Microsoft Visio is one program that best suits everyone’s needs for drawing, preparing charts, and creating flowcharts. The industry-standard program lets you display complex diagrams quickly and easily. It also lets you edit your diagrams if they ever need to be changed. However, the program is expensive, and not all can afford it.
We have already seen some free Microsoft Office alternatives; now, let us look at some free Microsoft Visio alternatives, such as Network Diagram software, that may not be highly performant but still beats the program in terms of price.
Microsoft Visio alternatives free
Here are some free Microsoft Viso alternatives to help you with network diagrams.
- DIA Diagram Editor
- Open Office Draw
- Inkscape
- Graphviz
- Kivio
Explore each of them to figure out what works best for you.
1] DIA Diagram Editor
DIA is a program available in over 60 languages and can be used to draw structured diagrams. With this program, one can draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many others.
The free program has the built-in ability to load and save diagrams to a custom XML format (gzipped by default to save space), export diagrams to a number of formats (EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF, and PNG), and print diagrams. Adding support for new shapes is also possible by writing simple XML files using a subset of SVG to draw the shape. Apart from functioning on Windows, DIA works equally well with Mac and Linux. Go here.
Read: Best free Adobe Illustrator alternatives Online
2] Open Office Draw
The free software has most of the merits of the Microsoft Office interface and includes some beneficial applications for making diagrams, presentations, spreadsheets, and databases. It features ‘Connectors’ between shapes, available in various line styles that facilitate building drawings such as flowcharts.
Using its Arrange Objects feature, one can group, ungroup, regroup, and edit objects while grouped. Another feature, rendering, lets you create photorealistic images with your texture, lighting effects, transparency, and perspective. Besides, it can even import graphics from all common formats (BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and WMF) and allow you to create your art and add it to the gallery. Visit this page.
3] Inkscape
Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor with a streamlined interface that makes editing nodes, performing complex path operations, and tracing bitmaps much easier. Though it does not provide all the features of the leading vector editors, its latest version offers a large portion of basic vector graphics editing capabilities.
The program supports many advanced SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) features, such as markers, clones, alpha blending, etc. It can also import JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and export PNG and multiple vector-based formats. Click here.
4] Graphviz
Graphviz represents structural information as diagrams of abstract graphs and networks. The open-source graph visualization software includes several main graph layout programs. It takes graph descriptions in simple text language and then makes diagrams in several useful formats. Details here.
Graphviz features:
- Colors
- Fonts
- Tabular node layouts
- Line styles
- Hyperlinks
- Custom Shapes
Recently, two more features were added to the program,
- Lightweight edge labels (xlabel)
- Tapered edges (as a style)
5] Kivio
Kivio, part of the KOffice open-source office suite, is a free program for making diagrams and flowcharts. It has a user interface similar to Visio but differs in that it allows adding a grid to the drawing plane and gives the option of splitting the pane into two drawing areas.
Other features include,
- Scriptable stencils using Python
- Support for Dia stencils
- A plugin framework for adding more functionality
Thus, some programs are more suitable for artistic work, while others are better for technical drawings. The choice, however, depends on the potential user’s preference. It is now available at calligra.org.
I hope these software were helpful and you have found your network diagram software.
Is there a free version of Microsoft Visio?
Yes, there is a free version of Visio available on the web. You can use it to view basic Visio files without requiring a license. Sign in to your Microsoft 365 account and upload the Visio file to OneDrive. Once the file is uploaded, select it to open and view it with the Visio for the web tool.
Is there a Google alternative to Visio?
Google Drawings is Google’s answer to Microsoft Visio. It is an online tool for creating diagrams and vector graphics included in the Google Workspace productivity suite. Google Drawings enables users to produce flowcharts, diagrams, org charts, and other visual aids.
