Brief 14 Great Software to Draw Architect Diagrams

draw.io

draw.io is a collaborative tool for drawing diagrams. It provides online tool and offline desktop application.

Key features:

Realtime collaboration;
Support both online and offline;
Store diagrams locally in the browser;
Store diagrams with Google Drive, OneDrive, GitHub, GitLab, Dropbox, Notion etc.
Many icon packs.

ProccessOn

ProccessOn is the best online tool for Chinese.

Excalidraw

Excalidraw is a collaborative virtual whiteboard tool. The Excalidraw+ is a paid option with more features.

Some features:

Rapid sketching with handwriting style;
beautiful libraries.

OmniGraffle

OmniGraffle is a macOS and iOS desktop application for diagramming and prototyping. It support Mac/iPad/iPhone.

Gliffy

Gliffy is best diagramming app for confluence. But it’s not free.

PlantUML

PlantUML is an open source tool and syntax that allows you to make sequence, use case, class, object, and other diagrams from code.

Mermaid

Like PlantUML, Mermaid follows the diagrams-as-code model. It is supported by GitHub and uses Markdown-style notation to create and modify diagrams. This makes diagramming with Mermaid very convenient if you’re developing software on GitHub.