Design and diagrams

SmartDraw alternatives

2 open-source projects that already do this job. Free to use - not free to run, which is what the numbers on the right are for.

The full assessment →

The projects

jgraph/drawio-desktop62,488Apache-2.0Electron-based desktop diagramming app with interactive canvas, templates, and export to common formats.Open on GitHub jgraph/drawio7,358Apache-2.0Client-side web diagram editor offering interactive canvas, shape libraries, templates, and SVG/PDF export.Open on GitHub

What you give up either way

Thousands of built-in templates and symbol libraries
Enterprise integrations and single‑sign‑on
Customer support, training sessions, and commercial SLAs
AI-powered diagram generation features
Brand recognition and enterprise trust/validation

An open-source project doing the core job proves a replacement is possible. It does not prove it matches SmartDraw, and it does not prove anyone has run it for a month. How we decide.