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Not too long ago, I had a project come up where I really could benefit from flowchart type outlook on things. I have OmniGraffle, which is a cool tool, but I needed a way to share this stuff with the client and I figured there was probably a web 2.0 way to accomplish this. Just for fun, I started marking all the tools I thought were any good in my Delicious account so I could come back later and compare them. Below are my results and not so scientific conclusions to get your started:

http://www.gliffy.com – Fun to say, fun to use. They’re really going for people who don’ define themselves as ’suits’ of some sort or another. “Diagramming software for the rest of us” is what the tagline says and it’s pretty darn accurate. Although I’ve used OmniGraffle on the Mac, this one is fun to use and gives me pretty much the same results as I was getting there anyway. It’s mature enough to have an API, plugins, & quite a few examples that are diverse.

http://www.exploratree.org.uk/ – Not billing themselves as a ‘flowchart’ tool but rather “thinking guides”. Not a super friendly site design, feels more like you’re looking at a shopping cart, but you quickly get used to it. They have some pretty forward thinking scenarios up for your use and I feel it’s a pretty darn useful tool if you get into it.

http://www.lucidchart.com – Professional diagrams, collaborative aspect, & browser based without Flash. The product tour walks you through everything pretty nicely and you get a good idea of what it’s all about.

http://www.lovelycharts.com/ – Has nice, bright design and it makes me think of Valentine’s day. lol.  They have both a screencast and a ‘take a tour’ video, which seems a bit redundant, but it’s all good. Their gallery is all of 2 (you read that right) at this time but it gives you a good idea of what it’s all about. They’re not the prettiest flowcharts in the world but they get the job done.

http://www.slickplan.com/ – What I like about their site is the simplicity of it all. Free, uses jquery (a personal favorite) & comes with a bevy of free flowcharts to give you a little kickstart. Check out the ‘Why Sign Up?’ link to get more useful info about their service.

http://creately.com/ – Seems like a pretty comprehensive web application. Great site design, nice intro video and several powerful testimonials on the home page. Not free but even the Pro plan is only $10 a month at the time of this writing.

http://www.mindmeister.com – Not precisely a flowchart tool but a mind map tool. They have a nice site design and are active on Twitter. They’ve replied to a few questions I asked the Twitterverse over the years and they had good answers. This speaks to theircommitment & their involvement with customers. Great testimonials, awards, and yes, an iPhone app to boot. Not a free service but the do a free service level.

Sometime I use a few of these tools in my Phoenix web design company & hopefully you will too now.. Feel free to explore the site to get a better idea of what I can do for your business on the web if you need a web site or web application.