It’s open-source, offers manual and automatic editing, and is portable. Dated but worthwhile productivity programįreeMind has all the capabilities of a good productivity program to help you gather your thoughts and ideas. It also has features relevant to corporate work and clients such as Slide-Base Presentations, Gantt View, and integration with office suites. New users can easily use this since it has a catalog of templates you can choose from. It has all the capabilities of this program while offering a bit more in terms of extra features. XMind is a good alternative to FreeMind since it is also available on desktop and mobile. While it is a cross-platform program, it will only run on a system with a Java Runtime Environment.

The downside of FreeMind is that it’s written in Java.

These developers likely use this program too so you’re sure to get new features. This also means programmers are allowed to contribute new features to the software. Also classified as an open-source program, coders that want to debug and patch its program are welcome to do so since it ensures that it always runs smoothly. It is unique from mind mapping tools since its source code is available online. If you need to share your mind map, you can export your work into HTML, XHTML, PDF, PNG, JPEG, SVD, and OpenDocument. You can also reference external files you can add HTML links and links to files stored in your local drive. Other designs include folding branches, icons on individual nodes, and clouds around branches.

It’s a useful function that helps introduce mind maps to beginners. Those that are new to mind maps may want to have the program arrange nodes and branches for you. Just like drawing on paper, you can rearrange the notes in any way that you want or need. The programs’ mind maps are created using notes and are joined by branches.

Top 10 mind mapping software