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Lucidchart vs Visual Paradigm comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Lucidchart
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Mind Mapping Software (1st), Visual Collaboration Platforms (3rd)
Visual Paradigm
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Lucidchart and Visual Paradigm aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Lucidchart is designed for Mind Mapping Software and holds a mindshare of 20.5%, down 24.2% compared to last year.
Visual Paradigm, on the other hand, focuses on Business Process Design, holds 3.5% mindshare, down 5.1% since last year.
Mind Mapping Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Lucidchart20.5%
Visio16.5%
Xmind13.6%
Other49.4%
Mind Mapping Software
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Visual Paradigm3.5%
ARIS BPA7.4%
Bizagi7.3%
Other81.8%
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

AlexMartin1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Nestlé
Visual collaboration has improved remote workflows and supports faster shared decisions
The best features Lucidchart offers are that it diagrams processes very well. It allows for project management to help with client timelines. It is also easy to use and create diagrams, especially mermaid diagrams. Collaborating is easy. Out of all those features, collaboration stands out to me the most because it is easy to share with team members to do joint design work. Lucidchart has positively impacted my organization by improving productivity and collaboration. In terms of specifics, collaboration helps us come to conclusions. I notice better throughput as it is easy to use. Improved productivity allows us to express ourselves more quickly.
reviewer2097357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees
Innovation in diagramming has streamlined complex UML tasks
Visual Paradigm allowed me to create UML diagrams efficiently. The tool was smarter than other tools in terms of remembering the connections between components on the screen. For example, in other drawing programs, if I moved a box, I had to move the arrow, but Visual Paradigm handled those tasks automatically. This made it much quicker than using other tools like Visio or MagicDoor.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The ability to look at things in real time makes it a whole different experience, making work a little bit faster, helping you to more quickly finish stuff, making it easier for a team, and making projects easier to do."
"Its real-time collaboration saves time; now, we can complete our discussions within 15 minutes rather than an hour or an hour and a half, and the ability for people to look at the diagram created in Lucidchart rather than reading through written documents has saved one to two hours daily."
"Its ease of use is most valuable. As compared to draw.io, connecting the lines and doing things like that are much easier in Lucidchart. It has been great for some of the process flow diagrams and data flow diagrams. I can export these diagrams as PDFs and share them with team members."
"Lucidchart is a free application and it is very helpful for documenting processes and workflows."
"It does everything I need it to do."
"I love the simplicity and how clean all the different boxes, arrows, and charts can be. Especially with something complicated like our sales flow, it could be really easy to be all cluttered and everything like that, but my favorite feature is how clean it is, how straightforward it makes our flow look, and how easy it is to understand. Lucidchart accommodates both Mac and PC users which is important to us because at my company right now, our sales floor and then every other computer we have as a company is a Mac, but a lot of our employees actually have PCs and Android as well. So it's really beneficial because if we're ever on the go or we need to make a change, it's versatile and is open for both Mac and PC."
"The interface is easy for a layperson to use and adapt to."
"Out of all the choices that I saw come across my desk, Lucidchart was the best and easiest choice."
"What I like best about Visual Paradigm is its simple GUI, especially since I'm a new user. In my two years of experience with this tool, I didn't find it complex because I was able to learn how to use it via YouTube videos. Visual Paradigm is enough for me. I also find the bridging feature in the tool valuable."
"I guess the most valuable feature is that I find it easy-to-use and understand its data modeling structure and user interface."
"It is a scalable solution...The initial setup was straightforward."
"One tool for everything which provides all the features you need for an Enterprise Architecture and Solution Architecture."
"I like the structure. I can see the diagrams and everything I created."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Visual Paradigm is great due to the fact that there are lots of templates in their product."
"Using the Component Diagram, Visual Paradigm helps with design and control, reusing components."
 

Cons

"Anytime I need to print, I have to re-download/export."
"When my colleague initially tried to edit the file that I shared with him, he had some trouble. This is something that should be improved."
"In terms of the UI aspect of Lucidchart, I see that most of the features are available on the left pane, which has the basic diagrams and shapes."
"I would really like to be able to set default appearance settings for new documents because I have a set of appearance settings that I always use."
"I would like to have more text boxes to write more comments so I can write a small note below a picture. I would like some flexibility."
"If you're trying to expand a comments box that is sitting on top of the chart, it automatically defaults to assuming you're trying to connect it to the next step in the process, when all you're trying to do is make the box bigger. It automatically goes to the arrow, but I just want to resize the box. That gets a little cumbersome because it does it every single time. It's not just a bug."
"They should continue to bring in more shapes. For example, I saw something cool the other day that was a timeline and in between each step, there was a circle. I thought that that was very clean and that's something that I could see myself using. Lucidchart could come up with more visualizations. I'm not a designer so I would like to have more visuals. That would make my job easier because it would make my job much more professional looking but without having to be a designer myself."
"I would like an on-premises version of the software that I can just download and use. I think that it's easier that way."
"There are some connectivity issues that crop up rarely when used with SQL Server."
"There is a certain inherent complexity when creating UML diagrams."
"For me, what needs improvement in Visual Paradigm is the limited features included in the $99 license, which is the cheapest option. If more features could be included in the cheapest licensing package, Visual Paradigm would be better, especially for businesses that have a limited budget for buying software."
"The product can always get better as the industry changes."
"The solution can be heavy on resource usage."
"It's still early for me to comment since I've only been using it for two months, but the responsiveness when diagramming needs to be improved."
"There was one particular bug that caused some instability issues; Visual Paradigm was having trouble with Microsoft SQL Server system versioning tables and would just lock up in that one particular instance."
"The solution is not user-friendly. It uses a lot of memory and CPU. You have to have a good computer to use it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have a subscription as an individual user for one year, and it is not expensive."
"The pricing is very competitive. It is more cost-effective than some competing products, such as Visio."
"The price was low enough to make me think that it was fine, I'll go for it. I think it's $80 or so. It's not too expensive."
"There is a nominal charge for the paid version of the product. They have a free version available and from what I could see, there was not much difference between it and the pro version."
"I have only used the trial version and have not yet paid for it, or explored the pricing options."
"The licensing is pretty cost-effective but I haven't considered it on an enterprise level."
"I'm happy with the pricing of Lucidchart but I can't say I'm completely happy with it. It could be cheaper for what it offers, about $5 cheaper, or Lucid could charge $5 more and add more features, like automation. Right now, it's $15 per user per month... On the other hand, they have made their billing super-easy for users, such as for people who have to do expense reports. It is probably the easiest platform I'm using when it comes to billing for software as a service."
"We chose Lucid based on the price comparison between it and draw.io... Lucidchart was about 15 percent cheaper per user... I was surprised to learn that it came with a separate subscription model and was not included in my existing Lucidchart subscription."
"Visual Paradigm has two models available. One of them is the educational edition, and another is the business edition. For my personal usage, I use the educational version mostly. In a project, my customers have to purchase a license."
"Visual Paradigm costs $99 per license. I chose the cheapest option from the pricing list."
"Compared to other solutions such as IBM Rational which is expensive, This solution is priced low."
"I rate Visual Paradigm's pricing a five out of ten."
"The pricing of Visual Paradigm is very appropriate and affordable. There are no hidden costs involved."
"In terms of pricing, I find Visual Paradigm's subscription services reasonable, especially for the modern and standard editions. However, the premium products can be a bit pricey, especially considering our location in the Middle East. Currently, paying around a hundred dollars per user translates to almost six hundred Egyptian pounds, which can add up. For enterprise licensing, I think the perpetual license option could be more affordable. If it were cheaper, say around five hundred dollars, I would have invested in multiple perpetual licenses long ago. Sometimes, to manage costs, we share accounts among team members or switch access on and off for certain members who aren't actively working on projects. As for additional costs, there are charges for cloud services, which I'm considering because I've already exceeded the free capacity."
"Visual Paradigm's pricing is not expensive."
"This is an open-sourced solution, it is free to use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom
Hi @Krista Thompson ​ - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. LucidSpark is designed to do a better job managing multiple users participating ...
Do you recommend Lucidchart?
I definitely recommend Lucidchart. I feel it is one of the top visual collaboration platforms that’s available on the market. Out of all the solutions I have tried, it is by far the best for diagra...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lucidchart?
It is cloud-based, so no setup is required. Currently, we are using a free plan.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visual Paradigm?
I purchased Visual Paradigm on my own, and it was competitively priced, so I was fine with the pricing.
What needs improvement with Visual Paradigm?
The product can always get better as the industry changes, however, I didn't necessarily feel it was lacking for what I did with it.
What is your primary use case for Visual Paradigm?
I needed to create UML diagrams and to perform a significant amount of diagramming work.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Salesforce, Adobe, Whirlpool, Uber, Wal Mart, Pearson, Twitch, Riot Games, Western Union, Trimble, Starbucks
Adobe, Apple, at&t, Caterpillar, Intel, NASA, Nokia, Toyota
Find out what your peers are saying about Lucidchart vs. Mindjet MindManager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
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