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Ask HN: What do you use to create diagrams?

61 points ttd | 1 comments | 12 Mar 25 14:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.266s | source

I've been working on a diagramming tool [1] and wanted to get some thoughts from people who regularly make architecture and other technical diagrams. I know my own experiences but I'm quite curious to hear others.

I'm guessing for a lot of people draw.io and Excalidraw are probably the go-to. If you use draw.io (or something else), what do you like about it, or what do you wish was better?

[1] - https://app.vexlio.com/ for the curious

1. cratermoon ◴[12 Mar 25 14:37 UTC] No.43343734[source]▶
None of the visual diagramming tools pass muster for me. They are all too fiddly and trying to use them requires a lot of yak-shaving to get the layout acceptable.

The diagrams I draw are all done with something like graphviz, plantuml, mermaid, Structurizr, or d2.

Very rarely I'll use excalidraw to throw together a one-off.