Skip to main content
TrustRadius
Gliffy

Gliffy

Overview

What is Gliffy?

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.

Read more
Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Gliffy has proven to be a versatile tool with a wide range of use cases across different teams and departments. Users have found it …
Continue reading
Read all reviews
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing

Professional

$6

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://gliffy.com/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $6 per month
Return to navigation

Product Details

What is Gliffy?

Gliffy's diagramming applications enables users to communicate and collaborate at the speed of ideas. Whether Gliffy is being used in Confluence and Jira, or as a standalone diagramming tool, Gliffy Online, Gliffy is designed to provide an intuitive way to draw diagrams. Drag-and-drop for professional-looking flowcharts, UML diagrams, entity-relationship diagrams, in just a few clicks. Use a template to make a mind map or concept map while brainstorming. Embed an org chart in the tools a team already uses. Visualize cloud architecture or IT networks and add them to a team's documentation. For planning, project managing, or dreaming up, Gliffy can help bring it to life. The vendor states Gliffy is the most popular diagramming app in the Atlassian Ecosystem, with over 16 million users diagramming in Confluence alone. Gliffy is used by teams of all sizes and averages over 700 users per install as an enterprise diagramming solution. Gliffy is available for a trial via the Atlassian Marketplace or by signing up for a two-week free trial of Gliffy Online on gliffy.com.

Gliffy Video

This basic UML class diagram tutorial will teach you how to make a class diagram in UML using Gliffy. We’ll walk you through a basic example of a library system to show how classes and subclasses work together and how to capture all the details you want to build into the syste...
 Show More

Gliffy Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Gliffy starts at $6.

SmartDraw and Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite are common alternatives for Gliffy.

The most common users of Gliffy are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(16)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Gliffy has proven to be a versatile tool with a wide range of use cases across different teams and departments. Users have found it valuable for visualizing organization charts, adding colors and emphasis to aid in decision-making. The operations team has relied on Gliffy to quickly create workflows for various systems and processes. Meanwhile, the solutions engineering and best practices teams have used Gliffy extensively to model user interfaces, process, and data in order to understand customer challenges and brainstorm improvements. Gliffy diagrams have served as a useful reference post-call and in subsequent discussions. Development teams have also used Gliffy to create network architecture and software architecture diagrams for customer-facing and onboarding documents.

In addition, Gliffy has been praised for its ability to easily create diagrams and process flows that help others understand complex processes like the enhancement submission process. Users appreciate the convenience of being able to create diagrams without the need to open an account, providing flexibility in sharing their work. Gliffy has also been utilized as an add-on in Google Doc templates in G-Suite, offering a low-cost solution for flowcharts and similar applications.

Furthermore, Gliffy has been instrumental in enhancing collaboration and productivity within organizations. Teams of IT members have embedded workflows, diagrams, and work breakdown structures within company-wide Confluence pages using Gliffy. Users have found it helpful in ironing out multi-step processes and sketching out automated marketing workflows before building them. The integration with Confluence allows for easy editing and version management of architecture and design solutions.

Overall, Gliffy's versatility as a tool for user interface modeling, process modeling, data modeling, collaborative diagramming, and problem-solving through visual planning has made it an invaluable asset for many users across different departments within organizations. Its ease of use, customization options, and ability to seamlessly integrate with other tools contribute to its positive reputation among users as a reliable diagramming solution.

Affordable Pricing: Several users have praised Gliffy for its affordable pricing, making it accessible and cost-effective for small to medium-sized businesses.

Intuitive and User-friendly: Many reviewers have highlighted the intuitive nature of Gliffy, stating that they rarely had to provide extensive training on how to use the software. This ease of use has made working with Gliffy enjoyable and allowed users to quickly translate their thoughts into visual diagrams.

Drag-and-Drop Interface: The drag-and-drop interface in Gliffy has been mentioned by numerous users as a key feature that enables rapid idea generation. Users appreciate how this feature facilitates live model discussions and allows them to accurately represent processes, data architectures, and organizational priorities with speed and efficiency.

Integration: Some users have expressed the need for better integration capabilities in Gliffy, allowing for automatic updates of org charts. This has been mentioned by multiple reviewers as a valuable addition to the software.

Saving Complex Diagrams: Several reviewers have encountered difficulties when saving complex diagrams in Gliffy. They mention that on some occasions, diagrams are unable to save properly, leading to separate diagrams or problems with loading recent changes. This has created concerns about the full saving and recoverability of diagrams.

Collaboration Challenges: Multiple users have pointed out challenges when collaborating in Gliffy, particularly regarding different users using different icons or colors. The limited color customization options and bugs in viewing diagrams via web browsers like Google Chrome have impacted collaboration efforts according to these reviewers.

Users recommend Gliffy as a quick, easy, and versatile tool for creating diagrams. They suggest exploring GitHub for third-party shapes and customization ideas. Gliffy is considered a good value for the money and is recommended for creating various types of diagrams. The collaborative features, version control, and support for UML and BPMN process models are highly recommended by users. Overall, users suggest trying Gliffy as it is a popular tool for online diagrams.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-3 of 3)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Gliffy together with Confluence to be able to illustrate the architecture and design solutions integrated with textual documentation. Gliffy makes it possible to store and manage versions together with textual documentation. It solves the problem that when someone wants to change an illustration, they don’t have to find the original instead, they can edit it directly on the Confluence page.
  • Integration with Confluence.
  • Simple UML diagrams.
  • No need to install desktop software on each client.
  • It’s missing good auto layout functionality.
  • It would be good if it’s was easier to export a bitmap or vector image.
  • Resizing UML symbols make them look a bit strange, especially component object.
Gliffy is great if you have a need to show images directly on a Confluence page. It’s also good for people that just want to illustrate something that would be harder to draw with a strict modeling tool. Gliffy is less appropriate if your personnel are skilled modelers and appreciate the modeling functionality provided by a real modeling tool.
  • Integration with Confluence.
  • Affordable
  • Easy to learn.
  • Save time since we no longer have to spend time searching for original image files.
  • Easy to manage since there is no need to install software on each client.
  • More people are willing to spend time updating the documentation.
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.
March 14, 2019

Idea to Model - Fast

Peter Rifken | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Gliffy is a tool used across the organization in a variety of capacities, from modeling user interfaces to process and data modelling. There is heavy use in the solutions engineering and best practices teams as they work daily with customers to understand their current business challenges (process, data etc.) and brainstorm with them to improve future states. Gliffy is a tool most if not all of those teams use to visualize these discussions in real time. Gliffy diagrams also serve as a great reference post call and in subsequent discussions.
  • The drag & drop interface enables ideas to take shape very quickly. I can ease model discussions live as they are happening and our customers are often impressed with how fast we can accurately represent their processes, data architectures, and organizational priorities
  • Once diagrams are complete, it's fairly easy to share via export to JPG or creation of a share link. As I mentioned in the introduction, I will create share links for all of my diagrams and share them with customers and internal sales teams as an ongoing reference. I have also recently started using the comments to gather feedback from view-only roles on models created, which is nice
  • The pre-made templates provide a great starting point for visualizing common business discussions. I use 5-10 diagram objects frequently and having them pop up as "most used" makes creating fast. I'm also keen on making the diagram look good, so I'm thankful Gliffy has implemented a grid and alignment tools to make layout of objects straight forward.
  • 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.
Gliffy is suited well for:
  • Business Process Modeling (current states, desired future states), including swim lane diagrams or simple arrow-forward flows
  • Data architecture Modeling (lay out systems in a network, applications in a connected ecosystem)
  • Organizational Chart Building (who reports to whom)
Gliffy is less well suited for
  • Note taking - I still use it for note taking as I love laying visuals next to key points, though it's not great
  • Handling imported images - Again, I do it, though it's not a reliable process I repeat unless I need the image in there
  • Complex diagrams that push the physical boundaries of the work space, and especially when images are included
  • Hard to quantify actual $ROI (always is!), though qualitatively I've receive consistent feedback that live modeling with Gliffy is highly valuable for both our customers and internal team:
  • a) For customers, it's live feedback to demonstrate we are listening and an opportunity to comment / add feedback to ensure we are hitting on key points
  • b) For internal teams, it's a great reference to track key points on calls and ensure alignment going into the next call
  • This is particularly important when discussions stall for months. Having Gliffy as a visual has helped us to win business because of the speed with which we could return to "the arena" and keep the ball moving forward.
I was not involved with the Gliffy evaluation, though I've often went looking for similar solutions to see if some of the gaps I've identified were better addressed. I haven't evaluated alternatives deeply enough to consider a switch seriously.
Jesse Bickel, MS - PMP | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Gliffy is being used in our organization of about 200 by about 60 team members in IT. The main problem is addresses we embedding workflows, diagrams and work break down structures within company wide confluence pages. The organization needed a solution outside of Visio that was easy to use, required little training and was able to be editable within confluence in a single pane of operation.
  • Gliffy makes use of its templates and tutorials very very well. Out of the box, it is easy to use and does not require stopping your production workflow to get your staff up to speed. The support on their side and videos make this easy to use and produce buy-in from team members.
  • Gliffy's plug into confluence is very strong. It feels as if its part of the product itself and not even a plugin. The fact it does not pull the workflow down locally to edit it and keeping it within the page during editing really helps limit version issues.
  • Gliffy does need to improve its pricing model. I believe they were early to market with their product and offerings, however, with the increased competitors they are falling behind in keeping their prices competitive.
  • Gliffy does need to increase its export conversion migration tools. I can understand why they would not want to port items uses by their products to another product but we are in a world where products need to play nice with others in good faith. It can be done, but you do need to check over what you port either incoming or outgoing.
  • Would like to see Gliffy allow us to build templates and import them into the repository and have increased the ability to archive those, share and have owners.
Gliffy is well suited if you are in the market for a workflow or networking diagram software for your business. They have more tools than most competitors that I have seen, however, they do seem to have a slightly increased cost over its competitors.
  • 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.
Gliffy seems to have an advantage over most of the competition when it comes to functionality and accessible tools within the product. We selected them mainly because of their ability to embed into multiple different resources, most specifically Confluence. Its a balance between cost vs benefit and if you will use all of the tools within the product if it is worth the cost. We did end up leaving Gliffy for Draw.Io because of costs alone, not functionality.
Return to navigation