Visio Reviews

The solution is primarily used for diagramming. I use it for a couple of different things, however, it's mostly for diagramming and documenting data center infrastructure including racks, wide area networks, logical designs, physical designs, and conceptual models.

The ability to clearly demonstrate and create labels has helped the organization immensely. To be able to create and to provide detailed configuration guidance on what ports to plug wires into, et cetera, is useful.

We use it to discuss design, network, and configuration options, as well as provide detailed guidance to the engineers on how to connect and how to configure our data centers.

The product itself is useful due to the fact that it's widely accepted. I can go out on the internet and I can pull down stencils in VisioCafe. I can easily get pre-drawn stencils for whatever I need and that makes life a lot easier.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The solution is stable. 

There are too many features. One of the things I find most annoying about Visio is the automatic connections. They're just like everything Microsoft does. They overdo it. There are too many features - especially when I have people who are not familiar with the tool. 

Users will start creating text boxes for objects that already have a text feature. For example, if you've got a computer and you take a picture of a computer or a stencil of a rack-mounted server, people wind up putting text boxes next to it instead of double-clicking on the box and adding the title there. It's mostly user error, however, it's overwhelming for new users. They don't realize what can be done.

I've been using Visio since before Microsoft bought it. It's been anywhere from 15 to 30 years. I've definitely used it for more than a decade. It's been a while. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable for the most part.

I use the desktop version of the product and cannot speak to how scalable the product is. It's only limited by the resources of the laptop itself. 

In our company, we have 10,000 users on the product. It's used extensively. All departments use it.

I can't say if the organization plans to increase usage or not. 

I never need to call technical support. I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

Our organization has used the solution for decades. We haven't used anything else. 

The initial setup is very straightforward. That said, I've also been doing this for three decades and therefore have had a lot of experience handling the process.

It's installed pretty cleanly. It's a Microsoft install and there's not really a whole lot of issues. If I don't have a stencil for what I'm drawing, I can go on VisioCafe and a couple of other websites to get them. You can get stencils for network devices, switches, routers, hubs, servers, and all sorts of fun stuff.

I cannot speak to the exact pricing. It's not an aspect of the solution I handle. 

We're a customer and an end-user.

Visio is one of the only approved products where I work, and it's one of the best.

I don't know if there's a newer version out, however, the only one I'm allowed, the only one the government provides me with is, is the 2013 version.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. The only real problem is that there are too many features and it's somewhat overdesigned. 

I work for BAM, which is the largest builder in the Netherlands. We have approximately 24,000 employees and we have a centralized IT that provides all products for our company. I use the solution for organizing many different types of visuals graphics. It has the ability to make drawings quickly with links, flowcharts, and organizational drawings.

I think the best part of Visio is that you can import drawings very well into Microsoft Word. For example, if you put the Visio drawing into Word, you can double click on it and it opens in Visio. It is a very useful feature and something which I miss switching to Enterprise Architect. In Enterprise Architect, if I import a drawing into Word it does not open the diagram in Enterprise Architect. This is one of the strongest features and the ability to create your own stencils. Additionally, it allowed the importation of AutoCAD drawings which was helpful because I did not have AutoCAD installed on my laptop.

They could improve the drawing function, other solutions provide easier drawing capabilities.

The UML drawings are quite limited, particularly the clause diagrams. You need to put a lot of effort to get everything right, compared to some other products I have tried.

In a future release, there should be more features in UML drawings. Generating drawings that belong to UML is quite an effort, everything is very tedious by hand and I prefer the methods which other competitors use which takes the effort away because some elements are done automatically. It requires fewer clicks with your mouse and fewer presses on the keyboard to accomplish the same result.

I have been using the solution for approximately 21 years.

The solution is stable.

I have also used other UML tools and almost all of them are easier to draw in than in Visio.

The implementation is done by our centralized IT team.

I evaluated Enterprise Architect and have now switched to it.

Visio is that it is a reasonable product.

I see Visio as something similar to Coral Draw, but more vector-oriented. For example, no picture, but vectors. I classified Visio more as a standard drawing program, it tries to be something else. I am drawing more and more diagrams in UML and Visio is not the ideal tool.

If I was going to rate Visio for generalistic drawings, it would be a solid eight. It is a good product, there is nothing wrong with it. However, this is not my main use case.

I rate Visio a five out of ten.

I use the solution to make graphs and schemas for infrastructure, application, and documentation.

We need proper documentation. The tool helps us during the project initiation to visualize things.

I have used it for so long that it is the product that I can work my best with. It has a lot of features compared to other competitors. The product provides a lot of flexibility in writing graphs and customizing them. It has a lot of stencils that we can use to make it seamless. I haven't seen that in other products.

The solution is pretty expensive. It could be cheaper.

I have been using the solution for 20 years.

I rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a six out of ten. I do not need to scale it much.

I do not contact support for Visio. I contact them for SQL Server. Sometimes, the knowledge of the people I talk to is not that good. Sometimes it's great, and sometimes it's not that good. It depends on the person who takes the case.

Neutral

I used draw.io in the past, but it was fairly limited compared to Visio. It didn't have a lot of functionality compared to Visio.

The setup is pretty easy. We just have to install the tool. We do not have to do a lot of configuration. It would be somewhat different in a business setup, though.

I have a Microsoft 365 license.

I prefer Visio. I have been working on it for a long time. It is a hassle to learn another tool. I will recommend the product to others. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use the tool for creating system plans and some hardware equipment structure.

I find the control flow and settings features valuable.

The control flow feature needs to be improved. I compared Visio to Bizagi and found that control flow is better with Bizagi. The improvements that can be made to the solution depends on the user. We don't want to restrict a user on what he can use and for what.

I have been using the solution for several years.

I have found Visio to be a stable solution.

Visio is a scalable solution. We have around 20-25 users for the tool.

The support for Visio from Microsoft is fine and subscription-based. We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft so the subscription is for three years. Therefore, we can solve all types of problems that Visio has.

The setup of Visio is straightforward.

The pricing of Visio is much better. It has a free version of the cheapest functionality which is enough for us.

I am using the latest version of Visio. I would rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I use Visio for designing diagrams and flowcharts. It is user-friendly and easy to use compared to other options. Although many people in my company use AutoCAD, I am not familiar with it. For all the designing, charts, and diagrams, I use Visio. If someone requests an AutoCAD format, I will design it in Visio and then forward it to our team who is responsible for converting it to a CAD file.

The main reason I choose Visio is that it is easy to use. The user interface is familiar and straightforward. Additionally, it offers a variety of templates, such as those for Cisco solutions, which make it easy to create diagrams for specific use cases. For example, we use a Cisco Meraki switch and we can find the exact template for it, then we can easily drop in the components and connect the cables to create the diagram.

Searching for specific templates within the program can be difficult. For example, if I need a template for an electrical diagram with certain symbols, it can be challenging to find it.

I have been using Visio for approximately three years.

I rate the stability of Visio a nine out of ten.

The scalability could be better for the cloud version.

I rate the scalability of Visio a six out of ten.

I did not use the support from Visio.

I have used some open-source solutions in the past but I prefer Visio.

The setup of Visio is simple.

The solution is expensive. The solution does come bundled in other packages.

I rate the price of Visio a three out of ten.

I rate Visio a seven out of ten.

We use Visio extensively for creating architecture, network and workflow diagrams. Also used for UML Class diagrams and various types of flow charts 

We use it to create diagrams used for architectural review. It's a great tool to create diagrams to show how an infrastructure or software architecture has being designed and then review that with the other domain architects.

I like the way you can Hyperlink objects to a URL, local file or other tabs within the same diagram. I use this to create an Overview tab with a high level digram and then link objects in the Overview to other tabs with more detail on that object. You can also save the diagram as a html page and then host on a local server to create an interactive diagram. You can also automate the creation of diagrams with PowerShell

Would be nice if visio viewer didn't require active-x.

I have been using Visio for over 15 years.

It's a stable solution. It's Visio. It just works.

Scalability is fine. It runs on each individual client. I haven't used any of the team integration hooks. We have a lot of technologists that use it and we're trying to make a move to move those architecture diagrams to be more driven by code by leveraging C4 and then model driven design through MagicDraw and that's a new journey for us. I think there are still going to be a large number of teams that still end up using Visio as it's very versatile. 

It's all automated for our firm by our department. I run it on my Mac as well, and it's super simple to set up.

We do everything ourselves. We set up and deployed this solution.

It's better than using PowerPoint or something else to draw the diagrams. 

It's not the cheapest product, but it's extremely valuable.

I would tell potential users that it depends on how you use it. You can use Visio for everything from designing networks to organizational charts. You can also use it for so much more as it's a very versatile tool. There are a lot of Visio stencils that are available on the web. Use those.

Just do your homework. But there's just a lot of people who have contributed to creating various open-source Visio stencils. Most product vendors have already created those stencils. You don't need to go and recreate it on your own. You can go to NetApp or VMware, or Cisco and download the stencil for their products. Then it makes it very easy to use and integrate.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Visio a nine.

I use the solution for process mapping and improvement.

The solution is user-friendly.

The performance sometimes lags and has room for improvement.

The price has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for a few years.

The solution is stable.

I give the scalability an eight out of ten.

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment took under 15 minutes by following the documentation.

The implementation was completed in-house.

We pay annually for the Visio license and it is expensive.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Visio is user-friendly and I recommend the solution to others.

There is a limitation in Visio. The solution is not aligned with a database. I can't submit more than one request at a time or do any calculations or have multiple users, or multiple procedures.

Microsoft needs to put more effort into data analysis around the tips and workflow related to the number of skills, procedures, and any small analytical information.

I would like Visio to use AI to evaluate the processing side because currently, it is not logically based.

I would like to have reports added to the solution. For example, if I drove a business process that related to a service, and this service related to another service, I would depict some servers. Reports which predict that from more than the related service would be very beneficial. These related procedures or related processes would take place on the solution's servers, database, and application.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

I give the stability of the solution a ten out of ten.

The solution is easy to scale.

We currently have around 20 users.

The technical support is easy to access and receive resolution.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I give the cost of Visio a five out of ten.

I give the solution a five out of ten.

There may be other solutions that are better than Visio on the market but when we complete an analysis we can conclude that the cost and ease of use of Visio are good.

I recommend the solution to other users.