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What (free) diagramming tool would you suggest for creating diagrams on Mac OS X? I am currently using ArgoUML for UML diagrams and am very pleased, but would also like to draw some stuff more freely.

I have tried to get dia from DarwinPorts, but it just starts swearing at me.

Please only post one suggestion per answer and let the voting system do the rest.

Valid answers include (usable) online drawing tools.

EDIT: Yes, I know about OmniGraffle - I would very much like to use it, but this is not for business, but for a private thesis and I have no money whatsoever (yet). I guess I'll have to try to get dia working after all :(

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17 Answers

up vote 15 down vote

I know I'm a bit late to answer this question, but OpenOffice Draw (NeoOffice Draw for Mac OS X) is the only decent "native" diagramming tool that is completely free in my opinion. The only drawback is that you have to download the whole NeoOffice Application to get Draw.

There is also yed which is a free cross-platform java application.

Alternatively, you could look for online tool:

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Nice collection. I was expecting more from Autodesk. It's truly a "labs" applications. – Luke Mar 8 '11 at 4:55
Using creately for a longtime ago really great app! =) – holms Sep 14 '11 at 12:59
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up vote 12 down vote

OmniGraffle (but it isn't free)

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/

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If you're making small diagrams (less than 20 objects), you can use OmniGraffle without paying for it. (But the 20 objects limit is rather restrictive.) – mipadi Dec 17 '08 at 17:16
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up vote 10 down vote

Gliffy's free version is a fine tool for doing diagrams. I can say that I prefer OmniGraffle though, but you did ask for free.

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Gliffy's pretty sweet. One of my co-workers used it to diagram our entire hiring process for coding it. It was a work of art. – Bob King Sep 18 '08 at 13:40
5 diagrams per user..? fail. I want normal tool, with life time licence.. – holms Feb 14 '11 at 4:28
@holms: dissing the freemium model? Ouch. – Forgotten Semicolon Feb 25 '11 at 23:03
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up vote 8 down vote

Pencil, paper and scanner?

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Yes. This is best. Also, this makes you think more about what you are doing, because you know it's hard to undo. Ideally a permanent marker instead of a pencil. – WTP Aug 10 '10 at 14:43
+1. I totally agree. I agree also with Time Machine. – Alberteddu Jan 3 '11 at 11:59
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Disagree. Making it harder to try things out at the design stage leads to worse design. – Tommy Herbert Jun 13 '11 at 16:45
yeah especially with 120 tables DB uml diagram =) – holms Sep 14 '11 at 13:07
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up vote 4 down vote

Pencil is a diagramming/prototyping tool built on the Mozilla engine. It can run as a Firefox plugin or a standalone app. I've only used it on Windows, but I assume it runs under OS X.

It's a little better at prototyping GUIs than diagramming, but it may serve your needs.

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thnx for this, but I can't find anything about UML in there... – holms Feb 14 '11 at 5:01
The link is broken. – pkoch Jan 17 at 19:00
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up vote 3 down vote

Check yED it will help you for sure as it can handle a huge number of nodes... and I really mean it.

Good luck!

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yEd really is fantastic. I can thoroughly recommend it for the majority of technical diagramming. – Craig Day Apr 7 '11 at 8:56
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up vote 2 down vote

Graphviz has a very nice native frontend for OS X. Not sure how much it fits “free drawing” though.

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up vote 2 down vote

If you want to bypass ports, somebody has kindly created a .dmg for dia, available at: http://dia-installer.de/

Confusingly, when the source forge download page popped up for me it said "Win32 Installer", but the file was clearly a .dmg, so I proceeded.

It runs fine, looks and works exactly as I remember it on Ubuntu.

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up vote 1 down vote

It's not free, but I've found OmniGraffle to be outstanding. I generate alot of diagrams (both software architecture and for concepts) and didn't find any free tools that were anywhere near as acceptable to me.

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up vote 1 down vote

Also xMind is nice, but I don't know if it's not "too much" for what you want. It's not free nor cheap. Also not relevant but xmind is Cross Platform.

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up vote 1 down vote

I'm surprised no one has mentioned inkscape. It's an X11 app, I believe, but it's great for all manner of diagramming applications.

AFAIK there's no specific flow-diagramming tools (as the perennial favourite OmniGraffle has), but if you're only after that kind of thing you could always use graphviz.

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up vote 1 down vote

i just installed dia via darwinports. surprisingly it build (within one or two hours), which i have never seen for big gtk apps. but then... it is incredible slow, as soon as i touch the canvas, every refresh takes up to ten seconds. so its unuseable. i guess that is bug with my build, so i wonder if anyone has a working mac os x (10.6) binary for dia around?

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up vote 1 down vote

Very late to the game, but I was searching for drawing tools too just now on the Mac and came to the question.

I've generally used Open/LibreOffice historically, but I work in an office where I'm the only guy not on MS Office and it gets quite annoying. So I need solutions that are platform neutral.

Google Docs, drawing module is a recent addition to this list, and does a very decent job for a freebie, web based tool, certainly very appropriate for diagrams you need to perhaps edit and share within a workgroup. I've found it very useful for quick architectural diagrams.

Another even newer creation as I understand it, online, is Diagram.ly which appears richer than Google Docs at first glance, but perhaps a bit more complex.

Both these are available for free, per the original question.

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hey, thanks! this is really cool! – Daren Thomas Jun 17 '11 at 9:33
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up vote 0 down vote

You'll thank yourself for getting OmniGraffle even though it isn't free. Otherwise you might look into online programs like Gliffy if you want to do just a few drawings for a one-off project.

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up vote 0 down vote

FreeMind Written in java so they should have an OSX verison.

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up vote 0 down vote

I've also used Dia before, but it is flaky. You might want to try it out under a Windows or Linux just to see if it's worth the trouble of trying to get it to work under OS X

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dia is really awesome! – ufk Jan 28 '10 at 15:55
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up vote 0 down vote

If you're a PHP/MYSQL developer on OS X nothing beats My SQL Workbench.

http://wb.mysql.com/

It it were a girl, this is the diagramming tool I've been looking for all my life... =)

Its free too!

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