A curated list of awesome diagramming tools available for software engineering teams.
General Purpose (flexible for all kinds of diagrams)
Kroki (Free, Open Source, Diagram as code, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Flexible). Examples - Link
Mermaid (Free, Open Source, Diagram as code, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Modern). Examples - Link
Excalidraw (Freemium, Open Source, Hand drawn, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Hand-drawn). Examples - Link
PlantUML (Free, Open Source, Diagram as code, Ease of use - Intermediete, Visual Appearance - Outdated) Examples - Link, Link
Draw.io (Free, Open Source (But Closed To Contribution), Hand drawn, Ease of use - Moderate, Visual Appearance - Modern). Examples - Link
Nomnoml (Free, Open Source, Diagram as code. Ease of use - Easy, Visual Apperance - Minimalistic). Examples - Link
Diagram.codes (Freemium, Closed Source, Diagram as code, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Outdated). Examples - Link
Lucidchart (Paid, Closed Source, Hand drawn, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Modern). Examples - Link
Blockdiag (Free, Open Source, Diagram as code, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Outdated). Exampes - Link
Others - Miro, Gliffy, Inkscape, Plectica, Whimsical, ZenUML, Gleek, Structurizr, StarUML
Sequence diagram
Others - Websequencediagrams, Sequencediagram.org
System design diagram
Essential readings
C4 Model, 5 types of architecture diagrams
Diagrams (Free, Open Source, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Modern).
Examples - LinkTerrastruct (Paid, Closed Source, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Modern)
Examples - LinkIcePanel (Paid, Closed Source, Hand drawn, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Modern) Examples - Link
Lucidscale (Paid, Closed Source, Ease of use - Intermediete, Visual Appearance - Modern).
Examples - Link
Others - Ilograph, Omnigraffle, Cloudcraft, CloudSkew
ER diagram
Essential Readings
How to choose your ERD?
DbDiagram (Freemium, Closed Source, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Modern)
Examples - LinkAzimutt (Free, Open Source, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Modern).
Examples - LinkAzimutt
is useful when you want to visualize existing databaseQuickDBD (Free, Closed Source, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Modern).
Examples - Link
Others - DrawSql, ERD Plus, Creately, SqlDBM
Gantt Chart
- Markwhen (Free, Open Source, Ease of use - Easy, Visual Appearance - Minimalist)
Examples - Link
Other good curated collections of diagramming tools
- https://github.com/sw-yx/spark-joy/blob/master/README.md#diagramming
- https://xosh.org/text-to-diagram/