10 Best Online Flowchart Software Of 2023

Lucidchart is an intelligent diagramming application with data visualization and collaboration features. It’s designed to support teams and businesses as they improve and visualize processes and systems.

Why I picked Lucidchart: It's very easy to build any type of flowchart, including process maps, data flowcharts, BPMN diagrams, entity relationship diagrams, swimlane flowcharts, cross-functional flowcharts, and hundreds more. Users can also import data to generate visuals automatically.

Several features, like comments, tasks, sharing, revision history, and embedding, make collaboration simpler and easier for remote and hybrid teams. Its intuitive and clear interface makes navigating Lucidchart really easy. Lucidchart has a diverse set of features and capabilities, so it includes “Feature Find,” which allows users to quickly search for any feature or tool they’re looking for.

Lucidchart Standout Features & Integrations

Features include external sharing options, comments, mentions, real-time collaboration, revision history, and data linking.

Integrations include everything from Slack, Google Workspace, Asana, Atlassian, and Office365, to more industry-specific applications like Salesforce, AWS, Azure, and BambooHR. Lucidchart has a free plan available for individual users.

Lucidchart has a free version where you can access 80+ templates and work on a maximum of 3 documents. Perfect for a test run!

Miro is a collaborative online whiteboard with over 1,000 templates including mind maps, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, product wireframes, research boards, and flowcharts. It’s trusted by 99% of the Fortune 100, and used by teams at TransUnion, HP, Upwork, Cisco, Qlik, and Atkins. Miro’s visual platform is built for hybrid work, and has robust resources for continuous learning like Miro Academy, online events, and a community forum.

On a Miro board, you can build out stunning flowcharts collaboratively with a vast shape and icon library. Bonus: You can do it with built-in communication features, from notes and comments to video and reactions. Miro’s flowchart templates are great for team brainstorms, meetings and 1:1s, and product UX and design.

At The Digital Project Manager, we use Miro to map out content clusters and to visualize content workflows from start (brainstorming ideas) to finish (publishing the content on our site).

Miro has integrations with a whole suite of tools, including Zoom, Figma, Asana, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Slack, Google Drive, Box, Airtable, Notion, Azure, and Webex. Some integrations are limited to paid plans only.

Miro is free to use for unlimited members with up to 3 editable boards. Paid plans start at $8/user/month (billed annually).

Creately is built to help you make flowcharts quickly and easily. To start with, they have an extensive library of templates ranging across industries and topics, including everything from UI/UX user flows to HR recruitment processes, so finding an example that fits your needs is pretty simple.

The interface itself is clean and aesthetically pleasing. The most commonly used shapes are arranged right where you need them and simple drag and drop functionality lets you create your flowchart structure. It also has a clever contextual toolbar that suggests relevant shapes as you draw, which really streamlines the process.

What sets Creately apart are its collaborative features. Some flowchart tools are meant to be used by individuals working by themselves, but Creately lets you collaborate in real-time in a few different ways. For instance, it has video conferencing built right into the canvas so you can discuss ideas with your teammates as you draw. You can leave comments and track changes in real-time with other users on the canvas. Additionally, you can export in PNG, SVG, and JPEG formats.

The only downside is that the free version of the software allows for only 3 collaborators, so you will need a paid version for larger teams.

All in all, it’s intuitive, user friendly, and a great diagramming tool for teams to come together to think through and visualize processes.

Creately has a free plan for up to 5 users and 3 documents. Paid plans costs from $4/user/month.

Whimsical is a flowchart software that lets you create flowcharts without the learning curve of a traditional design tool. Whimsical gives you the ability to create flowcharts and diagrams by connecting objects with a single click and a wide variety of keyboard shortcuts.

Whimsical is intentionally designed to allow you to move at the speed of thought and not have to waste time on styling or layouts. You don't have to download any additional apps or extensions to use Whimsical flowcharts, as everything is available within your browser.

Whimsical flowcharts can be integrated with other Whimsical files, giving you the ability to switch between mind maps, wireframes, projects, and docs.

Whimsical has a direct integration with Github and can be embedded in Notion docs. It also supports two-factor authentication with any authenticator app.

Whimsical costs from $10/user/month.

Pick between the desktop edition or the online edition, depending on your use case needs. They have quick-start diagram templates for over 70 different diagram types (and over 4,500 templates overall), intelligent automatic formatting, over 34,000 symbols, collaboration online or behind a firewall, draw and print architectural and engineering diagrams to scale, and more.

SmartDraw is a robust diagramming tool that speaks to all of my evaluation criteria for Features & Functionality, particularly the easy of drawing tools, many different templates to choose from, and ease of use so fair that even beginners can jump right in.

Any SmartDraw drawing can be inserted into Word, Excel, PowerPoint as well as Google Docs and Sheets. The app easily integrates with Microsoft, Google, Confluence, Jira, WordPress, Dropbox, Trello, and Box.

The app was a little finicky, some progress saving issues resulted in lost work and the software has a tendency to crash on top of that. I would recommend working in the cloud to instigate auto-saving in order to combat these issues.

Smartdraw starts from $5.95/user/month and has a free trial.

Edit, track changes, and collaborate on flowcharts that you design and update with easy sharing links and embed links designed to make collaboration simple and intuitive. Keep team assets organized with shared project folders, save work directly in Cacoo, monitor project status with activity notifications, and more.

Cacoo is quite easy to learn and navigate, grating it high scores in the evaluation criteria sections for usability and UX. It’s both nice to look at and intuitive to figure out, even for those who are not super tech-savvy. The wealth of available integrations makes it a cince to adapt into your regularly established workflow, too.

Integrations listed include Google Drive and Google Docs, Typetalk, AWS, Adobe Creative Cloud, Slack, Dropbox, Visio, and Box. They also offer a “suggestion box” for ideas of what app they should implement integration with in the future.

Screen space can be a minor challenge to navigate, like the clunky zoom-in function, for example. However, this is a minor critique given what else the software has to offer. A few more things you might want to watch out for include the inability to save to PDF formats and the shaky responsiveness of the software on some mobile devices.

Cacoo starts from $5/user/month and has a free 14-day trial.

Draw.io is a free, browser-hosted app for easy, intuitive chart building online. Because it’s online (though it can be used offline too), it’s simple to boot up and get started creating on a moment’s notice. Features include drag and drop functionality, a library of available shapes, plenty of templates, importing/exporting various formats, and more.

Obviously, being free to use, Draw.io ranks highly in our evaluation criteria for value for price. Although it may seem sot of features compared to its for-pay counterparts, Draw.io is great for small teams with smaller budgets or those who might only need flowcharting software on occasion.

Draw.io integrates with many popular apps like Google Drive, Google Docs, Dropbox, Chrome, Confluence Server/Cloud, JIRA Server/Cloud, Github, Gitlab,and OneDrive.

A few cons and critiques to note: The browser version requires Chrome to work; the app could use more shapes and templates to choose from; positioning the shapes could be a bit finicky and the “snap to place” was clumsy.

Draw.io is free to use online.

The sheer number of templates, icons and shapes make Edraw a stand-out competitor in our evaluation criteria for Features & Functionality. Graphic elements aplenty and a robust templates stockpile are one of the selling features of this tool.

Some more traditional app integrations would have been a nice touch, although Edraw’s communication with PowerPoint is of great value. Furthermore, some sort of eraser tool would go a long way to making Edraw feel complete.

Integrates with the likes of PowerPoint. They also have an unconventional integration offer where OEM partners can integrate Edraw technologies with their own procust and distribute that package to customers as a sublicence. You can also export your drawings to a variety of familiar file formats, such as Visio, PDF, Word, PPT, JPEG, Html, and more.

Edraw Max starts from $8.25/month and has a free 30-day trial.

With Visio flowcharts, multiple team members can work on diagrams at the same time. You can connect your flowcharts and diagrams to real-time data so that changes in underlying data is reflected through applied shape formatting. A web version of the software lets you work on your flowcharts anywhere, in any browser.

In the Usability and Features sections of our evaluation criteria, we stress one thing: Variety! A good flowchart app will let you pick through a library of useful diagrams and chart templates in order to cater to each unique use case. MS Visio does this well, offering charting options fitted to different needs.

MS Visio would benefit from a more seamless integration with apps like PowerPoint, Excel, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. Being able to easily import or drag-and-drop diagrams into common visual presentation tools would take this app to the next level.

Visio doesn’t have a ton of software integrations to tout but, of course, it connects with Microsoft OneDrive. Third-party integrations include: Lucidchart, The VIP Test Modeller, AxisTV, netTerrain Logical, and Digital Enterprise Suite.

Microsoft Visio starts from $6.40/user/month and has a free trial.

VP Online Diagrams lets you drag and click to build shapes and lines into a flowchart with an alignment guide to snap everything into place. A spreadsheet-like editor tracks and interprets your data into a visual representation and the smart dashboard lets you glean valuable insights from your work.

VP Online Diagrams finds its stride between the evaluation criteria for Features and f=Functionality and that of Usability. Tutorial videos and products will help you get started running and the free version means you can experiment before you commit. They have many different diagramming and planning tools, a variety that will work well for anyone managing different teams with different requirements.

Some of the visual elements of the diagrams and the app UI could look a little nicer. Diagrams and output docs could use a bit more polish, particularly in color settings. But overall, this is not a major drawback – just something to be considered for anyone with a draw to aesthetics.

Integrations mentioned include Eclipse, VisualStudioes, and Net Bean. You can output and share diagrams via formats like PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG and PDF.

VisualParadigm online starts from $4/month and has a free version.