Is Lucidchart Free

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There were several classes that I needed to use Lucidchart for to create charts and graphs of sorts. Rather than spending money on an expensive software, I was able to use Lucidchart for free and I really didn't need any of the paid features. Lucidchart is a visual workspace that combines diagramming, data visualization, and collaboration to accelerate understanding and drive innovation. Sign up for a free trial today. LucidChart Download Lucidchart is a web -based diagramming software which allows users to collaborate and work together in real time to create flowcharts, organisational charts, website wireframes, UML designs, mind.

$9.95

Pros
Smooth user experience. Easy to learn. Responsive. Plentiful object libraries and templates. Good collaboration tools for team plans. Works with many other apps and services.
Cons
No desktop app. Templates not as diverse as those of some other tools.
Bottom Line
Online diagramming app Lucidchart supports real-time collaborative editing, has well-stocked libraries of templates and objects, and offers many options for exporting and presenting your diagrams.

Here's the dilemma: You're not a designer, but you need to make professional diagrams for presentations, organizational charts for employees, and even emergency-exit plans for safety. That's where flowchart and diagramming software comes into play, and Lucidchart is one of the best. Lucidchart puts easy-to-use tools and a variety of templates at your fingertips. This service makes it incredibly easy to create and publish diagrams that look professional. It's fully functional as a browser-based app, which is more than can be said for Microsoft Visio at the moment (its web app is still in beta). SmartDraw is another excellent tool, but it costs a good deal more than Lucidchart. For its excellent value, Lucidchart shares PCMag's Editors' Choice for diagramming with SmartDraw, which offers more, but at higher prices.

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Pricing and Plans

Lucidchart offers a few tiers of service: free, Basic, Pro, and Team. The free account comes with limitations. You can only have five documents, and each document can have only 60 objects on it. There's a 25MB storage limit, no access to layers, and no access to any backup or restore features. Lucidchart's free account isn't bad, but if you're looking for a truly free diagramming tool, try Draw.io instead.

Lucidchart Basic costs $5.95 per month or $59.40 if you pay for a full year (which works out to $4.95 per month). It only supports a single user, so there are no collaboration features included. There is a 100MB storage limit, and the selection of shapes and documents is smaller than what's included at the higher tiers of service. It also lacks a few features, such as the ability to import Microsoft Visio files.

The Pro account costs $9.95 per month or $107.40 annually (which works out to $8.95 per month). Unlike Basic accounts, Pro gives users the ability to import and export Visio files, and they get additional features, too, such as revision history, extra shapes and templates (including wireframes, mind maps, and mockups), and Presentation mode. The Pro account also includes 1GB of storage. Lucidchart Pro is available for free to students and teachers. I tested Lucidchart using a Pro account.

Team accounts start at $24 per month, or $240 annually, and they support up to three users. Team accounts include everything that comes with Pro, plus team-management features and the ability to connect with some third-party services that aren't available in the lower tiers of service, such as Confluence, JIRA, Jive, Slack, HipChat, SAML, SCIM, and G Suite (formerly Google Apps). With team-management features, you can organize a group of people under one account for easier administration (setting up third-party connections for all users, for example), manage licenses, change email addresses associated with the accounts, and manage security (restricting sign-on options, password resets, and so forth).

Organizations that need enterprise-grade accounts have to contact the company for custom pricing.

Lucidchart's prices are on the high end compared to what other companies charge for diagramming software. Online diagramming tool Gliffy, for example, charges $47.40 annually for a single-user Standard account and $59.88 per user per year for its Business Team account. Creately charges less for a single user online account, at just $49 per year. Omnigraffle is in that range, too, at just $99.95, but it's only available as a Mac app.

Lucidchart and Gliffy are both online-only tools, though, whereas other apps have both a web app and a desktop app. SmartDraw, for example, offers a package that includes unlimited access to its web app plus a desktop product to install for $297. That's a one-time payment for lifetime access. If you pay for SmartDraw Cloud (a web-only subscription), the price is $179.40 annually, making it one of the most expensive options. The lifetime deal looks quite a bit better, if you're reasonably sure you can commit to the service for at least a couple years.

Microsoft Visio costs roughly the same to install locally ($299.99), although many people get Visio through a Microsoft business account of some kind. Prices for business accounts vary and are subscription-based. A Viso Pro subscription for Office 365, for example, costs $156 per year.

Getting Started

The signup process is simple and doesn't pester you for a credit card. You can provide an email address and create a password, or you can sign up using a Google or Yahoo account for authentication.

Starting a new document is a breeze, whether you use one of Lucidchart's templates or choose a blank canvas. For my first document, I picked one of the service's flowchart templates. There was already a selection of basic rectangles, squares, text boxes, and arrows on the page. To the left I quickly found more shapes I could use if I needed them.

Within a minute, I had figured out how to move shapes around, resize them, rotate them, duplicate them, group and ungroup them, and so forth. Lucidchart is fast and responsive, and figuring out how to use it comes naturally. The user experience feels much more natural than it does in Gliffy, which requires more clicking and switching tools.

Templates, Libraries, and File Types

It's the selection of templates and libraries of shape that makes a diagramming app valuable. To create flowcharts, floor plans, network infrastructure diagrams, and other complicated diagrams, a non-designer could waste hours just trying to get basic shapes to look right. Good diagramming software has a wide selection of templates and shapes for a multitude of uses. Lucidchart's selection is ample, especially at the Pro level.

Templates for Android and iOS apps mockups, organizational charts, wireframes, family trees, and a whole lot more really expand the possibilities of what you can do with Lucidchart. Within those templates are libraries with all kinds of shapes and objects, such as scroll bars, servers, and even plants for jazzing up floorplans. I spotted a few outdated templates, including a Twitter page from years ago, but on the whole the options are current, and the styling of the objects is contemporary.

While Lucidchart's selection is plentiful, SmartDraw's is bigger and more diverse. Comparing the two libraries, SmartDraw covers a lot of ground that Lucidchart misses entirely. In SmartDraw, you'll find templates for world maps, crime scenes, emergency evacuations, and even anatomy. Lucidchart isn't nearly so expansive.

Another important aspect of diagramming software is whether and how it helps you show your finished product. With Lucidchart, you can export to JPEG, PDF, PNG, PNG with transparent background, SVG, SVG with transparent background, and Visio (VDX) formats. Additionally, it supports the following file types for importing: Amazon Web Service (AWS) Architecture, Gliffy, Omnigraffle, and Visio. I had success uploading Gliffy files and Omnigraffle files, and had mixed success with Visio files. A few uploaded smoothly and quickly, and two gave me error messages that I could not resolve. Connecting to AWS to create diagrams from your AWS Architecture is a premium add-on, although you can test it out for free. Seeing as I don't have an AWS account or access keys, I did not test this particular functionality.

Lucidchart Pro has a handy tool that helps you turn a diagram into a presentation. It puts a small window on the screen, and whatever you frame into that window becomes a slide. Another way to share content is to embed it into, say, a company website or blog. The benefit of embedding the diagram directly, rather than exporting it first and importing it as an image, is that if you later update the diagram, the changes will automatically be visible wherever it's embedded.

Collaboration and Integration

Lucidchart includes the ability to collaborate with others at all account levels, although the limitations of the account still apply when collaborating. For example, if someone with a Team subscription invites a free account holder to collaborate on a diagram, the free user can only edit the file if it has fewer than 60 objects on it and if it doesn't include any objects that are limited to the paid accounts.

Many other diagramming apps also support collaboration, including Creately, SmartDraw, and Visio. The ability to collaborate in real time is quickly becoming a standard feature in diagramming apps, especially cloud-based ones.

When you invite another Lucidchart member to collaborate, you choose whether they can edit, edit and share, comment only, or view only. In Team and Enterprise accounts, administrators can add limits to the sharing permissions, such as allowing sharing only to other users within the organization.

Collaboration works much the same way as it does in Google Docs and other G Suite apps, such as Sheets and Slides. When more than one person has a file open, everyone can see who is in the document and the changes they make as they work. Collaborators have a chat box for live discussion of issues, as well as commenting tools for asynchronous communication.

Lucidchart also supports integration with several widely used apps and services. Lucidchart subscribers at any level can connect to Google Drive, Google Single Sign-On, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Word. As mentioned, integrating with certain services, such as JIRA, is restricted to Team and Enterprise accounts.

Here's an example of how one of these premium integrations could be used. Let's say you connect Lucidchart and Slack. You can quickly create a new diagram from a Slack conversation or share an existing one, and everyone in the channel with the link can view and edit it together. Lucidchart is working on the ability for Slack to notify you of changes to diagrams or comments on them.

Easy to Use

Fluid and easy to learn, with well-stocked libraries of templates and objects, Lucidchart is an excellent choice for diagramming software. It also offers good support for collaboration among team members. A simple, straightforward, and attractive interface keeps Lucidchart accessible to every non-designer who needs to create diagrams. It's reasonably priced, considering the high cost of some of the other products that rival its quality. For its excellent value, Lucidchart is an Editors' Choice for diagramming software. SmartDraw shares the award, offering even more functionality at a correspondingly higher price.

Lucidchart

Bottom Line: Online diagramming app Lucidchart supports real-time collaborative editing, has well-stocked libraries of templates and objects, and offers many options for exporting and presenting your diagrams.

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When it comes to right diagramming tools, Lucidchart is perhaps one of the best tools out there. With a plethora of tools and templates, it makes the process of making diagrams a rather simple affair. Plus, the fact that you can import Visio files is the cherry on top.

Yes, Lucidchart is amazing, and I have used this diagramming tool for the longest time. However, the restriction of four diagrams in the free plan can be disappointing at times. Naturally, that led me to search for some free Lucidchart alternative. While the search itself was not that easy, we have managed to land some very cool diagramming tools.

Let’s check them out!

Lucidchart Free Limitations

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1. Draw.io

Let’s kick things off with Draw.io. This diagramming tool is slowly climbing up the popularity ladder, all thanks to its toolset and simple approach. Similar to Lucidchart, you’ll find a host of templates inside.

Be it the requirement for a fun project or a simple mind map, Draw.io doesn’t disappoint. Plus, the toolset is not so bad. Of course, it lacks the contextual touch of Lucidchart, but it sure gets the job done.

Adding a new object to a drawing is as simple as drag and drop. Or, if you’re drawing on a blank canvas, you can click on the objects. Also, if you want to clone a particular shape, all you need to do is click on the little arrow icons. Not only will the shape be added, but it will also be connected to the parent shape.

Depending on the type of template that you choose, Draw.io gives you a collection of shapes on your left. However, you are free to search for other shapes as well through the search box at the top.

You can import your drawings from shared platforms like Google Drive, Dropbox, Trello, among others. Plus, it also supports importing Gliffy, .vsd, and .vsdx formats.

Last but not least, you can opt to save your drawings in Google Drive, Dropbox, or your PC, thus making them available to you anywhere.

Visit draw.io

2. Creately

Creately loves keeping clean and simple. As soon as you sign-in to this web app, it will welcome you with a clean and clutter-free design.

The best part about it is that it doesn’t push every shape under the sky on your face. Instead, it lets you decide on the type of diagrams you'd like to have on your canvas.

Once inside, you simply need to add a shape, and the contextual toolbar will take care of the rest. Simply click on the little Plus-icon beside the shape, and you can easily pick the next item to which you want to connect. And naturally, with such nifty tools around, the process of making a diagram becomes faster and quicker.

The free plan of Creately also supports collaboration. You can collaborate with up to 3 people. However, you won’t be able to import Visio files. On the upside, you can easily export your drawings as PNG, SVG, and JPEG images.

The personal plan starts at $5 per month and goes up to $125 for team plans.

Visit Creately

3. Pidoco

Another web-based app that lets you draw diagrams, flowcharts, mockups, and wireframes is Pidoco. This drawing tool has a ton of shapes and elements for you to explore. And the good thing is that you can categorize your drawing pages into projects. When you sign up for Pidoco, you are asked to choose the dimensions of your canvas.

While the shape library is quite diverse, the interface isn’t that intuitive. You’d have to search for icons and shapes for your projects. On the upside, you’ll also find the related shapes in the panel. Once you have the shapes on the panel, you can drag and drop them on the canvas.

When it to downloading the drawings, Pidoco lets you save in the SVG, RTF, PDF, PNG, and HTML formats. Additionally, you can also copy the link and share with it your colleagues. On the downside, it doesn’t support Visio import and export.

Pidoco’s free plan lets you work on a single active project, which can be accessed on 20 screens. Plus, you can have unlimited editors and reviewers to audit your projects. The only issue is that Pidoco attaches a watermark on the images.

Visit Pidoco

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4. XMind

Another alternative to Lucidchart is XMind. Unlike the ones above, this is not a cloud-based tool. Instead, you’ll have to download the tool.

This one can be used to create mind maps. And the good thing is that there are ample templates on top of which you can draw your diagrams.

Apart from mind-maps, you can also use it to create simple-to-understand flowcharts and timelines.

Download XMind

5. Mindmeister

If your diagram involves more of planning and organization, then you should give the Mindmeister tool a try. This cool tool has an intuitive interface which makes drawing mind maps a joy. The canvas is clean, which in turn helps you make clutter-free diagrams.

Lucidchart Free

You can customize a lot in this tool. For example, you can adjust the text, background as well as the form of the shapes. What I loved about it is the fact that you can also add images from the library as well as upload your own.

Lucidchart Free Account

The only downside is that Mindmeister doesn't let you export these drawings. However, you can publish them. You can either copy the link or share them directly on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. As you may have expected, these limitations are removable by upgrading to the Pro variant, which costs $4.99/month.

The best part of the free plan is that there's you can collaborate in real-time. Also, you can create up to 3 mind maps.

Visit Mindmeister

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