Astah Professional vs Lucidchart

Astah Professional is a desktop modeling tool for visualizing software design with diagrams and code-related models. It supports UML diagrams, ERD, data flow, flowchart, requirement, CRUD, and mind map diagrams. ER diagrams can be created manually or generated from imported database tables, with SQL export and reverse engineering. Modeling features include automatic layout, traceability maps, project comparison and merging, map view, and state-transition paths and tables. Astah can reverse engineer Java, C#, and C++ and generate code for PHP, SQL, and other languages. Team features cover file locking, file merging, model comparison, and read-only project references; real-time collaboration is not available. Its API and Script Editor can retrieve model information and create or modify diagrams and models. Plug-ins listed include Mermaid, Microsoft Office, Redmine, and Miro. AI Chat Copilot requires an external provider API key or endpoint. Supported platforms listed for Professional 12.0 include Windows 11 x64, macOS 13+ arm64, Ubuntu 24.04, and Rocky Linux 9.6.

Lucidchart is a cloud-based diagramming tool for mapping processes, planning teams, and visualizing technical systems. It supports process maps, flowcharts, organization and team planning, technical diagrams, and systems and architecture visuals. Lucid AI can use text prompts to add content to the canvas and answer questions. Users can link Google Sheets, Excel, or CSV files to create visualizations from data, and collaborate in real time or asynchronously. Its marketplace lists integrations including Jira, Confluence, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Notion, AWS, and Azure. The public API supports creating, reading, and updating Lucidchart and Lucidspark documents. The Free plan costs nothing and includes three editable Lucidchart documents, up to 60 shapes per document, and 100 basic templates. Individual costs $9 a month and adds unlimited documents, shapes, and lines, premium templates and shape libraries, Presentation Mode, 1 GB cloud storage, and Visio import and export. It is available on Android, iOS, web, and as an extension; there is no desktop app. Lucid lists a free plan and a seven-day trial.