8 Hava alternatives for architecture documentation
Hava is an inventory tool: connect, sync daily, diff the versions. If you are leaving it, decide what should happen after the scan, which sources besides the account matter, and how the diagram gets read.
Also searched as alternatives to Hava, Hava competitors, and Hava replacement.
What to look for when leaving Hava
What happens after the scan
An auto-generated diagram is an inventory. Ask whether you can annotate it, scope it to one system, and write the runbook into it.
Which clouds and which sources
AWS and Azure cover most estates. Terraform state matters as much: the diagram should show what you declared as well as what is running.
Read-only access
A diagramming tool should hold a read-only role and nothing more. Check what the credential can do before you grant it.
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.
- A scan you can edit. Hava is not a drawing tool; the diagram is what the sync produced. Continuum Cloud lands a Vellum canvas you edit, annotate and publish, with a stratum on every resource.
- Documentation behind the resource. Hava attaches notes to an environment. A Blueprintr stratum sits on each resource and holds markdown, tables, code, files and tabs.
- Terraform on the same canvas. Point an AWS connection at remote state and drift between declared and running shows on the diagram. Hava's Terraform provider registers sources; it does not read state.
- A free plan. Hava starts at $59 a month after a trial. Blueprintr's free plan holds unlimited blueprints, and Continuum Cloud arrives on Team.
Free forever for unlimited blueprints. Premium is $10 a month, Team is $29 a seat a month, Enterprise is quoted.
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.
Lucidscale
Cloud diagram automationLucidscale was Lucid's cloud-visualisation product; its features now live in the Cloud Accelerator, an Enterprise add-on that imports AWS, Azure and Google Cloud into Lucidchart.
Best for: Lucid Enterprise customers who want AWS, Azure and Google Cloud drawn on the Lucidchart canvas they already use, refreshed on a schedule.
No public price. The Cloud Accelerator is an add-on for Lucid Enterprise accounts, licensed account-wide and quoted by sales.
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.
IcePanel
Architecture modellingIcePanel is a C4-model architecture tool where every diagram is a view of one shared model, with flows, drafts, versions and decision records.
Best for: Teams committed to the C4 model who want one governed model, future-state drafts merged like branches, and decision records attached to the objects they concern.
Free up to 100 model objects, then $40 or $80 an editor a month billed annually. Viewers are free. Enterprise is quoted.
Structurizr
Architecture modellingStructurizr is the original C4 model tool: a text DSL that describes one model and renders many diagrams from it, now shipped as one binary with a licensed server edition.
Best for: Teams who want their architecture model in version control as a DSL, rendered in CI, and are comfortable running the server themselves.
The local tooling is free and open source. The server is licensed per installation by user count, from 300 pounds a month for up to 20 users, billed annually.
Ilograph
Architecture modellingIlograph builds interactive, zoomable architecture diagrams from a YAML model, with multiple perspectives and step-through sequences, in the browser or a desktop app.
Best for: Engineers who want a text-defined model rendered as an interactive diagram readers can zoom into, and a desktop app that works air-gapped.
Free for unlimited diagrams. Pro is $18 a month, Team $25 an editor a month, billed annually. The desktop app is $11.99 a month.
How Blueprintr compares with Hava
Read from Hava’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 | Hava | Blueprintr |
|---|---|---|
| Diagrams and the detail behind them | ||
| Documentation behind every shapeCan a shape hold real content: markdown, tables, code, files? | No: Notes attach to an environment, not to a resource. | 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? | No: Not a drag-and-drop tool. Custom connections can be drawn between resources. | 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? | No: Not offered. | 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. | 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 offered. | 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? | No: None documented. | 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? | Yes: AWS, Azure, GCP and Kubernetes, read-only. Daily sync on every plan, custom frequency on Enterprise, manual sync on demand. | 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? | Partly: Architectural monitoring alerts on environment change. No Terraform state reading. | 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: Resource attributes from the cloud API. No on-call, incident or ticket 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? | Yes: A new version on every detected change, with a diff between any two. Retention of 3, 6 or 12 months by plan. | 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? | Partly: A REST API on Teams and Enterprise, a CLI and a GitHub Action. No MCP server. | 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? | No: Not applicable; there is no canvas editing. | Yes: Multi-cursor editing on Vellum diagrams.Premium and up |
| Live embedsCan the live diagram sit inside Confluence, SharePoint, a README or your site? | Yes: Self-updating embeds and a Confluence Cloud macro, viewable without a Hava login. | 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? | No: Cloud APIs only. | 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? | Yes: PDF, PNG, Visio VSDX, CSV and JSON. | 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. | 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: SAML and OIDC on the Teams plan, in beta. SCIM is not available on the SaaS plans. | Yes: SAML and OIDC single sign-on, SCIM provisioning and IP allow-listing.Enterprise |
| Free planWhat do you get without paying? | No: No free plan. A 14-day trial with exports disabled. | Yes: Unlimited public and private blueprints, Vellum and draw.io, icon packs, embeds and a portfolio page.Free |
Moving work from Hava
Export the diagrams you rely on as PNG or Visio VSDX, then connect the same accounts to Continuum Cloud on the Team plan with a fresh read-only role. Scope each scan to the system a Hava environment showed and the canvas is drawn for you, with a stratum on every resource for the notes Hava kept at environment level. The version diffs and the security views do not come across; keep Hava for estate-wide monitoring if you rely on them.
Frequently asked
Why leave Hava?
Usually the monthly price with no free plan, the lack of a canvas to annotate, and the wish for the scan to become a published document with the runbook behind each resource.
Which alternative is closest to Hava?
Cloudcraft for an automated AWS and Azure picture with cost data. Blueprintr for a scan that becomes an annotated document with Terraform drift.
Can I keep the diagrams?
Yes, as PNG, PDF or VSDX. draw.io and Lucidchart open the VSDX.
Draw the first diagram. The document follows.
Hava is a trademark of Hava.io. 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.