At a glance
Who each one suits
draw.io suits you when
You want to pay nothing at all, you want the file on your own disk or in a drive your organisation already trusts, you need to work offline on a desktop, or your team keeps its diagrams in Confluence, Google Drive or GitHub. Its source code is published under the Apache 2.0 licence, it needs no account, and it has been reading its own files since 2005. You should also be content to draw every symbol and line by hand and to write your own legend.
Genogram Builder suits you when
You want the symbols, the unions and the emotional lines drawn in the standard notation and arranged by generation without placing them, you would rather write the family down than draw it, or you want a key printed on every chart. The drawing itself needs no account, and a free account holds two genograms of up to 50 people each.
draw.io draws a genogram from general shapes and connectors
The draw.io editor is a general one, and its documentation describes drawing as placing, connecting and styling shapes on a canvas with a grid. Shapes come from shape libraries that you enable as you need them, a scratchpad holds the shapes you use most so that you can add another copy with one click, and connectors attach to shapes at fixed or floating points. The format panel lets you make a connector solid or dashed and choose the arrows at either end. A therapist drawing a three-generation chart would make one square and one circle, keep both in the scratchpad, copy them for each person, draw the union and parent lines between them, and write a legend in a corner. Its documentation does not mention a genogram template.
In Genogram Builder the same chart can be drawn by hand with the Person and Connect tools, or it can be written. A few sentences of notes name the people, their dates and how they are related, and the assistant proposes a draft in which every person and every line is listed with the sentence that supports it. Each item can be kept, edited or removed before anything reaches the chart. The chart is arranged by generation as it grows, children hang from the union of their parents, and no line crosses a name.
Your notes
Ellie Hawkins, born 2009, is the client, a sixth form student with generalised anxiety disorder. Her brother Jack, born 2006, is an apprentice plumber and is close to Ellie. Her parents, Paul Hawkins, born 1971, and Helen Hawkins, born 1974, married in 2003 and are distant from each other.
Found in the notes
- Ellie Hawkins, 2009
- Jack Hawkins, 2006
- Paul Hawkins, 1971
- Helen Hawkins, 1974
- Paul and Helen, married 2003
- Jack and Ellie, close
- Paul and Helen, distant
On the chart
Emotional lines are a notation here and a line style in draw.io
In draw.io the quality of a relationship is a connector that you style yourself. The format panel offers solid and dashed lines, line jumps and arrowheads, and with those a careful author can reproduce most of the emotional lines of the standard notation, provided the legend explains them. Nothing on the site describes a set of genogram lines or a medical notation, so the chart is only as clear as the legend its author writes.
Genogram Builder draws the emotional lines of McGoldrick, Gerson and Petry, from close and fused to distant, hostile and cut off, together with conditions, life events and household groups, and prints a key on every chart so that a reader never has to guess what a line means. During a draft a sentence such as "Kevin and Laura are hostile" becomes the correct line between two adjacent symbols, and a later sentence such as "Frank died in 2021" becomes a change with its own card and an undo. In draw.io each of these is a manual edit of a connector or a shape.
Close
Fused
Distant
Hostile
Cutoff
draw.io is free and keeps files where you choose
Using draw.io costs nothing. Its home page says it is free forever with no sign-up required and no lock-in, that there are no paywalls, and that the source code is licensed under Apache 2.0. The online editor at app.diagrams.net runs in the browser and on mobile and touchscreen devices, and the desktop app is a stand-alone offline application for Windows, macOS and Linux. The editor provides the diagramming, and you choose where to store the diagram data, which can be your browser, your local device, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, GitHub or GitLab, or Confluence and Jira through the Atlassian Marketplace. Files are written in its own XML format with the .drawio extension by default, and the home page says that files created in 2005 load in the app today.
Genogram Builder keeps a chart in the browser until you choose to save it to your account, after which it is available from any computer, and a JSON backup can be kept wherever you like. The free plan holds two genograms of up to 50 people each and drafts five families a month. Pro is $12 a month or $99 a year, and Max is $29 a month or $228 a year. Which is cheaper depends on how often you draw and on how much the placement costs you in time.
Genogram Builder
Free$0
- Two genograms of up to 50 people
- Five drafts a month, four follow-up changes each
- All 34 templates
- PNG and PDF with a small watermark, JSON backup
Pro$12 a month or $99 a year
- 25 genograms, unlimited people
- No monthly draft limit
- Exports without the watermark, SVG
Max$29 a month or $228 a year
- Unlimited genograms
- Notes up to 30,000 characters
- Sources and research annotations
draw.io
Online editorFree
- No account, no card, no sign-up
- Files in your browser, on your device or in your own cloud storage
- Export to PNG, SVG, JPEG, GIF, PDF, HTML and XML
Desktop appFree
- Windows, macOS and Linux
- Works fully offline
- Saves files on your computer
Source codeApache 2.0 licence
- Open source on GitHub
- A self-hosted Docker image
- Integrations for Confluence, Jira, Google, Microsoft, GitHub and more
A draw.io chart moves across as an image or a description
A draw.io diagram exports as PNG, SVG, JPEG, animated GIF, PDF, HTML, a URL or XML, and the diagram data can be embedded in a PNG or SVG so that the file reopens in draw.io. None of these is a family file, and Genogram Builder does not read draw.io files, so a genogram drawn in draw.io does not open here as people and unions. The honest path is to keep the exported image for the record and to write the family down in a few sentences, which the assistant turns into a draft that you check against the picture. The draw.io editor can generate a diagram from Mermaid code, and Genogram Builder reads Mermaid flowcharts, but draw.io does not state that it writes Mermaid, so that road runs only one way.
In the other direction, a chart from Genogram Builder exports as PNG, PDF or SVG, which can be kept in the same folder or drive as your draw.io files, and the JSON backup reopens it here with the emotional lines and the notes intact.
- Export an image
In draw.io, export the diagram as PNG or SVG and keep it for the record.
- Write the family down
Name each person with a birth year, each union with its dates, and each tie that matters, in ordinary sentences.
- Review the draft
Every person and line is listed with the sentence that supports it. Keep, edit or remove each one.
- Add the draft and compare
The chart is arranged by generation. Check it against the image and add anything that was missed.
Feature by feature
Each row states what the two products offer in their own terms. Checked on 20 October 2026 on drawio.com and on this site.
| Feature | Genogram Builder | draw.io |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs and what it costs | ||
| Browser | Included. Any computer or tablet, nothing to install. | Included. At app.diagrams.net, on computers and on mobile and touchscreen devices. |
| Desktop app | Not included. None, by design. | Included. A stand-alone offline application for Windows, macOS and Linux. |
| Price | Included. Free, or Pro at $12 a month or $99 a year. | Included. Free forever, with no sign-up, no paid plan and Apache 2.0 source code. |
| Limits on charts | In part. Two genograms of up to 50 people on Free, 25 on Pro, unlimited on Max. | Included. None stated. |
| Drawing the family | ||
| Drawing by hand | Included. Person, Connect, Lasso, Note and Text tools, arranged by generation. | Included. Shapes from shape libraries and a scratchpad, connectors with fixed or floating points, tree layouts. |
| Drafting from notes | Included. Five drafts a month on the free plan, each reviewed before it is added. | In part. A diagram from a text description when AI generation is enabled. Genogram notation is not stated. |
| Genogram templates | Included. 34 fictional families with case notes, open on every plan. | Not stated. A large template library by diagram type, profession and use case. No genogram template is mentioned. |
| Standard notation | Included. McGoldrick, Gerson and Petry, 59 symbols and connections, with a key on every chart. | Not stated. General shape libraries and custom libraries. A genogram library is not mentioned. |
| Emotional relationship lines | Included. Close, fused, distant, hostile, cut off and the rest of the standard set. | Not stated. Connectors can be solid or dashed with chosen arrowheads. No genogram lines are described. |
| Medical notation | Included. Conditions coloured and named in the key, with causes of death. | Not stated. Not described on the pages read. |
| Files | ||
| Reads | Included. GEDCOM, GenoPro, Gramps, Mermaid and spreadsheets. | In part. Its own .drawio files, other diagram formats, and Mermaid, CSV and SQL for generating a diagram. No family file format. |
| Exports | Included. PNG and PDF on the free plan, SVG on Pro and Max, JSON for everyone. | Included. PNG, SVG, JPEG, animated GIF, PDF, HTML, a URL and XML. |
| Works offline | In part. The chart stays in the browser between visits, and saving needs a connection. | Included. Files in the browser or on the device need no connection, and the desktop app is built for it. |
| Where work is kept | Included. In the browser until saved, then in your account from any computer. | Included. Your browser, your device, Google Drive, OneDrive, GitHub, GitLab, Confluence or Jira. |
Sources: drawio.com, the draw.io features page, the draw.io storage documentation, the draw.io export documentation, Genogram Builder plans.
Before you decide
Whether draw.io costs anything
No. Its home page says it is free forever, with no sign-up required, no paywalls and no enterprise tier, and that its source code is licensed under Apache 2.0. Genogram Builder also has a free plan, but its Pro and Max plans are paid, so on price alone draw.io is the cheaper tool.
Drawing a genogram offline
The draw.io desktop app is built to work fully offline, and files kept in the browser or on the device need no connection. Genogram Builder keeps a chart in the browser between visits and drafts and saves over a connection, so a chart can be viewed without one, but it is not an offline tool in the way draw.io is.
Keeping both
Many people will. A genogram drawn here exports as PNG, PDF or SVG and can be kept in the same drive or folder as your draw.io diagrams, and a family first sketched in draw.io can be described in a few sentences and drafted here when the chart needs the full notation and a key.
What this page leaves out
It reports what draw.io says about itself and what Genogram Builder does. It does not rate the quality of draw.io as a diagramming tool, and it does not repeat opinions from reviews or forums.
Draw a genogram in the browser now, or describe a family and watch the draft arrive. No account is needed to begin.
Open the editor