SmartDraw vs Visio comparison

Create presentation-quality business graphics with SmartDraw. SmartDraw makes fast results possible by taking a fundamentally different approach to drawing software. SmartDraw focuses on the end result (your illustration) not the drawing process. Instead of staring at a blank screen, with SmartDraw you start by selecting the exact template you need from over a hundred different types. Then use simple commands to add your information and SmartDraw does the rest.

Visio is an innovative collaborative solution that enables users to quickly visualize data-connected business process flows with a host of integrated intuitive features that bring the power of Microsoft 365 to Visio. Visio allows users to easily create professional diagrams, graphs, and other visual data, easily anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. Users are able to confidently and easily transform data into creative powerful visuals. Visio provides dozens of easy-to-use templates along with thousands of customizable colorful shapes that bring a user's best ideas to life. Visio is available for all Microsoft 365 commercial users and is available on desktop and Web applications.

Visio Features

Visio can easily create visual data for today’s business needs. Some of its most useful visual data include:

• Flowcharts: Users can easily bring business concepts to fruition with Visio’s robust flowchart features. Visio provides a huge library of shapes, stencils, and templates to transform numbers and data into impactful, easy-to-understand business stories.
  
• Organizational charts: Visio makes it easy to design articulate org charts to better visualize team, reporting, and hierarchy structures. Users are then able to seamlessly share the charts with stakeholders, teams, and employees.
  
• Network diagrams: Users are able to creatively display how a system design processes function and visually illustrate how devices and networks interact with each other using a variety of network shapes, templates, and connector tools.
  
• Brainstorming: Visio makes brainstorming simple and actionable with a wide range of templates designed specifically for interpreting problems and mapping out solutions, including fishbone and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) diagrams.
  
• Floor plans: Users can design ergonomic workspaces, retail store layouts, new homes, and more with accurate, scalable templates and tools to help them better visualize function, flow, and overall aesthetic appeal.
  
• Accessible: Visio is able to integrate with a wide variety of accessibility tools, such as Narrator, Accessibility Checker, and high-contrast support, to ensure Visio diagrams are available to your entire team.

Reviews from Real Users

“Visio has improved my workflow by making it easy to create charts, diagrams, and essential illustrations to use in my client reports and proposals. It has saved me a lot of time I would otherwise spend creating visuals for clients manually.” - Michael B., Principal Consultant at Lexington Consulting

“I use it for diagramming networks, racks, data centers, data flow applications, etc. It is a useful tool to map data flows, network objects, and computer science technology and to show to clients. It does what I need it to do. It's a tool I've used the longest, so I know it the best, and that's probably the claim to fame.” - Greg S., Director of Solution Architecture at Winslow Technology Group

“We use Visio for architecture modeling. We also use it to facilitate communication with other people. The feature I like most about Visio is that it acts as a facilitator of communication, as it displays information in a way that's easier to understand.” - Guy M., IT/Business Architect at a financial services firm