Ralph Garcia suggested Viusal Paradigm Online to be a
low cost Visio alternative. Their team use VP Online to create
UML diagrams, flowchart and ERD. They support an array of editing feature, including the ability to import and edit Visio files smoothly.
According to Ralph, VP Online supports a wide range of visualization needs, from software design, data modeling, business process mapping, strategic analysis, mind mapping to project scheduling, and is widely adopted in different sectors like business, education, and social units. Here are some key features of VP Online, which makes it better than Visio:
- Easy to use: Create and connect shapes with drag and drop. Connectors are always attached to shapes - Never separate apart! (unlike many other tools).
- Beautiful drawing: Apply different formatting options (shape and lines, solid and gradient paint), 40+ connector types, RTF caption, font options, shadow effect, etc
- Alignment guide helps you position shapes nicely.
- Build your own shape library to create diagrams with your own shapes.
- Start quickly with the pre-developed diagram templates. Hundreds of templates are provided.
- Easily add text, notes, external images, web links to diagram
- Easily print and export into different formats (PNG, JPG, SVG, GIF, PDF)
- Available on the cloud, compatible with all O/S and browsers
- Visio drawing and stencil import
- Google drive integration
Ralph believed that the user interface of Visual Paradigm Online is quite similar to Visio. There is no difficulty for any Visio users to opt to Visual Paradigm Online.
The Express Edition of VP Online is free and covers UML, ERD, organization chart, floor plan, ITIL diagram. If you want to draw diagrams like DFD, BPMN, Venn, flowchart, PERT, ArchiMate and more, you can subscribe their service on monthly basis with a very low cost.
Ralph ends by suggesting that if you've already created some Visio drawing, you can use the import function to import into Visual Paradigm Online and carry on editing.