8 Gliffy alternatives for architecture documentation
Gliffy is the Confluence-native choice. If you are leaving it, the questions are whether the diagram can carry its own documentation, whether it can be read outside Confluence, and what keeps it true.
Also searched as alternatives to Gliffy, Gliffy competitors, and Gliffy replacement.
What to look for when leaving Gliffy
Whether the diagram is the document
A general editor produces a picture you then paste into a wiki. Look for a tool where the detail is behind the shapes and the picture never leaves.
Sharing without exporting
A PNG rots the day it is pasted. A live URL or embed shows every reader the current version.
Technical icons and imports
Check for real vendor icon packs, and for an import path from the files you already have.
The shortlist
Blueprintr
Diagram-first documentationA blueprint is a document that opens on a diagram. Every shape carries its own detail, and the blueprint publishes to one live URL. On Team, Continuum Cloud draws AWS and Azure from a read-only role. On Enterprise, Continuum Link attaches dated snapshots from monitoring and ITSM tools, and Continuum Local sweeps your on-premise network from inside it so Blueprintr can draw it.
- Documentation behind the shape. A Gliffy shape carries a popup note of up to 250 characters and a link. A Blueprintr stratum carries markdown, tables, code, files and tabs, and can hold another diagram.
- Read anywhere, not only in Confluence. A blueprint publishes to its own page and embeds in Confluence, SharePoint, a README or a website. Gliffy Cloud has no embed links outside Confluence.
- A scan that draws for you. Continuum Cloud draws AWS and Azure from a read-only scan on Team, and shows drift from Terraform state on AWS. Gliffy offers AWS, Azure and GCP shapes; you draw.
- History with diffs. Gliffy keeps a version on every save and restores it. Every blueprint publish is a snapshot, with diffs against any earlier version and restore on Team.
Free forever for unlimited blueprints. Premium is $10 a month, Team is $29 a seat a month, Enterprise is quoted.
Lucidchart
General diagrammingLucidchart is Lucid Software's general-purpose diagramming editor, with data linking, a large template library, Lucid AI and Visio import, sold as part of the Lucid suite.
Best for: Organisations that want one diagramming tool for every department, from org charts to floor plans, with deep Microsoft 365, Confluence and Jira integrations.
Free for three documents, then about $9 a month for an individual and $10 a user a month for a team, billed annually. Enterprise is quoted.
draw.io
General diagrammingdraw.io is a free, open-source diagram editor that runs in the browser or on the desktop and saves to the storage you choose, with paid apps for Confluence and Jira.
Best for: Anyone who wants a capable, free editor with no account, files they control, and diagrams inside Confluence or Jira pages.
The editor is free and open source. The Confluence Cloud app is free up to ten users, then from $1.95 a user a month.
Microsoft Visio
General diagrammingMicrosoft Visio is Microsoft's diagramming app for Windows and the browser, sold as a Microsoft 365 add-on or a perpetual licence, with a lighter version bundled in Microsoft 365.
Best for: Microsoft 365 organisations that want data-linked diagrams from Excel, SharePoint and SQL, Windows desktop tooling, and files that live in OneDrive and SharePoint.
Visio Plan 1 is $5 and Plan 2 is $15 a user a month, paid yearly. Perpetual licences are $309.99 and $579.99. A lite web app is bundled with Microsoft 365.
Eraser
Diagrams and docs togetherEraser is an AI-first diagramming tool for engineers: diagrams written as code or drawn on a canvas, with a markdown document beside them in the same file.
Best for: Teams who want diagrams generated from Terraform, CloudFormation or a codebase, kept in a GitHub repository as text, and updated by a bot on pull requests.
Free for three files, then $15 or $45 a member a month billed annually. Enterprise is quoted.
Whimsical
Diagrams and docs togetherWhimsical is a whiteboard for product teams with flowcharts, wireframes and mind maps on Boards, a Docs editor beside them, multiplayer editing and an AI agent.
Best for: Product teams who want quick flowcharts and wireframes next to lightweight docs, with an AI agent that drafts both.
Free for 50 objects a month, then $10 an editor a month for Pro and $20 for Business, billed annually. AI is bought in credit packs.
Cloudcraft
Cloud diagram automationCloudcraft draws AWS and Azure architecture diagrams from a live account scan, in 2D or isometric 3D, with a cost estimate attached.
Best for: Teams who want an auto-generated inventory diagram of an AWS or Azure account with a running cost estimate, especially if they already use Datadog.
Free for manual diagrams. Pro is $40.83 a user a month billed annually, Enterprise $100 a user a month billed annually.
Hava
Cloud diagram automationHava generates versioned infrastructure and security diagrams from read-only connections to AWS, Azure, GCP and Kubernetes, synced daily.
Best for: Operations and security teams who want an always-current inventory of every environment, with a diff between any two syncs and alerts when something changes.
No free plan. Professional is $59 a month for three sources, Teams $249 a month for ten. Enterprise is quoted.
How Blueprintr compares with Gliffy
Read from Gliffy’s own pages on 7 September 2026 and from Blueprintr’s pricing table. The plan label is the Blueprintr tier the capability lands on.
| Capability | Gliffy | Blueprintr |
|---|---|---|
| Diagrams and the detail behind them | ||
| Documentation behind every shapeCan a shape hold real content: markdown, tables, code, files? | Partly: Popup notes of up to 250 characters on basic and flowchart shapes, and links to a URL, another diagram or a Confluence page. | Yes: A stratum on any shape: markdown, tables, code, files, links, tabs, even another diagram.Free |
| Hand-drawn diagrams with vendor iconsCan you draw freely, with real AWS, Azure, GCP and Kubernetes icons? | Yes: A drag-and-drop editor with AWS, Azure and GCP shape libraries, inside Confluence. | Yes: Vellum, with vendor icon packs and your own SVGs. draw.io and Excalidraw are engines too.Free |
| Diagrams from textCan a diagram be written as code and kept in version control? | Partly: A Mermaid editor inside the app, on Cloud. Converted Mermaid becomes shapes and can no longer be edited as code. | Partly: Mermaid tabs render from text and sit beside drawn tabs. Vellum diagrams are drawn, not coded.Free |
| A documentation siteLong-form docs with a nav tree, search and your own domain? | No: Not offered. Confluence is the document. | Yes: Folium: nested pages, search, your subdomain or custom domain, with live blueprints in the pages.Team and up |
| Present from the diagramCan the diagram itself be the slide deck? | No: Not documented. | Yes: Podium frames regions of a live canvas as slides and presents them in the browser.Premium and up |
| AI draftingCan AI draw a first draft, or convert a document you already wrote? | Partly: Create with AI drafts Mermaid you convert to shapes, on Cloud only. | Yes: Draft from a description or a document, and explain a shape. Every change is proposed, then confirmed by you.Free allowance, credits on paid plans |
| Keeping the diagram true | ||
| Draw AWS or Azure from a live accountWill it diagram what is actually running, read-only? | No: Shape libraries only. No live account import. | Yes: Continuum Cloud takes a read-only role or a Reader app registration and scans the accounts or subscriptions and regions you choose, narrowed to a VPC, subnet or resource group.Team and up |
| Terraform drift on the diagramDoes it compare what you declared with what is running? | No: Not offered. | Yes: Point an AWS connection at your Terraform remote state. Drift from the declared infrastructure shows on the diagram.Team and up |
| Operational data on shapesCan a shape show the on-call, the open incidents or the uptime from the tools that report them? | Partly: CSV data linking on shapes. No on-call, incident or monitoring connectors. | Yes: Continuum Link attaches 39 connectors (PagerDuty, Datadog, ServiceNow, CloudWatch and more) as tabs on a stratum, each a timestamped snapshot an editor refreshes. On-premise systems such as SolarWinds, Zabbix and NetBox answer through Continuum Local, an agent inside your network that also sweeps it for Blueprintr to draw.Enterprise |
| Version history and diffsCan you see what changed since the last review, and restore? | Partly: A version on every save with restore. Pinning a previous version is Data Center only. No diff view. | Yes: Every publish is a snapshot. History diffs against any earlier version and restores it.Team and up |
| AI agents and an APICan Claude Code, Cursor or a script read and write your documentation? | No: No API or MCP server is documented. | Yes: A personal MCP server and a REST API, with scoped keys you mint yourself. |
| Sharing, teams and platform | ||
| Real-time collaborationCan two people draw on one canvas at once? | Yes: Real-time collaboration on Confluence Cloud with cursors, follow mode and object locks. | Yes: Multi-cursor editing on Vellum diagrams.Premium and up |
| Live embedsCan the live diagram sit inside Confluence, SharePoint, a README or your site? | Partly: Diagrams live in Confluence pages and update wherever the page is copied. External embed links are Data Center only. Slack unfurls a snapshot. | Yes: An iframe or oEmbed embed of the live blueprint. Readers open strata inside it. Footer-free on Premium.Free |
| Bringing existing work inWhich files and sources come across? | Yes: Gliffy formats, Visio VSDX and VDX, draw.io files, and Lucidchart JSON on Data Center. | Yes: draw.io files, PDF, DOCX, PPTX, Markdown and images through the import wizard. Confluence, Notion and SharePoint through a grant.Premium and up |
| Getting work outWhich formats can you leave with? | Partly: PNG, JPG, SVG and the Gliffy format. No PDF export is listed. | Yes: PNG, SVG, PDF and GIF from Vellum. Whole blueprints as Markdown and YAML. A folium as a static site.Free |
| Desktop appIs there a native app, and does it work offline? | No: None documented. | Yes: Blueprintr Vellum for macOS, Windows and Linux, plus Vellum Core: local files, no account, no network.Free |
| SSO and SCIMCan your identity provider own sign-in and provisioning? | Partly: Identity belongs to Atlassian. Gliffy documents no SSO or SCIM of its own. | Yes: SAML and OIDC single sign-on, SCIM provisioning and IP allow-listing.Enterprise |
| Free planWhat do you get without paying? | Partly: Free for up to ten Confluence Cloud users with no time limit. | Yes: Unlimited public and private blueprints, Vellum and draw.io, icon packs, embeds and a portfolio page.Free |
Moving work from Gliffy
Export each Gliffy diagram as SVG or PNG, or as a draw.io file where the option exists, since draw.io runs inside Blueprintr as an engine and opens them as editable tabs. Redraw the architecture diagrams in Vellum with the vendor icon packs, and put the popup notes into strata where they have room to grow. On Enterprise, embed the finished blueprint into the Confluence page the Gliffy diagram used to sit on.
Frequently asked
Why leave Gliffy?
Usually diagrams that cannot be read outside Confluence, a 250-character limit on shape notes, no PDF export on Cloud, and the wish for a diagram that carries its own documentation and stays true to the cloud.
Which alternative is closest to Gliffy?
draw.io for Confluence, which is also a Marketplace app and imports Gliffy files. Blueprintr for architecture documentation where the diagram is the page.
Can I keep my Gliffy diagrams?
Yes. Export them as SVG or PNG. draw.io and Lucidchart both import the Gliffy format directly.
Draw the first diagram. The document follows.
Gliffy is a trademark of Perforce Software Inc. Every other product named here is a trademark of its owner, and Blueprintr is affiliated with none of them. Facts were read from each vendor’s published pages on 7 September 2026. If something is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.