SmartDraw is a diagramming and flow chart building tool from SmartDraw Software in San Diego, California.
$131.40
per year (for a single user on an individual plan)
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
OmniGraffle
SmartDraw
Microsoft Visio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Team
$119.40
per year per user (3 minimum)
Individual
$131.40
per year single user
Enterprise
Contact Sales
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
OmniGraffle is a solid Mac based Visio with much added functionality specific to wireframe designs. The libraries, although somewhat out of date, allow rapid designs with low fidelity, exactly what you want in wire frames. We use Sketch increasingly to handle the layout of the …
OmniGraffle has a standard and "Pro" version just like Microsoft Visio does. OmniGraffle works exclusively on Macs, while Visio can run on both Windows and OS X. I probably would be using Visio today if I did not have a Mac background. Even in my past job where I supported …
While these other tools are great for what they are, OmniGraffle’s solid focus on and support for diagramming makes it our tool of choice for communicating workflows and concept relationships, creating documentation, and creating other diagrams. Its libraries allow us to create …
Because we're primarily a Mac shop, Visio was a non-starter. (It's monstrously complex compared to OmniGraffle, which works against the quick-and-dirty just-enough-documentation ideal common on agile teams.) We've used draw.io on internal projects and when coordinating with …
Stands ahead of the competition; native compatibility and robustness of solution make it the tool of choice. OmniGraffle's price and level of functionality surpass the alternatives.
I have used draw.io & MS Visio. I noticed SmartDraw offer more templates than draw.io. Additionally, its more affordable and can access across platforms. In general, SmartDraw provides what we need.
Visio is kind of in a class by itself (or Microsoft wouldn't have purchased the company way back in the 2000s) There have been a couple of competitors, but they really don't have the same functionality as Visio. I picked the upper and lower limit competitors Samrtdraw and Auto…
SmartDraw was a program that I used at a prior company before we migrated to Visio. It was not nearly as intuitive to use, and even though it is advertised to be able to offer easy import and export to Visio, when I would export it to a Visio file format and share it with a …
Visio is easier to use however a smart draw is a wonderful tool with some unique libraries. Visio, however, is a little easier to license, install and manage.
Some comparable products I have used to complete similar tasks would be Microsoft Powerpoint and Adobe Illustrator. Although both of these are very great programs in their own right, I would say Microsoft Visio is still the best to use, specifically when wanting to create …
Being a seasoned Microsoft user, Visio is easy to learn and catch onto because it's similar to other MS apps that we're all so familiar with already. This makes it easy when you have to create highly complex and detailed work that would be a struggle on another platform.
Omnigraffle is great for documentation, mapping, flowcharting, and other technical diagramming scenarios. It's simple enough to bang out a quick illustration and powerful enough to build complex blueprints for complicated technical systems. If you need cross-platform compatibility, though, you're probably better off looking elsewhere. If you want complex integration with data sources (ala Visio's SQL Server integration for shape metadata), OmniGraffle also falls short — but those scenarios are few and far between in my experience.
I believe SmartDraw is a great tool for small- to mid-sized organizations for simplifying the production and management of org charts. We've also had the PMO experiment with the use of some of their flow charts as well. If an organization has an HCM with the capability of producing (good!) org charts, that is likely the best option... but many that I have used in my 30-year HR career don't. So there is definitely a need for SmartDraw in the market!
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.
OmniGraffle is fairly simple to use, but the one thing I think it does best is working with curved lines, particularly if you are using some of the available arc templates. Drop an arc onto your page, then tell it the dimensions it needs to be, and viola! Done. Manipulating the arcs is as simple as clicking and dragging offset points.
OmniGraffle has also done an excellent job in stirring up the creative minds of many people who create templates and tools to work with OmniGraffle (not that Microsoft hasn't done so either), and managed to get the bulk of those into well organized repositories.
What it all boils down to for me is: it just works. One doesn't need to have a computer science degree to work with it either. It is as simple or complex as you want it to be.
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.
I'd love to be able to keep more than one of the different tool tabs open at a time.
The stencils are amazing. Would be great if a whole lot more of the free ones came standard as opposed to having to download them from Graffletopia or other sites.
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.
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.
I rated 8 because its simple to use and easy to create network topologies quickly. I liked the drag and drop option which makes designing the network topology and flow chart easier. In general its does what it needs to.
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.
They are always very helpful, we get computers every two years and I have to call them to move the license from one computer to another and they do it with a smile in their voice!
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.
While these other tools are great for what they are, OmniGraffle’s solid focus on and support for diagramming makes it our tool of choice for communicating workflows and concept relationships, creating documentation, and creating other diagrams. Its libraries allow us to create designs quickly, and its ease of use enables us to use the tool widely across the company without much time or effort spent on onboarding.
We have used Corel Draw and Adobe Acrobat. Both of those tools were good when they came out but the abilities of SmartDraw far outweigh both those tools. Corel Draw was also more complex to operate and do tasks, as was Adobe Acrobat in which some basic tasks took additional steps to complete.
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.
Omnigraffle isn't an expensive software tool, so there isn't really any negative from the perspective of raw cost. Thinking in terms of time spent using it on a project - what you create in omnigraffle will inevitably lead to a dead end. It's useful only as documentation. There are other tools like Sketch that integrate into prototyping software and can create useable visual assets for applications in addition to being able to create wireframes.
SmartDraw has provided good return for our internal purposes. Using it to understand an organization's structure and inner workings has been valuable. On the client side, creating steps and businesses processes has also been a big plus. It has helped decrease confusing reporting structures and has provided a detailed map for individuals to understand where they fit within their organization.
Unfortunately, SmartDraw has been somewhat inefficient with some of the more complex projects on our plate and has really deterred certain employees from even wanting to use it.
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!
