5 Best Mind Mapping Software Review: EdrawMind, XMind, Miro, MindMeister, MindManager
Many people battle to discover study and work abilities that suit them. Some strategies, such as reading or taking notes, just serve a few of us. With people are looking for options or more compelling techniques, mind mapping is so perfect.
(Image source https://unsplash.com/photos/bjemWZcNF34 )
Use a mind mapping tool so people prompts better information retention. Almost people of all ages or fields are undoubtedly acquainted with the feeling of pieces of information over-burden and the pressure brought by really focusing on recollecting an idea later.
Mind mapping software has helped people across the world change the way they make notes and improve their memory.
What is mind mapping software?
Mind mapping software is a tool that helps to organize pieces of information visually. The mind mapping tool is designed to represent the relationship between concepts and ideas graphically. The mind mapping tool is a visual thinking program that helps you synthesize, analyze, recall and create new ideas effectively.
Moreover, mind mapping software is a brainstorming tool that enables you to create visual diagrams of your ideas. Using a mind mapping maker, you can create an idea and a conceptual map that illustrates the connections and hierarchy between different ideas.
Why use mind mapping software?
Mind mapping is a great tool for communicating ideas and understanding because we are visual creatures humans and can process visual information quickly.
Of course, we can create a mind mapping on a piece of paper, but using mind mapping software has several advantages, such as:
- No sizes limitation: you aren’t limited to the size of your paper.
- Flexibility: you can easily re-arrange ideas by dragging and clicking.
- Co-creation: in software that allows you to create a mind mapping online, you can often have many users collaborating on the same mind mapping.
- Visual presentation: you can use the mind mapping tool to create professional diagrams that you can quickly present and share.
A survey from the mind mapping software found that mind map software online can increase your pace of study and work around 44%, boost creativity by around 30% and free up seven hours a week of users’ time.
Why mind map is popular?
Mind maps is so popular because it has a lot of benefits for study, work, and life.
Its appeal to your senses with its visual images, branch colors, and curved branches all add emphasis, ensure that you will remember your notes.
By the way, only noting down all keywords, you’ll save vital time while working and studying. Besides, when you go on to write essays or study for exams by your mind mapping, you can recall the most important information.
You create simple ideas by making your mind mapping. Your brain actively will make links between ideas and add connections, then put all thoughts in order and make further creative ideas.
Your brain responds to mind maps as it replicates the natural thinking process, so you will find simple ideas on the page, it is making studying and working more enjoyable and more fun.
Let’s take a look at some of the 5 best mind mapping software, you can use to thoughts, organize ideas and processes.
1. EdrawMind
EdrawMind is a full-featured collaborative mind mapping and brainstorming tool.
If you feel stuck? Let’s brainstorm with EdrawMind. Use it to organize and capture every idea when it strikes; you may be surprised by the achievement and difference it makes in the long run.
With EdrawMind, you can create beautiful presentations in seconds. Just write down your talking points in mind maps, add images and colors, and turn everything into a dynamic slideshow in one click. Once you are done, you can export the slides as an editable PDF or PPT file.
You can use EdrawMind to outline project plans, plan events, create business strategies, and much more. Planning with EdrawMind is simple, visual, and has even more fun.
EdrawMind enables organizations to share, store, and manage their collective knowledge securely and centrally.
EdrawMind is available on all devices. Whether you need to work offline or online, any time and from anywhere with any device, EdrawMind offers complete flexibility with a selection of apps available to us directly and to use on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and Web.
Reasons to recommend:
- An intuitive users interface that is easy to use.
- Huge library of built-in and users sharing mind mapping templates
- 33 themes & 700+stylish clipart
- 12 mind map structure like radial mind map, timeline diagram & bubble chart & & fishbone diagram and so on.
- A growing mind map examples gallery, and now it has 3000+ mind map examples
- All platforms supported: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and Web
Reasons to avoid:
- It’s lack of integration with other apps.
Pricing: EdrawMind pricing is available in the following plans: free version, Semi annual plan: $39, annual plan:$59, and lifetime plan: $145. Also, there is a special offer for education users starts from $10 monthly.
Trail: Free version is provided.
Website: EdrawMind
2. XMind
XMind is a professional software and it is one of the best mind mapping software, which is widely used for ideas management. It offers sustainable creativity and productivity.
XMind is the top choice of more than one million people worldwide. It’s open-source mind mapping software with a free basic version.
This software is compatible with various operating systems such as Apple OS X, Microsoft Windows, and Linux. Moreover, XMind is an award-winning idea management software solution.
Its simple, straightforward interface and set of excellent functionalities make it stand out. XMind helps developers by providing effective collaboration and communication. The solution maximizes the potential in creating services and productivity software.
Reasons to recommend:
- Protect your mind mapping files with passwords.
- Export the mind mapping as PNG, PDF, or markdown files.
- Mobile apps for Android and iOS devices available.
Reasons to avoid:
- Large mind mapping can take a lot of time to load properly.
Pricing: XMind pricing is available in the following plans:
XMind 8: Free with all types of diagrams
XMind 8 Pro: $129/year includes all types of audio notes, diagrams, customizable themes, and password encryption.
Trail: no time limit with the trial version.
Website: https://www.xmind.net/
3. Miro
Miro offers an infinite mind mapping canvas, robust set of widgets, prebuilt templates, toolkits for user stories or customer journey maps, roadmap, wireframing or sprint planning, retros, and more. This app helps you engage remote teams across tools, formats, and channels with digital workspaces that enable synchronous collaboration and asynchronous.
Miro excels in its value for prices (the freemium version is quite handy) and its functionality and features. For relatively a little cost (or no), you can experiment with a decent presentational tool with a minimal learning curve.
Integrations listed on their site, include Dropbox, Google Suite, Box, JIRA, Sketch, OneDrive, Slack, Zapier, and more.
Though favorable in its is offering. Miro could benefit from typography selection and vaster color. Moreover, the addition of other various shapes and UML diagramming templates would help to elevate the platform.
Reasons to recommend:
- Miro has a free trial version.
- So great library of templates.
- Tactile items movement without a grid.
- Quick Vote tools for prioritization.
Reasons to avoid:
- Export process of the board can be tricky.
- More simplistic design of the tools.
- Large board may lag when loading.
Pricing: Miro pricing starts at $8/user/month and has a freemium version.
Trail: no time limit with the trial version but unlimited team members.
Website: https://miro.com/
4. MindMeister
MindMeister is a beautifully designed, cloud-based mind mapping tool that lets you visually develop, capture and share ideas. Used alone or as a team, MindMeister allows you to easily share, collaborate and present from anywhere in the world.
MindMeister has an easy user interface so you can so quickly add ideas, videos, attach images, files, links or quickly sketch out a concept using the drawing feature. There’re some useful collaboration features to help you share the idea with your team, comment, vote and chat in-app and in real-time, so it is more than just a mapping tool. It’s also quite easy to turn your maps into a presentation with the auto-create, drag, and select presentation feature. You can share your map privately with a unique share link, publish it to Meister’s public maps universe and generate embed code.
I’d recommend this map for newbies because it only takes a few minutes to sign in and start mapping. Something I appreciate is that the app is not overloaded with lots of choices. What you get is a curated selection and a thoughtfully designed interface of themes, templates, and styles to create ready-to-share mind mapping. The basic setup is easy and quick. If you’re stuck, MindMeister offers an extensive online help center with fast email support and tutorial videos.
MindMeister also integrates with the task management app MeisterTask, where you can turn your mind maps into a project and assigning tasks using the built-in integration. MindMeister comes integrated with popular tools such as GSuite, Microsoft Teams, Confluence, and Dropbox.
Reasons to recommend:
- Simple to control with attractive output.
- Come with lots of templates.
- Easy to adopt or using.
Reasons to avoid:
- Sub-par users experience on a touchscreen.
- Integration is sometimes lacking.
Pricing: MindMeister pricing from $4.99/user/months.
Trail: no time limit and they also offer a free plan with 3 free maps.
Website: https://www.mindmeister.com/
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MindManager
The 5th spot in our list of the best mind mapping software goes to MindManager.
Known as visualization software, MindManager focuses on the business productivity point that’s vital yet painful. MindManager connects information and ideas visually to help users saving time, push innovation, and evolving business processes.
This level of advancement allows MindManager to be one of the stellar online collaboration tools. MindManager’s information map software is heavily focused on mapping methodologies and knowledge through visual interpretation.
This allows closing any gap that can happen between action planning and brainstorming. Therefore, it’s allowing to create a better understanding, make a path for better decisions and increase the productivity levels for users or their teams.
MindManager allows a person to organizes and layout their work in synergy with statistics and philosophies, leading them to fashion collaborative visual formats.
These formats normally consist of tree diagrams, information maps, Gantt charts, outlines, organization charts. The one feature that makes this software different is the special brainstorming mode.
Reasons to recommend:
- Immensely so powerful mind mapping software, a lot of good features such as links to other maps, easy handling of attachments, multiple links per topic, and good keyboard shortcuts.
- Good integration with project management-type methods and concepts.
Reasons to avoid:
- It’s so expensive when compared with alternatives.
- It’s still a bit clunky to edit.
Pricing: MindManager pricing available in the following plans:
Windows: $349.00 (SRP) for a one-time buy with a 30 day free functional trial period, co-editing, mobile viewers, capture tools, excel integrations, collaboration software, and project management enhancements.
Mac 13: $349.00 (SRP) for a one-time buy with 30 days free functional trial period, ability to organize plans from new touch bar support, floating ideas, dark mode, smart shapes, SmartRulesTM.
Trail: 30 days fully functional free version.
Website:https://www.mindmanager.com/
In this article, you have found out 5 Best Mind Mapping Software reviews: EdrawMind, XMind, Miro, MindMeister, MindManager. Using mind mapping software to take notes, structure and organize your mind, brainstorming or improve your memory, you can original creative ideas or get the information down a lot faster. Now, pick up your favourite mind mapping software and have a try.