Thanks for your views, I'm the author of the linked VA tool. One of the primary aspects of this tool besides diagramming is to automate code generation. Present

Thanks for your views, I'm the author of the linked VA tool. One of the primary aspects of this tool besides diagramming is to automate code generation. Presently, it exports the diagram to SQLAlchemy classes and raw mysql format. The idea is that once you design the tables in your head, you should be able to seamlessly translate it to an actual database format like mysql, pgsql, etc. and don't have to waste much time on that! As for "schema-less" diagramming tools, I think your best bet will be a mind-map. There are many mind-mapping software available including GPL ones like Freemind. What it does is take a central idea and create branches from that root. For example, Database will split into Relational/Non-relational branch. Relational will split into mysq/pgsql and non-relational will split into mongodb/couchdb, etc. To the best of my knowledge, this is how non-relational databases like mongodb work document inside a document inside a document, right?