Free mind mapping (and related types) software

I see regular inquiries on Twitter and in forums from people looking for free software to support visual thinking. To provide answers, InformationTamers have put together 14 pages to help you find the one for your needs. These show the platform, a screen thumbnail and a link for more information in each case. We built this article using the most complete source for details of information mapping software on the Web: Mind-mapping.org. Hat tip to Vic Gee who put Mind-mapping.org together and kept it up to date for years. [I took over that site in August 2013 – Roy Grubb]

Mind-mapping.org has a good capability for selecting software by map type and operating system (click on the ‘Refine software list’ tab at the top right of its web page). Although it shows the price, it doesn’t let you filter on price or choose to see only the free ones. The articles here, categorized by map type, are a quick source to find current software that is free or has a free option. It excludes free-trial tools.

“Free” here is as in beer, not in freedom, though some of the software listed is open source, so is free in both senses.

Of course a pencil and paper is always almost free.

This used to be one long page, but as I updated and added to it, it became unmanageable, so now it’s broken down by category. Some tools are flexible enough to appear in more than one section.

Free tools …

Click through for more details:

3D concept and mind maps 3DTopicscape Conspicio Morcego Concept maps 3DTopicscape Bubbl.us Cayra CmapTools CoFFEE Compendium Conzilla InfoRapidKB Labyrinth LifeMap VUE Hypergraph Development platforms for map forms JGraph JSViz Prefuse GeNIe&SMILE transLucid yEd Diagrams, flowcharts Creately Dia DrawAnywhere Gliffy GraphViz My.Origramy yEd Hyperbolic trees GraphViz Hypergraph Treeviz yEd Information & knowledge management 3DTopicscape eyePlorer InfoRapidKB JSViz MohioMap ProtégéFrames ProtégéOWL Xebece Maps of arguments, decisions, influence, etc. Argunet Cohere Debategraph Prefuse Mind maps 3DTopicscape Cayra CharTr Coggle ConnectedMind Creately DRichardMm FreeMind Freeplane Gliffy GraphMind Hypergraph InfoRapidKBB Mind42 MindApp MindMapViewer MindMaple MindMup MindRaider Semantik SpicyNodes Spiderscribe Text2Mindmap Tomboy ViewYourMind WiseMapping Xebece Xmind XWiki Ontologies and taxonomies Jambalaya ProtégéOWL Dendroscope Presentations Prezi VUE Read-only content maps GraphWords InfoRapidKP InstaGrok MohioMap Visuwords WikiMindMap Treemaps SpaceSniffer TreeSheets Treeviz Wiki-related MindRaider QwikiWiki XWikiMindMap With significant limitations in free account InfoRapidKP LovelyCharts MindMeister Mindomo Wisdomap