A faster, cleaner alternative to draw.io — built for engineers
Make clear technical diagrams without the clutter. Focus on ideas, not nudging and tweaking.
No account required!
Why engineers are switching from draw.io
Just want something simple and focused, not 300 buttons.
Diagrams shouldn't lag. You need quick, responsive tools, even for complex systems.
Your diagram might end up in a doc, deck, or publication, and it should look like it belongs there.
Common frustrations you've probably encountered:
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close Spending 30 minutes nudging arrows into place
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close Features everywhere, just not the ones you need
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close Sluggish performance with even medium-sized diagrams
Vexlio is built for speed, clarity, and technical communication
High visual quality by default makes diagrams just look right.
Made with power-users in mind.
Get your diagrams done more quickly.
Made in under 3 minutes with Vexlio
How Vexlio stacks up versus draw.io
| Vexlio | draw.io | |
Smooth performance even for complex diagrams |
Yes
|
No
|
Minimal, focused UI |
Yes
|
No
|
Smart tools to make common tasks easy |
Yes
|
No
|
Built-in code syntax highlighting |
Yes
|
No
|
True LaTeX support |
Yes
|
No
|
Built for engineers |
Yes
|
No
|
Key point: Focus and Clarity
Draw.io's physical-page based interface focuses on print media. Vexlio gives you an infinite drawing canvas for diagramming and a clean, minimal UI, changing how you can think about and interact with your diagrams. We have found this mental shift to lend a significant boost in focus as you're creating your diagrams.
A lot of engineering work comes down to taming complexity. Vexlio reduces visual clutter and focuses on the essentials, helping you do the same for your engineering diagrams.
Key point: Productivity
Here are a few of the tools Vexlio offers with a deliberate eye towards productivity:
- Code syntax highlighting. Need code snippets? Vexlio offers automatic syntax highlighted code text boxes with support for 50+ languages.
- Connectors with labels. Vexlio's robust connector system lets you add text labels with auto-placement to your connectors with just one click.
- Rapid grid duplication. Duplication of an object or objects into a customizable grid is a powerful design tool. After you use this tool for yourself, you'll see opportunities for it to reduce excessive copy/pasting while drawing.
Key point: Precision
Engineering as a discipline is one that frequently demands precision and attention to detail.
Vexlio places a strong emphasis on precision, and efficient precision at that. With a robust system of snapping and connector constraints (more on constraints in a later post), Vexlio aims to offer easy precision such that you never again have to argue with a line that won't stay straight. While Draw.io does offer some alignment and other guides, after using Vexlio for a while you'll see firsthand how our snapping and alignment system simply feels better to use .
Here's what our users have said
Real users speaking about Vexlio's previous desktop version:
I was able to knock together some pretty nice diagrams super-quickly using the demo version. Lots of nice touches.— Gabe R.
Definitely addresses many of the pain points I have with Google Drawings, Inkscape etc. for making diagrams.— Jim M.
Your application fits an empty spot in my toolbelt.— Clint P.
A great companion to TexLive for technical publications.— Jeremy A.
No sign-in required!
Why we built a Draw.io alternative focused on clarity and speed
Diagramming is an important part of many engineers' daily work. Draw.io has enjoyed a stable and growing userbase, and rightfully so, as it offers a practical solution for diagramming and flowcharting that suits many usecases. Specifically for engineering and other technical diagrams however, we believe Vexlio is better suited than Draw.io.
As you move objects around, Vexlio automatically aligns and snaps, showing visual guides to let you know what's being aligned.
Connectors know what you want, and their labels do too.
Vexlio as a whole is a simple and focused app, designed to help you keep your eye (literally) on what matters: your content. Our interface doesn't present you with reams of buttons and menus. Instead, we've put our focus on paring the app down to the essentials, the tools and content types that are most basic to all types of diagrams. And we've made those tools work in just the way you need.
With a robust system of snapping and connector constraints, Vexlio aims to offer easy precision such that you never again have to argue with a line that won't stay straight. While Draw.io does offer some alignment and other guides, after using Vexlio for a while you'll see firsthand how our snapping and alignment system simply feels better to use.
Code syntax highlighting for 50+ languages and multiple themes.
With each feature that we design for Vexlio, we make careful efforts to ensure that the feature is intuitive, quick to use, and composes cleanly with the snapping system and other precision-oriented features. In other words, Vexlio offers tools designed with productivity as a first-class concern.
Design tools are only as useful as their environment allows them to be, and no tool is smart enough to overcome slow or laggy performance of the app itself. Frequently, users of Draw.io experience performance drops and UI slowdowns as their diagrams get more complex. Vexlio is designed with performance in mind, using the latest web technologies including GPU rendering and WASM for accelerated compute. No matter how large or complex your diagram is, you can depend on Vexlio to give you smooth scrolling and low-latency UI responses.