Dia (full name: Dia Diagram Editor) is a vector-based and Visio-like structured diagram drawing tool made by Alexander Larsson from Germany. It's lightweight, free to use and open-source, supports for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Dia uses the single document interface (SDI) mode, similar to GIMP. It's inspired by the classic commercial diagram drawing software Microsoft Visio on Windows, but tends to be better at drawing information charts. Due to its modularization design for a variety of requirements (of course, the signs for each module are still universal, there is no limit), it can very easily draw the entity-relationship diagram, UML diagram, flow chart, network diagram, circuit diagram, and many other types of charts.
Generally speaking, there is basically no problem for using such a 10+ MB size of freeware to replace the fat Microsoft's classic Visio. And, it has also been included in the "300+ Best Free Applications" list. Inevitably, some users may think Dia has many places designed not so good at the very start, but anyway, it is still one of the best free solutions with highest comprehensive performance.
Key Features
- Draw structured diagrams (flowcharts, network layouts, etc.)
- Easy to use (Recommended in 89% of the user ratings)
- More than 1000 predefined objects and symbols
- Many import and export formats support
- Support plug-ins written in Python
- Built-in plenty of commonly used vectors
- Abundant downloadable shapes (symbols, objects or stencils)
- Supports Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
Related Links
Download URLs
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