I found lucid chart while trying to find something to reconfigure space in a building already under construction and to layout existing furniture all to scale in the 4 story office building. Lucid had a pretty small learning curve and allowed us to be able to have a plan for moving into our new building on time. It also let us layout our server racks for our server room. It really is a great tool and I was able to share out the diagrams with others during the move in process so they had something to reference as furniture was coming off of trucks into our building.

I needed a tool to document my home theatre and automation wiring and devices and LucidChart was recommended by a family member who used it at work. I downloaded the app, prepared to pay for it immediately, but no option was presented in the app. When I looked on their web site, the subscription pricing options did not show a buy option, so I waited for the trial to expire. At expiration, I was pointed again to the subscription page, and finally figured out that you have to click the heading of a subscription to be offered that purchase option. Most sites simply offer a buy button for each option. Oh well. The app works pretty well with a rare glitch here and there. I'm impressed with how intuitively it positions and works around your object positioning. Given the sophistication of the app, I think their pricing is quite fair.

Although LucidChart certainly is the most complete tool for creating flowcharts, many of the premium features offered are additional aesthetics for your maps that do not contribute in terms of functionality. If you are a software engineer working with a team that needs to make huge, complex maps for your programs, definetly give this a try, if only for the feature to share the map with your teammates and work on it simultaneously. However, if you are an individual user, there is not much LucidChart can offer you that is different from a lot of the free flowchart apps, available on the App Store alone. In addition, you do not need to create an account or share any of your personal data on these smaller apps so it is much safer for your privacy. To conclude, you will certainly find LucidChart handy, but I would try other services before considering signing up for a subscription.

Update- in using the app itself more it’s pretty nice and intuitive as a Visio “lite” type of replacement. What you’re able to do with your finger on the iOS version on iPad is pretty impressive. I was expecting much less or more usability issues on iPad, but it works really really well. There are some minor bugs outside of the actual diagramming functionality, I listed those below initially. However as I’ve said I’m very impressed with the main purpose/functionality of the app on ipad (iPad) I’m just starting out on day 1 with lucid, not going so well.I was able to login to the website with my office 365 login and password, when I hit new document (in Safari) I got a blank type of diagram / page with a zoom scroller but no other options or buttons.So I figured I would move over to the app, I try to login with the same login and password that worked on the website, but it keeps saying incorrect (additionally there is the only only the Google and Yahoo buttons in the app, on the web there is only Google in office 365).So I go to create a new account with my same login, it says account already exists.I create a new account with a different email only to find templates doesn’t have a search feature. Will update if it gets better, but may just look for a different Visio replacement on iPad.