
  • Diagrams
  • Fun displays of information.
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Cons
  • Some more icons which helps to create wireframes
  • Templates like browser window or mobile screens or more screen size windows
  • Visualize the flow or auto connect few blocks missing connections
  • Create document with the flow diagram selected or with a prompt with context of diagram created
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  • Board management, it's not always easy to navigate.
  • Limited tools.
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Usability
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.
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Excalidraw+ is very simple to use, navigate, and collaborate. You can quickly generate objects, text, lines, arrows, etc. to clearly explain an idea without spending too much time making it look pretty. It's great for initial ideation without getting bogged down in details. A quick user interface can be sketched in 30 seconds rather than spending time generating near-complete mockups that could be rejected
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Support Rating
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.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
draw.io is actually free of cost, while Miro, Visio, and Whimsical are paid or come with paid premium versions. Miro does have excellent collaboration, while Visio and Whimsical are simply basic and normal. draw.io has very limited ways to collaborate. Templates are more organized in other tools, but in draw.io they're hard to discover. One advantage draw.io has over these tools is the offline access support as well as the feature-rich UI.
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Infinite canvas feature stands out in Excalidraw+, tools to create flowdiagrams, wireframes or simple mindmaps. Also, while using Excalidraw+, it felt so natural to create diagrams or use it for those, whereas in other competitors we needed to have prior knowledge of the platform or have some setup required to be done before starting it.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Draw.io has given us a free place to create basic diagrams, and more options for upgrading in the future when we need more, so it saves a bit of money in that regard.
  • Draw.io allows us to share diagrams with our clients without the burden of making them install new software, thus increasing client happiness and making it more likely we'll get return business.
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  • For the price it's really worth for the tools it's providing and feature with Excalidraw+
  • This is good but we still had to buy competitors like miro at organization level to support multiple collaborations and users at large scale
  • Tools provided for the price are good but expected a little more set of tools to create mindmaps, wireframes
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ScreenShots