Tools Guide

draw.io

Free browser-based diagramming. Popular but not a real BPMN tool.

draw.io

At a glance

Category
Diagramming & Whiteboard
Best for
Quick diagrams when you need something free and do not need BPMN compliance.
BPMN support
BPMN shapes available but exports proprietary XML, not BPMN 2.0
Collaboration
Via Google Drive or Confluence integration
Pricing
Free (browser). Paid for Confluence/Jira integration.

Strengths

  • +Completely free for browser use
  • +Huge shape library (not just BPMN)
  • +Confluence and Jira integration
  • +No signup required

Limitations

  • -Does not export BPMN 2.0 XML (proprietary format)
  • -Cannot import into process engines or other BPMN tools
  • -No process validation
  • -No process landscapes
  • -Diagrams are pictures, not process models

Our take

Very popular, very misleading. draw.io has BPMN shapes, but the output is not BPMN. You cannot import a draw.io file into Camunda, Signavio, or any BPMN-compliant tool. We built a free converter at crismo.io/convert/drawio-to-bpmn for exactly this problem.

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