diagrams.net (previously draw.io) is a cross-platform

graph drawing Graph drawing is an area of mathematics and computer science combining methods from geometric graph theory and information visualization to derive two-dimensional depictions of graph (discrete mathematics), graphs arising from applications such ...

software application developed in

HTML5 HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...

and

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

. Its interface can be used to create

diagram A diagram is a symbolic Depiction, representation of information using Visualization (graphics), visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on Cave painting, walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Age o ...

s such as

flowchart A flowchart is a type of diagram that represents a workflow or process. A flowchart can also be defined as a diagrammatic representation of an algorithm, a step-by-step approach to solving a task. The flowchart shows the steps as boxes of v ...

s, wireframes, UML diagrams,

organizational chart An organizational chart, also called organigram, organogram, or organizational breakdown structure (OBS), is a diagram that shows the structure of an organization and the relationships and relative ranks of its parts and positions/jobs. The ter ...

s, and network diagrams. diagrams.net is available as an online

web app A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with World Wide Web, web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to Dynamic web page, dynamically ...

, and as an offline desktop application for

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. Its offline application is built using the

Electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

framework. The web app does not require online login or registration and can open from and save to the local

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

. Supported storage and export formats to download include PNG, JPEG, SVG, and PDF. It also integrates with

cloud services Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to ISO. Essential characteristics ...

for storage including

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropbox w ...

OneDrive Microsoft OneDrive is a file-hosting service operated by Microsoft. First released as SkyDrive in August 2007, it allows registered users to store, share, back-up and synchronize their files. OneDrive also works as the storage Frontend and backe ...

Google Drive Google Drive is a file-hosting service and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files ...

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

, and GitLab.com. It is also available as plugin to embed the web app in platforms such as

NextCloud Nextcloud is a suite of Client–server model, client-server software for creating and using file hosting services. It can integrate with the Collabora Online and OnlyOffice office suites. It can be hosted in the Cloud computing, cloud or On-pre ...

MediaWiki MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...

Notion Notion or Notions may refer to: Software * Notion (music software), a music composition and performance program * Notion (productivity software), a note-taking and project-management program from Notion Labs, Inc. * Notion (window manager), the ...

Atlassian Confluence Confluence is a web-based corporate wiki developed by Australian software company Atlassian. Atlassian wrote Confluence in the Java (programming language), Java programming language and first published it in 2004. Confluence Standalone comes ...

, and Jira. It has been described by tech reviewers such as

TechRadar ''TechRadar'' is an online technology publication owned by Future plc. It has editorial teams in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia that provide news and reviews of tech products and gadgets. It was launched in 2008 and expanded t ...

and

PCMag ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Magaz ...

as an alternative to

Lucidchart Lucidchart is a web-based diagramming application that allows users to visually collaborate on drawing, revising and sharing charts and diagrams, and improve processes, systems, and organizational structures. It is produced by Lucid Software In ...

Microsoft Visio Microsoft Visio (, ), formerly Microsoft Office Visio, is a diagramming and vector graphics application and is part of the Microsoft 365 Business. The product was first introduced in 1992 by former American software company Visio Corporation, an ...

, and

SmartDraw SmartDraw is a web-based visual collaboration tool that combines diagramming, whiteboarding, and generating visuals from data. It is used by teams to make flowcharts, organization charts, mind maps, project charts, and other business visuals. ...

History

JGraph Ltd

JGraph Ltd is a

private limited company A private limited company is any type of business entity in Privately held company, "private" ownership used in many jurisdictions, in contrast to a Public company, publicly listed company, with some differences from country to country. Example ...

founded by Gaudenz Alder and David Benson in

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

in the United Kingdom.

JGraph

JGraph started as a pure

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

language software project by Gaudenz Alder and as a university project in 2000 at

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

, Switzerland. The initial public release of JGraph 1.0 was in May 2002. The original design for JGraph was to make it an architectural extension of the Swing Java-toolkit and its JTree class.

mxGraph

In 2005, development began on mxGraph, which is a

software library In computing, a library is a collection of resources that can be leveraged during software development to implement a computer program. Commonly, a library consists of executable code such as compiled functions and classes, or a library can ...

written in

using HTML5 and SVG technologies. The project was publicly released in 2006, and supported Firefox 1.5 and Internet Explorer 5.5. mxGraph was originally made available as

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

through a hosted demo of the software for online use, with publicly available source under a

end-user license agreement An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user. The practice of selling licenses to rather than copies of software predates the recognition of software copyright, which has ...

for non-commercial use with the option to purchase a commercial license. In 2009, mxGraph was

open sourced Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...

under the

Apache license The Apache License is a permissive free software license written by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). It allows users to use the software for any purpose, to distribute it, to modify it, and to distribute modified versions of the software ...

. JGraph also bundled official

ports Ports collections (or ports trees, or just ports) are the sets of makefiles and Patch (Unix), patches provided by the BSD-based operating systems, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, as a simple method of installing software or creating binary packages. T ...

of mxGraph in other languages including Java, C#, and

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

. In 2021, the mxGraph Github repository was archived by its owner and is now read-only.

JGraphX

After the final JGraph 5.x release in February 2010, the project renamed its Java-language application to JGraphX, integrated the mxGraph library, and took on mxGraph's version numbering, starting with JGraphX 1.10.0.5 released in 2012.

Diagramly

In 2011, the company started publishing its hosted service for the mxGraph web application under a separate brand, Diagramly with the domain "diagram.ly".

draw.io

In 2012, after removing the remaining use of

Java applet Java applets were applet, small applications written in the Java (programming language), Java programming language, or another programming language that Compiled language, compiles to Java bytecode, and delivered to users in the form of Ja ...

s from its web app, the service rebranded as draw.io because the " .io suffix is a lot cooler than .ly", said co-founder David Benson in a 2012 interview.

diagrams.net

In February 2020, the company announced on its blog that the hosted version of the web application would move from "draw.io" to the "diagrams.net" domain, citing a security incident with the .io

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domain name, domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the DNS root zone, root zone of the nam ...

. The company also remarked that "the islands which should own the domain suffix, don’t, thanks to a wonderful piece of modern day British Imperialism." The move was completed a month later. The software library, file format, and integrated services remain branded as "drawio". In August 2024, starting with version 24.7.8, the company briefly replaced the Apache 2.0 license with a modified Apache 2.0 license, to include a clause prohibiting the use of the software in

Atlassian Atlassian Corporation () is an Australia, Australian-United States, American proprietary software company that specializes in collaboration tools designed primarily for software development and project management. Domicile (law), Domiciled in ...

Confluence In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...

and Jira products, in order to protect sales of their own Confluence integration. The project reverted back to the Apache 2.0 license by December 2024 with version 25.0.2. In December 2024, the company replaced some source files in its GitHub repository to provide only a minified form, with Benson clarifying the project will generally not accept patches from non-maintainers.

References

External links

* *
Java API for Drawio diagrams
{{Mindmaps Java (programming language) libraries Data and information visualization software Diagramming software Windows software