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I have suffered through Gliffy + Confluence for months, so I love seeing new software in this space. This looks very nice, but seems to be missing a lot of impo

by css 6y ago

I have suffered through Gliffy + Confluence for months, so I love seeing new software in this space. This looks very nice, but seems to be missing a lot of important features: boxes to segment networks (a la VPC), directed connections (arrows, filled or not, dashed, etc) and text boxes. I really, really like how good this looks, especially the isometric view. It adds some personality that makes otherwise boring diagrams interesting to look at. Finally, I want to say how awesome it is that you can try out the app without an account and with only one-click. Nothing "sells" your product better than your product, and this website is a textbook example of how this should be executed.

zufallsheld 6y ago
What's wrong with gliffy?
- css 6y ago
  From an aesthetic point, it is okay, and I like that it includes logos for almost every service imaginable. From an editing perspective, it is a mess. For example: - you can select a rectangle object that has a transparent middle by clicking in the empty space - you cannot option/alt + drag to copy an item or group of items - "refactoring" is not easy because even when items are grouped you cannot move them as a group - arrows sometimes don't update their endpoints, even when they have been connected to an item - slow performance in the browser, especially for larger diagrams. - saving is slow and versioning is even slower These are just a few I thought of off the top of my head. These papercuts on their own are annoyances, but together makes it feel like the software is using me and not the other way around.
  - theK 6y ago
    I like that you bring up refactoring. The biggest pain I have experienced with IT drawings is maintenance. If you are using a GUI these things are usually hard to maintain/refactor. As a matter of fact, I have experienced whole organizations just switching to graphviz, plant or other text based diagram tools just because of that!
zsiec 6y ago
Try out miro.com, the tool wasn't built for infrastructure diagrams, but you can do some amazing visualizations once you get comfortable with the tools there. That said, I love this MVP! I created a quick diagram of some video systems I maintain and the experience was pretty good. <3 the svg export
klohto 6y ago
Have you tried Draw.io? I use it heavily in our Confluence and it has an offline client.
- somishere 6y ago
  +1 for Draw.io ... extremely flexible, vector export, plus can connect and save to e.g. google drive, etc.

by css 6y ago

zufallsheld 6y ago

What's wrong with gliffy?

css 6y ago
From an aesthetic point, it is okay, and I like that it includes logos for almost every service imaginable. From an editing perspective, it is a mess. For example: - you can select a rectangle object that has a transparent middle by clicking in the empty space - you cannot option/alt + drag to copy an item or group of items - "refactoring" is not easy because even when items are grouped you cannot move them as a group - arrows sometimes don't update their endpoints, even when they have been connected to an item - slow performance in the browser, especially for larger diagrams. - saving is slow and versioning is even slower These are just a few I thought of off the top of my head. These papercuts on their own are annoyances, but together makes it feel like the software is using me and not the other way around.
- theK 6y ago
  I like that you bring up refactoring. The biggest pain I have experienced with IT drawings is maintenance. If you are using a GUI these things are usually hard to maintain/refactor. As a matter of fact, I have experienced whole organizations just switching to graphviz, plant or other text based diagram tools just because of that!

zsiec 6y ago

Try out miro.com, the tool wasn't built for infrastructure diagrams, but you can do some amazing visualizations once you get comfortable with the tools there. That said, I love this MVP! I created a quick diagram of some video systems I maintain and the experience was pretty good. <3 the svg export

klohto 6y ago

Have you tried Draw.io? I use it heavily in our Confluence and it has an offline client.

somishere 6y ago
+1 for Draw.io ... extremely flexible, vector export, plus can connect and save to e.g. google drive, etc.