Host draw.io without installing anything
The diagram editor served from your own instance: the drawing happens in your browser, and the map of your internal network goes to nobody.
Starting at €4.99/month
Introduction
draw.io installed, updated and backed up by us, on a machine in France. The reference diagram editor: flowcharts, networks, UML, BPMN. Your diagrams go to no third-party service. You install nothing and configure no server: the application is online a few minutes after you order, under your own name.
The plan that suits it is App Essentiel at €4.99/month incl. VAT — 2 GB of memory. draw.io has a peculiarity: the work happens in your browser, not on the server. The instance serves the application and its shape libraries — several thousand network, cloud, electrical and interface symbols — then stays quiet while you draw. The memory is there for the Java runtime that hands all this out, and so that ten people can open the editor at once without waiting. It is one of the calmest applications in the catalogue.
What gets replaced here is Visio, Lucidchart or Gliffy — often for a precise reason: an infrastructure diagram names addresses, hostnames and equipment, and that is not a document to drop onto a service whose hosting you know nothing about. The importer reads Visio VSDX files and Gliffy exports; export produces PNG, JPEG, SVG, PDF and HTML. The detail that changes everyday life: an exported PNG or SVG can carry the diagram itself, so you reopen the image in the editor months later and edit it instead of starting again.
What managed hosting changes
The complete shape libraries
Flowcharts, UML, BPMN 2.0, data models, screen mockups, floor plans, electrical diagrams, and above all the network icon sets: Cisco, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, patch racks. That body of shapes is what sets it apart from a general drawing tool.
Images that stay editable
An exported PNG or SVG can embed the description of the diagram. The image pasted into documentation or sent by email therefore reopens in the editor and can be corrected — no more hunting for a source file lost two years ago.
Visio in, everything out
Visio VSDX files and Gliffy exports open directly, with their shapes and layout. On the way out: PNG and JPEG for a presentation, SVG for print, PDF for archiving, HTML for a web page.
Nothing leaves your instance
The application is served from your hosting and works in the browser: no diagram is sent to a third-party analysis or storage service. For a network plan or an org chart with people's names on it, that is the only defensible arrangement.
Why hand it over rather than install it
An IT department mapping its network
Racks, switches, VLANs and fibre links are drawn with the real icons, and the plan is updated with every change. This document should never leave the building, and here it does not.
A consultant modelling processes
BPMN 2.0 is complete: events, gateways, swimlanes. The diagram then becomes an appendix to the report, exported as vector PDF that stays legible in print.
A developer documenting an architecture
Class diagrams, sequences, relational data models: enough to give a code repository the diagram that a README cannot convey.
A company leaving Visio
Old VSDX files open, get corrected and go out as PDF. The per-seat licence stops, and the diagrams stay reachable from any browser, including a machine with no software installed.
A trainer building course material
Diagrams exported as SVG drop into a slide deck without pixelating, and the image stays editable for the next session. No more retouching a blurred screenshot.
Hosted in France
In our own datacentre in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which we operate ourselves. The application comes from us, and the person on the phone speaks your language.
Frequently asked questions
Visio VSDX files open directly, as do Gliffy exports. From Lucidchart, the route is an export in Visio format, which draw.io then reads. Geometry and connections come across well; what needs a review are the very specific shapes of a proprietary set and missing fonts, which get substituted. On a large batch, open two or three representative files before converting everything.
This is the point to grasp before starting: draw.io is an editor, not a library. By default a diagram downloads as a .drawio file onto your machine, or stays in browser storage. For a team, the good practice is to keep those files where your documents already live — a shared drive such as Nextcloud, or a Git repository, which has the advantage of keeping their history since the format is XML.
This build does not offer real-time co-editing: two people do not draw on the same diagram at once, they pass the file along. There is no server-side diagram library and no permission handling — that is the job of whichever storage you choose. Export does not produce VSDX: draw.io reads Visio's format but does not write it back. And diagrams of several thousand objects eventually slow the browser down, since the browser is doing the work.
App Essentiel, at €4.99/month incl. VAT. It provides 2 GB of memory where the application asks for 768 MB at minimum: the headroom serves the system, not the decor. You can change plan later without reinstalling.
Nothing. You choose the application, fill in the fields it asks for — often an email address and a name — and it goes online. Access arrives by email with the address and the credentials.