SmartDraw

RATING:

4.1

(112)

About SmartDraw

SmartDraw is a diagram and chart tool that helps businesses of all sizes manage diagramming processes through predefined templates to create infographics, network designs, mind maps, organizational charts, and more. Key features include document retention, customizable extensions, team collaboration, and single sign-on (SSO). SmartDraw’s designing capabilities allow businesses to generate architectural diagrams by using automated spacing, sizing, alignment, and color schemes. Its formatting tool enables developers to automatically reshape diagrams by adding, deleting, and moving structure formats. It comes with built-in extensions, which let users translate data sources into class diagrams through VisualScript SDK. SmartDraw facilitates integration with variou...

SmartDraw Pricing

Single User: $9.95 per month, billed annually Multiple Users (for 5+ users): $5.95 per month, billed annually

Starting price: 

$9.95 per month

Free trial: 

Available

Free version: 

Not Available

SmartDraw templates screenshot

SmartDraw Reviews

Overall Rating

4.1

Ratings Breakdown

Secondary Ratings

Ease-of-use

4

Customer Support

4

Value for money

4

Functionality

4

Most Helpful Reviews for SmartDraw

1 - 5 of 111 Reviews

User Profile

Steven

Verified reviewer

Religious Institutions

Used monthly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed June 2018

Quickly update drawings, org charts and floor plans to keep your team moving!

Very easy interface to work with, and that helped me quickly set out the office layout for our 100 person team and modify as people's requirements changed through the process.

PROS

I've used this for years to plan out the cubicle layout of our office, the details and features make it very easy to visualize and help people determine the best fits. Once you get the general structure it's really easy to keep things up to date.

CONS

A little bit of learning curve and the huge variety of detailed images available is a little hard to navigate.

Anonymous

Used weekly for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed January 2018

Great platform for simple submittal drawings.

If you are trying to do small professional projects, or simply create a blueprint of you home, SmartDraw's ease of use and robust set of options make it the smart choice over competitors.

PROS

Where this software really shines for our business is its ease of use for submittal drawings when bidding and creating contracts for jobs. It allows us to empower our salesmen to create their own submittals without the expense or training needed for some of the more "professional" suites. This means for smaller projects we do not need to tie up our senior estimators, leaving their time free and better spent with CAD. What this means is that for job cost, we are able to use lower wage employees to perform simpler tasks and not eat into the margins of a job from utilizing higher paid engineers.

CONS

It can be a bit finicky in trying to get it to do exactly what you want it to do. Its ease of use sometimes means that you are fighting those very elements that make it easy to make it do what you want it to do. Snap to grids and the like, while toggle-able, provide an annoyance when they should "just work".

Marc

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services, 2-10 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

3

EASE OF USE

1

VALUE FOR MONEY

2

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

2

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed August 2020

SmartDraw - Not quite a Visio replacement-- but pretty close

SmartDraw is great if starting from scratch to create drawing ( both simple & complex). If documents need to be traded with users who are using Visio, there will be issues-- especially if drawings need to be updated or converted across several users. It has most of the power of Visio with some added discovery things so if one is starting without the requirement of Visio integration, its a solid, but pricy tool.

PROS

Lots of examples and help videos Enterprise discovery tools are great but expensive

CONS

Stated the Enterprise version would import Visio but it is not a 100% conversion to SmartDraw format so that the properties of the Visio document carry thru in the same way with the same functionality. *) Layers don't really stay intact. *) Significant amount of the custom formatting gets lost. *) Support and 'help' is primarily from static Web Videos. While they may provide some help, there is not much detail about what steps to take when things DO NOT work -- so one needs to call in and request support. No exactly the fastest turnaround.

Reason for choosing SmartDraw

Didn't choose one. As stated above, Smart Draw only eliminates other tools, if there is no requirements to share or update documents from those tools. I still have both on my systems.

Anonymous

5,001-10,000 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed August 2021

BizzDesign is the best diagramming tool I've used

PROS

This is a heavy duty, feature packed software. Whereas most software with this degree of functionality is usually not intuitive, BizzDesign is. It is incredible for being able to integrated documentation with process flows and diagrams.

CONS

The cost is a little high. I think it's worth it overall though.

Reasons for switching to SmartDraw

BizzDesign was so much better.

Nicky

Verified reviewer

Design, 1 employee

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

3

Reviewed April 2019

Basic floor plans but easy to use

I've used other floor planners and this one is definitely the easiest to use at a great price.

PROS

It's very easy to draw up a basic house floor plan.

CONS

Limited symbol options specific to interior design. If you use too many JPEG images within the file the system struggles to convert to PDF. (which isn't the case with my other design software). Often glitches when opening files and/or is very slow to open existing documents.

Vendor Response

Hi Nicky, Thank you for the positive review and for the feedback. I'll pass the review along to our development team, so we can take a look at the PDF export and file opening issues you mentioned. If you reply back to me, or contact our support using the below info, we can further investigate and help. If there is any other way we can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. International: +1 858 225 3300 US: 800-768-3729 email: support@smartdraw.com -Chris

Replied June 2019