MacOS – Can anyone recommend an app for creating flowcharts and diagrams

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I'm seeking a Mac app for creating basic flowcharts and similar diagrams.

Google has been no help; I've followed dozens of links to apps that either don't exist anymore, I can't find any real reviews of, or that won't run on OS X 10.6.6.

What I'd really like:

  • A simple and clean interface

  • Basic shapes

  • Automated connectors that stay linked as you move shapes around

  • Inexpensive, preferably under $30 but definitely under $50

What I'm not looking for:

  • Hundreds of shapes

  • Default styles that have shadows and textures and such that I have to keep removing

  • Dozens of amazing features that allow you to automatically map databases and draw UML diagrams from code and such (I'm looking at you, Visio) that I have to constantly navigate around to make a few basic diagrams

  • A mind-mapping app with all the features such a thing entails, one that happens to also let you make basic diagrams

  • A full-fledged drawing app where, once again, I have to maneuver around a whole bunch of features and options to get to the basic functions I need. (I have Illustrator, I love Illustrator, but it's crap for basic flowcharts and other simple diagrams.)

I wouldn't actually use it for flowcharts, but rather basic similar diagrams to show data flow between apps, information flow in a company or other places, that kind of thing.

I recently found out that the drawing portion of Google Docs actually does a pretty good job with the types of diagrams I need to create, but the UI is pretty poor and it obviously requires a constant net connection.

Best Answer

If you can stretch your budget, get OmniGraffle for Mac. At $100, it's pricier than you'd like (do you possibly qualify for the $60 edu price?), but it's exactly what you're looking for.

On the lower end there's Mindcad Incubator for $50, but I haven't tried it myself and I'm not sure it does everything you want.