MURAL (formerly Mural.ly) from Tactivos (DBA MURAL) in San Francisco is described by the vendor as a digital workspace and visual collaboration tool, designed for creative teams to make the process of design more efficient for distributed teams, working remotely.
$12
per month
Xmind
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Hong Kong based Xmind offers their diagramming tool featuring a range of templates, alternate brainstorming and presentation modes, a clip art library, and export to a wide variety of file types (e.g. PDF, JPG, Word or Excel, etc.).
Very similar to Miro I used Trello at the beginning of the pandemic but completely dropped it when I discover tools like Mural Survey Tools have more capabilities that are required sometimes but asking client to vote directly on the board in different ways serves me well most …
We used Miro as well and it was not as intuitive and easy to use as Mural is. Most take much longer to understand how to operate Miro , whereas this is not the case for Mural. It is very intuitive and offers a cleaner layout
I like it better than Miro because MURAL's more informal feel makes it encourage conversation and use. Miro also let's you bury too much information "inside" the notes making it really easy to lose sight of important data. I like MURAL better than LucidSpark because of how …
Mural has a User Interface that is easier to understand, which allows us to bring newcomers to brainstorm and design sessions without investing time in learning. Mural has more dinamic objects that impact on the presentation and visibility of the work, like having Post it notes …
MURAL has an extensive number of features and shapes and sticky notes to differentiate between the collaborators. The chat feature is amazing on MURAL itself for amazing discussions. Having a Scenario map, empathy map, Persona grid, Team, or opportunity canvas are some of the …
Mural has many more features PLUS it is so much easier to invite guests and get them engaged right away - 100% better experience overall. I felt like Mural had many more features and felt much more like the in-person experience vs. Jamboard. It is well worth the investment in …
I have tested a number of project management, workflow, and whiteboarding tools. All of them have their drawbacks. Some are too prescriptive and too process orientated, whilst others lack the simplicity of MURAL (formerly Mural.ly).
A couple of features I particularly appreciate are the content library (even though it should be improved) and the possibility to use multiple templates from different companies. Also the call feature looks interesting, even though I never used it so far. Overall, MURAL …
Mural was easier to use and share compared with Whiteboard. Whiteboard's functionality is limited. It is also integrated into Teams in an odd way that makes it difficult for team members to refer to old whiteboards. Mural as a stand alone web app is better.
I have had an experience of working with all the three above mentioned tools--Miro, InVision, and Lucidchart--and I can confidently say that MURAL (formerly Mural.ly) beats all these three tools when it comes to performing any kind of online collaboration activities, which …
As Xmind draws a specific focus on mindmaps its functionality is very clear and easy to use. Other mindmap systems make you connect the topics and arrows yourself which can be very frustrating and finnicky. Its presentation is very clear and displayed cleanly.
We used MindManager on Windows for many years and were happy with the product. However, at some point, MindJet dramatically raised the price which we grudgingly accepted. At some point, we switched to Macs and the MindManager on a Mac is a very different product. …
It has a different form. Trello is good for task management. Xmind will give an overall connection between different tasks and how all the tasks interconnect to each other. The reminder function in Trello is good to keep track. However, a bird's eye view in Xmind will put …
Remote Collaboration: In a remote or distributed work environment, Mural shines. It enables teams to collaborate effectively in real-time, bridging geographical gaps and facilitating virtual meetings, workshops, and brainstorming sessions. Workshop Facilitation: For facilitators leading workshops or team-building activities, Mural provides interactive templates and tools for engaging participants and achieving specific objectives.
Writing longer paragraphs in the note field is very limited.
Integration with GitHub.
Integration with Confluence.
XMind uses a proprietary document format which is not indexed by search programs on a PC or a Mac. This means that one cannot search in the content of the XMind documents.
Overall, MURAL is really easy to use, but there are a couple downsides. It's really easy to make areas of the board consistent because double clicking adds stickies that match those around the current one. It's really easy to connect the elements. And it's really easy to organize elements. Inconsistent controls, Panning, Line Connections, and latency are the only issues I had. My biggest issue is that the MURAL mouse buttons are very different from most similar software. This always causes me problems switching to a graphics software or 3D modelling software. Because MURAL uses the same button to pan and move elements, it's really easy to move things when panning around. The lines can also be a (sometimes huge) problem because thew will occasionally disappear or connect to things incorrectly. I think this is tied to latency issues which, in addition to causing phantom lines, can sometimes cause confusion to your team.
Commands and controls extremely easy to navigate and use. Ability to import mindmaps and collaborate also contribute to a very pleasant usability experience
The support around a bug in the tool which prevented the correct printing of diagrams. Support came back after a few days, and there was no workaround. Eventually, the bug was fixed in a future release. The company does not pay much attention to user forums. With better support and plugin mechanism for user contributions, the product would be more convincing.
I like it better than Miro because MURAL's more informal feel makes it encourage conversation and use. Miro also let's you bury too much information "inside" the notes making it really easy to lose sight of important data. I like MURAL better than Lucidspark because of how fast the pages load, especially links within the board. Any app is better than Microsoft whiteboard which is appalling unusable and feature incomplete.
As Xmind draws a specific focus on mindmaps its functionality is very clear and easy to use. Other mindmap systems make you connect the topics and arrows yourself which can be very frustrating and finnicky. Its presentation is very clear and displayed cleanly
