OmniGraffle Reviews & Product Details

I like that it creates vector based drawings. I mainly use Omnigraffle to create flows. These being complex and large canvas you need to zoom in and out to see the whole thing so it cannot be done in a bitmap based tool like Axure. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Omnigraffle aged on many levels. Shortcuts are not consistent with the one commonly used by other Mac apps. Double clicked is used a lot. The overall UX could use some refactoring. It is very paper driven while I only use it now for digital documentations (we don't print anything where I work and these document are too large to be printable anyway). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I discovered OmniGraffle looking for a tool to create ER diagrams for table based database design. Once you try it, you could not do anything without. OmniGraffle is a powerful tool, full of options: you can make schemas but is a great software to create vector drawings. Grids, alignments, the countless ways to customize any object and any form (starting from the simplest, such as curved lines breaks) are incredible: you can work on grappling points, grouped into several layers and design patterns to use in future works as needed. Every object and drawings can be exported in several formats (also multiple sheets together) and is definitely a worthy rival of Sketch (another most voted tool for creativity). The nice thing OmniGraffle is its native integration with many standards (not only in IT, and software design such ER or UML, but also in fields such as architecture, or electronics). The presence of levels will certainly be appreciated by fans of Adobe Photoshop. If I have to carry a schema or a simple icon, this always goes through the use of OmniGraffle, one of the programs that I always keep in my DockBar, maybe combined with more advanced graphics editing software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sometimes the options are too many, resulting in time-consuming exporting, and also the settings on the automatic resizing of the sheets are a little invasive and difficult to manage. The software, as its main hand, is a bit heavy, but I would not call it a real bad point, given the huge amount of options available. The formats are proprietary, but the software is well established and receives continuous updates so it does not scare me. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy of use.

Smart inspector.

Smart guides and alignment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Pro version is overpriced and Standard version is not good enough.

As a wire-framing tool is just too slow and after using it for years I moved to Sketch because is faster, provides more flexibility, they develop new features and improve the software more frequently and is more open to the community with lots of plugins that help you get things done they way you need it.

Also Sketch allows you to move from wireframes to design or prototypes seamlessly, playing nicely with lots of other apps (Marvel, Flinto, Framer, etc...). Omnigraffle as a prototyping tool is just not good enough.

It's a shame that for a tool that has been on the market for so long, Omnigraffle hasn't evolved as fast as the needs of the designers who use it (or used to use it :) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Omnigraffle is one of the best tools around for creating process flows, screen flows, and any other logic or path based maps. One of my favorite features is the ability to import stencils that represent different mobile and desktop screens. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The interface can be a bit clunky at times; I feel like I have to do more clicking than necessary to access the features I want. I think there could be some improvements in this area that would make my workflow much faster. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Omnigraffle allows me to organize ideas, concepts, and link them together, giving me a clear vision of my writing work to come. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The latest versions are a bit sophisticated for my personal use, I don't need so many features. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

My favorite app to create sturdy diagrams. I use this primarily to create user flow diagrams and information architecture diagrams. A lot of carefully-designed features to help you make diagrams that won't fall apart if you want to move something, or add/remove nodes, etc. For instance, line hops!!! Such an esoteric diagram-building problem that is solved so elegantly by this tool.

Downloadable stencils are a very valuable asset that can render this tool infinitely more useful -- if you know where to look to get good stencils.

The inspector/library panel is very powerful and has a full feature set, but somehow manages to NOT be ugly!

I find this tool (and the deliverables it creates) very easy on the eyes, which is not something I value above all other things, but it does help! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

VERY limited ability to create prototypes from the wireframes you create in these tools. A clunky PDF prototype with hotspots = you can do better.

Honestly, for wireframes you're better off building in Axure because of the ability to quickly convert to HTML, add in quick interactions, and share via the AxShare platform. But this is definitely my #1 tool for any sort of diagrams.

Creating lines between diagram nodes can become clunky. While I love the ABILITY to change from a curved/bezier line to a sharp/angular line at the press of a button, sometimes the results are less than stellar and I don't always know the most direct way to fix it.

This problem is hardly unique to Omnigraffle, but navigating your page's contents via the little "Contents" panel is nightmarish... oftentimes it's just a hundred-items-long list of "Rectangle" "Rectangle" "Rectangle" "Circle" "Circle" "Group" "Text" which is virtually useless. I typically opt to just click on the objects on the page itself in order to select them.

Not a cheap program. Make sure it will do what you want it to before you purchase it! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Omnigraffle was one of the first 3rd party tools that really wowed me when I switched to OSX in 2008.

It has a clean interface, it's stable, easy to use, and has consistently improved on minor usability issues in each release.

It lets you create professional looking diagrams quickly and easily.

PDF export works really well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Unfortunately there are areas where Omnigraffle has lost its way a bit, or never lived up to its potential.

SVG export is still pretty poor. If you expect the SVG output to be a carbon copy of your diagram you'll be disappointed. You'll definitely need to tweak your graffle document to fix minor glitches, line misalignment etc.

This usually means working with precise line lengths and placement, copying/pasting dimensions between objects. It'd be great if there was an option to disallow fractions of pixels and other units of measurement, as I'm fairly sure it'd reduce the amount of cleanup required to get clean SVG exports, and to prevent artifacts when resizing objects.

The other major issue with Omnigraffle is they followed (what I assume) the Apple UI guidelines, and merged the inspector into the right side of the viewing window. Apple products got the same treatment, and I have to say, it really messes with my workflow (even after a year of using apps with the new layout) it's definitely not an improvement. I guess we can mostly blame Apple for that though.

The final issue I have with Omnigraffle, is the lack of a good standard set of icons for network diagrams. The ones available from graffletopia (3rd party icon site) are mostly conversions from Viso, and are beginning to look really tired. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Simplicity, Stencils, Export Functionality, Nice to user pre-defined templates Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

- I would like have something that UX Pin offers. A fully functional prototype.

- Cloud Sync and Share

- Easy integration of cloud tools such as box, dropbox etc.

- Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There's a lot of flexibility provided in OmniGraffle. One can set up multiple canvases at various sizes. On those canvases you can have many, independent layers that you can turn on and off (for demonstrating "states" in UI design, printing, exporting to a PDF). One can order layers very easily as well as lock them on a canvas. OmniGraffle also has a "shared layer" feature (a canvas can have many) which allows one to set up common elements such as navigation headers, footer, sidebars, etc. which are shared between all the pages. An element edited on one of those shared layers will ripple through all canvases that use that shared layer.

One can also combine vector graphics—which is everything that you create in OmniGraffle itself—and import images that you can layer—send back of backwards—within a layer. Vector graphics can be dragged into OmniGraffle from Illustrator and just about any image type can also be placed on a canvas and manipulated (cropped, set transparency).

Then there are Stencils and Libraries of Stencils which are often used items that you can drag-and-drop onto a canvas. One can build their own frequently used Stencils (for a project for example) and share it between teams. Furthermore, one can even download stencil libraries (some free, some paid) that are painstakingly created templates from other creators that are commonly used elements in wireframing and mockups. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The stencils "inspector" or panel is poorly implemented in the latest OmniGraffle (version 6). The "guides" implementation could use improvements as well (such as placing a precise guide at a location on a canvas by entering a pixel measurement X and Y manually). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I've been using it for a long time and can produce layouts pretty quickly. I like all the stencils and grids available. They make my life way easier. There's a lot of support out there for the product. Blog posts with tips and ideas are readily available via a Google search.

Presentation mode makes it a breeze to present your work to internally or externally and it's easy to create a professional looking document. You can also create clickable prototypes to show flows. They aren't flashy, but demonstrate workflows relatively well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

If you don't set up a document properly, it is very tedious to use. You also have to be very organized with your assets within your document or it becomes difficult to keep track of everything. It requires a lot of pre-planning.

The interface is a little daunting at first and there is a pretty steep learning curve. I've seen a lot of designers get frustrated with it.

It's not the most collaborative tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.