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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

"In general, the usability is great. You have a ton of customization options with different colors, different borders, different thicknesses of lines, different types of arrows, et cetera. There's so much variety. You can really make a chart with all sorts of color-coding, and color charts in different colors, link them together, for example, or use different types of arrows for different types of links between the chart elements. That variety, while not a specific feature, is really useful. If you want to make a chart, you can basically do anything."
"The interface is really good and it is very easy to use."
"Real-time collaboration has definitely saved us time; I haven't had to call people back and forth and make changes like that, whereas we're both just editing in a single document and it saves around an hour or two a day."
"In general, this product has improved our organization because it makes accessing up-to-date processes and planning a lot easier."
"As a result, it has saved me time, on the order of at least 50 to 60 percent, because of the ease of use."
"The ease of use is the most valuable feature."
"It makes collaboration easy, it makes presentation easy, the real-time collaboration is super-helpful, and it has saved me time on the order of 20 percent for project planning."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use, and just being able to drag and drop."
"I guess the most valuable feature is that I find it easy-to-use and understand its data modeling structure and user interface."
"I find it very user-friendly for my purposes, which is creating business process models that I can publish as HTML pages. It has worked flawlessly for my project, and my clients are able to utilize it as an internal web portal for their process documentation and other needs."
"Visual Paradigm allowed me to create UML diagrams efficiently."
"As integration goes, the Suite works wonders when you bounce from coding to document redaction (producing the sets needed of UML), because you just need to translate from one to another, given your programs of coding allows it, like Eclipse ( /products/eclipse-luna ) does."
"Visual Paradigm is great due to the fact that there are lots of templates in their product."
"The initial setup is extremely straightforward."
"It is a scalable solution...The initial setup was straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of the Visual Paradigm that I use is process modeling. Additionally, the solution has a complete set of features."
 

Cons

"This might already be a feature, but I remember sometimes when we're just all viewing, if you accidentally click, then there's an arrow that pops up, and you have to go back and delete it. A lot of times there are accidental arrows being drawn when really we're just trying to present to each other."
"Wireframing can be improved. For mock-ups and wireframing, only 10% of what is required is there. If they can develop this feature, it would be much better because it will then provide everything. Currently, we can design network diagrams, processes, etc., but we should also be able to do wireframing."
"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 end up setting that manually every time. There may be a way to do that, and maybe I am not able to find it. This is my only major point of feedback for improvement. There are other little nitpicky things, such as being able to lock layers without them looking like a big red line around them would be nice, but every graphic design software does that, so I understand why they have that. All my concerns are nitpicks. They're not big."
"When you want to add text to a connector arrow, I have not figured out how to position the text vertically. It always wants the text to stay horizontal."
"I choose seven because of those things I mentioned where adjusting different things and drawing the lines is basically not very intuitive at all."
"What I do find extremely frustrating is that when I've sent the sheet to non-license holders, you have to create an account. You create a username and password. The path taken to create that account is so confusing that everyone thinks that they have to give their credit card number, and then they're reluctant. They don't want to go through the sheet."
"The primary area that could be improved is the learning curve."
"If it could be a little more visual, in terms of being able to make it stand out a little bit more, then that would be helpful."
"Visual Paradigm is much better now. But each project has its own challenges, which is why I'm exploring different tools for my new projects. For instance, designing reports can be tough, especially with the costly intervention of professional services from vendors."
"In terms of room for improvement in Visual Paradigm, I tried looking for one. I'm pleased with the tool, but it would be great if you could integrate Visual Paradigm with more tools. For example, when moving from Visual Paradigm to another tool, such as Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, the process could be improved a bit. Still, I wonder if it's not limited by the standards Visual Paradigm follows, such as XMI files. It could be connected to limitations related to the standards rather than a tool limitation. When you move projects from Visual Paradigm into Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect via XMI files, you lose all your notes from the elements, so this is an area for improvement in Visual Paradigm. TOGAF support is an additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of Visual Paradigm. I'd also like the tool to have ArchiMate support. If both TOGAF and ArchiMate could be supported in Visual Paradigm and made part of a lower level of licensing or cheaper licensing models, that would be best for me."
"The product can always get better as the industry changes."
"I would like to see something for visualizing innovation work maps."
"I would like to see the ability to easily export to groupware, such as Atlassian Confluence."
"The solution's technical support can be improved and accessible for our company location since Visual Paradigm follows a remote support model with some challenges."
"The user interface is not easy to navigate, so it should be made easier."
"The other thing that needs improvement is pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very competitive. It is more cost-effective than some competing products, such as Visio."
"I have only used the trial version and have not yet paid for it, or explored the pricing options."
"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."
"One of the reasons we were able to get approval within two hours from our management was that it was cheap enough. We have a 3% or 10% collaboration package, which comes out to be 70 bucks a year. It was very cheap, and we had no issues actually getting the full version. It was very affordable for a business."
"The price and licensing are good."
"At €167 per user per year, the pricing is slightly higher than Visio, but it's worth it."
"Pricing-wise, it is pretty fair. I don't really know what group pricing looks like, but right now, I pay $10 a month for my Lucid subscription. One thing I would say is that I do worry about my bosses being okay with paying $10 a month for every single employee because we would have around 20 people. It makes me a little nervous about whether they are going to pay $200 a month for people to be able to use this software. At the same time, from where I'm sitting, it's totally worth it. We save a thousand dollars from using this software. It's still a no-brainer."
"Lucidchart's pricing model is not excessive, as compared to similar products. It is pretty much in line with everyone else."
"Compared to other solutions such as IBM Rational which is expensive, This solution is priced low."
"Visual Paradigm costs $99 per license. I chose the cheapest option from the pricing list."
"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."
"You can move between the tiers from month to month so you are not restricted to one pricing model."
"Visual Paradigm's pricing is not expensive."
"Over the years I've seen an increase in price, and it makes it difficult for a single person company, like me, to decide whether to extend the license."
"I rate the pricing a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"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."
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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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