draw.io is an online diagramming tool with integrations with Jira, Google, and Confluence available free online or at cost depending on integration chosen.
$5
per month
SAP PowerDesigner
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
SAP PowerDesigner (formerly from Sybase) is an enterprise data architecture modeling tool, used to Build a blueprint of the current enterprise architecture and visualize the impact of change before it happens.
It's very easy to collaborate on the same file with team members and create simple concepts and flowcharts that you can use in the development process. It is also very handy for creating graphs and tables for presentations. Since this is a web application, we can use it anywhere, anytime and on any device; which provides great flexibility and accessibility. It also offers the functionality to save your work as you develop it, which is very helpful.
SAP PowerDesigner allows our team of data modelers to work and collaborate from a single repository and single data dictionary. This helps enforce consistency as data elements are referenced in other objects. Prior to our use of PD, we might have an element named "ppt" in one table, "participant" in another table and "part" in a third table. By forcing everything to be used from the data dictionary, we avoid these situations because everyone has to go to the dictionary. And we are able to easily do peer reviews on models before they are released because we are collaborating through the use of the repository.
Draw.io offers a lot of shapes and customizability of how the diagrams are laid out. We've been able to create a lot of different things with it, and have barely scratched the surface of the sorts of things that we could do.
Draw.io is fairly intuitive in the way that you draw shapes and connect shapes together, I was able to figure it out without a tutorial.
Draw.io is fast and performant for me compared with some of the alternatives.
One element that was hard to use was converting pre-existing drawings and workflows from Gliffy to Draw.io once our company made the change. While we were able to complete the migration, when going back we noticed, oftentimes, some formatting and dependencies did not make it or were not compatible.
While the template repository is vast, it has a heavy focus on network style maps. It would be ideal for added diversity in the templates with a focus on workflows just as much.
While the integrations are strong, the cloud collaborative environment could still use some work. While you can save and edit in the cloud. Group editing and live dynamic sharing/editing similar to Microsoft office are still missing.
Draw.io could add some version control functionality for ease of rollback, auditing, & comparison.
The support for draw.io is pretty decent, considering it is a free website. I had a question one time when I was trying to do something, so I sent an email to their support email and got a response fairly quickly with an answer to my question. They also have some excellent support tools on their support website for helping you get more familiar with their program, and I found that very helpful.
We did have to reach out to support to learn how to properly utilize the repository feature and share the data model across many developers. Support was able to help us get this set up correctly. The downside was it took us several weeks before we gave up and contacted support. We should have done that earlier. I would say, however, the documentation wasn't clear on how to do this. So support was a great big help!
Draw.io is totally free and it has most of the features a commercial product like Visio would have, so I think it is a go-to. It has good integration with Google Drive and it can export to a variety of files. You are not constrained by some commercial proprietary file format. It can be used in a browser on any device or downloaded as a desktop app.
Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler : Unfortunately this tool only supports Oracle Databases as a target database, but has many features similar to SAP Sybase PowerDesigner. erwin Data Modeler: Has some issues when switching from Conceptual Model to Physical Model, Impact Analysis, and formatting copy and pasting. Vertabelo: Only supports online models and from a governance perspective, it is impossible for me to connect my target database with an online application because of company policy and regulation requirements.
