Gliffy is an online diagramming tool with collaboration features from the San Francisco company of the same name, offering standalone versions of Gliffy and integrated versions for Jira and Confluence.
$6
per month
Whimsical
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Whimsical is a visual workspace application from the company of the same name in Denver, allowing users to create collaborative wireframes, mindmaps, flowcharts, and sticky notes.
$12
per month per editor
Pricing
Gliffy
Whimsical
Editions & Modules
Professional
$6
per month
Pro
$12
per month per editor
Business
$18
per month per editor
Enterprise
$240
per year per editor
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Gliffy
Whimsical
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
For Enterprise pricing, please reach out.
17% discount for annual billing on Pro and Business plans.
Gliffy is user-friendly, with a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to create clear and visually appealing diagrams without steep learning curves. It’s perfect for creating straightforward, quick wireframes. Gliffy lacks features for detailed UI/UX wireframing and prototyping compared to specialized tools like Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD.
It's extremely well-suited for rapid wire-framing of concepts, as product teams can quickly collaborate on any idea and create a visual blueprint of it. Whimsical could provide more intuitive feature prioritization templates. The current templates lack the necessary detail and could be further enhanced from a UI/UX standpoint.
First it's important to point out that Gliffy has priced itself incredibly well for small to medium sized businesses. Most other similar solutions are so expensive that organizations will avoid getting workflow software overall. Gliffy can take pride in knowing they're helping small business operate better.
Gliffy is incredibly easy to use for a first time user. I rarely have to train someone on how to use it. It's a lot of fun to see people get excited about systems and processes when using Gliffy. If you need to get up and running quickly I can't think of a better solution for workflow visualization.
I also like using Gliffy for mindmapping. I'm sure some mindmapping experts can tell me how I'm doing that incorrectly, but it just works for me. This points to the ease with which Gliffy allows you to get your thoughts down quickly and easily.
I have had some trouble saving complex diagrams and viewing them on the fly. On a handful of occasions, diagrams are unable to save, which means I either need to try to "save as" a separate diagram, or I am perpetually stuck trying to "load" recent changes. Overall, this means I always have a slight lingering fear that my diagrams aren't fully saved or recoverable. Support has been pretty responsive helping me to reload corrupted diagrams.
Adding Text, Notes, and Images can be a challenge. While laying out objects with simple text is a strength, adding formatted text and commentary can be a challenge. I often find my objects ghost-moving all over the screen and lost. I'd love a drag-and-drop way to load images in to diagrams. The process is a bit cumbersome with the file upload wizard.
Template environments - I struggled a bit to try to create a default starting point for my diagrams. I've tried to load common libraries and ignore others, those settings are often ignore upon reload. I'd love to use the same 10 objects and ignore the rest, I am not able (yet) to create this scenario, though there may be more to learn.
Searching, Indexing, Retrieving my diagrams. As part of an enterprise plan, I find there are too many clicks required to a) find/search for my diagrams and b) save diagrams into my Gliffy folder. In our implementation I can see all folders for all of my colleagues, and need to drill down a bit before I get to my folder, where I can actually search my documents in a list. I'd prefer a more intuitive way to land on my diagrams and to organize them (e.g., by customer) so that I can access them more quickly.
Because of its great versatility and ease of use. From diagramming to roadmpas and even user interface wireframes. Once a draft or first version is done we like to use the Confluence integration so we can collaborate and have one single source of truth
I based my assessment on aggregated user feedback and reviews from platforms like G2 and Software Advice. Many users highlight the simplicity and versatility of Gliffy’s interface, which makes it accessible for both beginners and professionals. Features like drag-and-drop functionality, a variety of templates, and integration options (e.g., Atlassian tools) contribute to its high rating.However, it doesn’t score a perfect 10 because some users report performance issues with complex diagrams, limited advanced features compared to competitors, and occasional difficulties with collaboration features. Balancing these strengths and weaknesses lands Gliffy in the 8-9 range for usability
It's fairly intuitive, I rarely have any problems using the app. The layout is pretty user-friendly and easy to adapt to. There's a lot of tooltips to help with the various features and functions, so it's very easy to get self-help for the most part. Overally, I'm pretty happy and satisfied with the usage of Whimsical for mind-mapping.
I reached out to support, as I was interested in possibly investing in the organization, and they quickly and happily informed me they are a bootstrap organization and do not take on investors at this time. The swift response and information readily available for my consumption was extremely helpful and shows how solid the team behind it is.
Gliffy is easier to use together with Confluence since it provides an integration where you can edit an image directly on the page. Visio and PowerPoint is better drawing tools but we have moved away from them since there isn’t a good way to keep track of the original file of the vector/bitmap included in the Confluence page.
Whimsical is so much easier and has a better interface, so I think it's more suited to our workflow if compared to other tools like Google Charts. I really love this tool and I'm looking to learn and use it even more, as it helps us optimize our time, planning, and delivering more efficiently.
Gliffy had a positive ROI on our initial efforts in getting team members to map out their workflows, provide them in confluence through its integration and get them distributed to our organization. The ease of use was a huge success for adoption.
Gliffy did seem to have unfriendly costs. Even as a customer for years that signs year-long contracts the price needle did not move much. Enterprise-wide software is expected to have discounts at a bulk buy within the industry.
Gliffy for the first time provided a tool for us to put our thoughts in a shareable format. It paved the way for increased organization and getting to buy into pre-existing processes.
