Top 10 Mind Map Software for Windows

Cindy

GitMind (Web) GitMind is a free browser-based mind mapping application. It has an extremely. Free download Mind Map Pro Mind Map Pro for Mac OS X. Mind Map Pro is an easy-to-use mind-mapping tool that turns your Mac into a brainstorming, idea collection, and thought structuring device.

The word “mind map” might not be strange to you. However, can you explain what exactly it is at the second I mentioned it? Well, I guess some of you may hesitate for a while. To put simply, a mind map turns traditional complex texts into concise texts with visualized symbols. It is a diagram which organizes information hierarchically and shows relationships among pieces of the whole. Back to when digital mapping tools hadn’t appeared, people would sketch a mind map on their paper with a pen by hand. Nowadays as information technology progresses, people create a mind map on the screen with a software with the help of their computer. Consequently, out of its multi-functional use, mind maps are now prevalent among people in various fields. This article recommends you Top 10 mind mapping software for Windows operating system.

FreeMind

Highlights:Fast one-click navigation; Tiny memory; Cross-platform; Java-based

Pricing: Free

FreeMind is a piece of free high-productivity mind mapping software. Due to its one-click, “fold/unfold” and “follow link” operations, the operation and navigation of FreeMind are faster than that of MindManager. Its “Smart copying and pasting from” operation has attracted many users because the software can paste links from HTML and structure the pasted content based on the number of leading spaces in a line.FreeMind has always kept a low profile and focused on efficiency and quality, which makes a weak point – limited support for fancy graphics. For people who don’t pursue decorative graphics, FreeMind could be a choice in mind mapping.

Edraw MindMaster

Highlights：Abundant Clip Arts; Gantt View; Advanced Presentation Modes

Pricing: USD$ 9, 39, 69 for monthly, half-year and annual subscription; USD$ 99, 179, 245 for the perpetual license with 1 year, 3-year and permanent upgrade.

Free Version is available

Mindmaster is made by the Edraw software company, a professional diagramming software producer. Two versions are available – Free version and Pro version. Actually, the free version is enough to satisfy common users’ demand. However, for professional mind mappers, massive elements like themes and background images are needed. Edraw Mindmaster Pro provides users with abundant clip art resources, mind map examples, marks, and customization of themes, etc. Mindmaster makes a breakthrough in mind map presentation – create slides automatically in accordance with the logical distribution of the mind map. Besides, the Pro version offers 1G cloud storage so that users can not only save and their mind maps at any time but also collaborate with partners conveniently. With Edraw MindMaster, you can not only present project in hierarchical work breakdown structure, but also switch to Gantt view to track task start/end date and progress. As a loyal customer of Edraw products, among mind mapping software for Windows, I like MindMaster most.

iMindMap

Highlights: Mufti-functional views; Side panel

Pricing: USD$100.00 for Home & Student; USD$235.00 for Ultimate

The five views under the “Home” tab of iMind Map 10 — fast capture view, brainstorm view, a mind map view, time map view, and presentation view become the hit of its late product. These views allow users to meet their customized demand respectively : showcase their ideas in the most primary state without formatting and distractions within several typing, pin their thoughts on the infinite canvas on sticky notes, boost their ideas through comprehensive offering of organic mind mapping techniques, integrate mind mapping with project planning to manage their projects from inspiration to completion in one efficient workspace, and transform their thoughts into concrete memorable content under slick 3D presentation slide. Besides, the newly updated side panel lets users format their creations quickly and works in sync between views for effortless customization. For further convenience, it is accessible on mobile devices such as iPad and iPhone.

Mindomo

Highlights: Web image search; Presentation mode

Pricing: USD$ 39 for lifetime license of Desktop Premium and USD$ 36 for the annual upgrade

Free for Desktop Free

“Educate tomorrow’s thinkers today.” As its slogan suggests, Mindomo mainly focuses on school service, thus teachers and students become their major clients. Mindomo actually offers three functionality for users – personal & business, teacher, and student. When signing in on its website, users need to fill in a chart asking for detailed information on their functionality before a trial. Comparing with other mind mapping apps, the outstanding breakthrough of Mindomo is that users can search web images directly from the map and add them with just one click. Besides, the presentation mode allows students to show the audience their mapping process, thus revealing their mind flow. Last but not least, Mindomo is an integration of offline working with online editing and collaborating while mobile apps for iPad and Android are available.

Xmind

Highlights: Concise UI; Cost-efficient

Pricing: USD$79 for Xmind 8 Plus, USD$99 for Xmind 8 Pro

Comparing with other mind mapping software, Xmind is obviously cost-efficient for common users because the free Xmind 8 is versatile enough to meet their demand. Most commonly used functions are put on the right bar of the canvas, giving users more operating space as well as a more concise UI. In the brainstorming mode of Xmind 8 Pro, users can classify their inspirations in Idea Factory in groups. Getting different thoughts gathered from catalogs allow creative sparkles of users’ mind flow out. To share their mind maps, users may save them as an Evernote note in the form of an image, outline text or the default Xmind file.

Edraw Max

Highlights: Multi-platforms; Cloud collaboration; Export and share

Pricing: USD $ 179 for the perpetual license with 3- year upgrade; USD $ 245 for lifetime license; USD $ 99 for annual subscription license with the 1-year upgrade.

More than 200 Diagram Types

The slogan of Edraw mind map software is “Excellent Mind Map Visio Alternative For Mac, Windows, and Linux”, declaring its ambition in mind mapping. Furthermore, the outstanding merit of Mind Master is that it offers abundant pre-made examples and built-in clip arts, and you can use them to decorate your mind maps for free. Through Edraw cloud, you can not only store your creations but also cooperate and share documents with your collaborators. In addition, MindMaster allows users to export mind maps into various forms like Word, PPT, Excel, Visio, PDF, EPS, Html, SVG, PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF, etc. All the exported files are vector diagrams which allow edit.

MindManager

Highlights: Business style; Convenient sharing; Flexibility

Pricing: USD$376.92 for Perpetual license With 1 Year Upgrades

Also named “Mindjet”, MindManager is quite popular among business people. Comparing with the past version, MindManager 2017 has made great progress in sharing and flexibility. With the universal file export, users can share their creations with collaborators and edit them together even they don’t have MindManager installed on their computers. Besides, via Zapier as the intermediary, MindManager has cooperation with hundreds of cloud applications such as Gmail, Slack, and Asana, etc. Users can send and receive content between these applications and MindManager. Mind Manager charges a volume-based price for Enterprise customers, offering a flexible for organizations and teams.

MindMeister

Highlights: Easy to get started and share

Pricing: USD$ 4.99 for Personal monthly; USD$ 8.33 for Pro monthly; USD$ 12.49 for Business monthly

As an online mind mapping tool, Mind Meister provides you with considerate instructions and five tutorials after you sign up on their web. You can create three mind maps with it for free. Its best advantage is that you can immediately share your creations with friends and colleagues. This function allows you to collaborate with them in real-time by inviting people via email or generating a shareable link in MindMeister through your social networks. It is upon you who can edit your mind map or only view it. What’s more, it has released free applications for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Mind Meister transforms your ideas into actionable tasks directly into the editor. Your tasks could be assigned to collaborators by a task widget; besides, relevant properties such as priorities, due dates and progress are available in this operation.

Novamind

Highlights: Feature-rich software with ease-of-use

Pricing: USD$72 for a monthly subscription

As a newly-released mind mapping software, Novamind could take pride in its performance. When opening Novamind for the first time, don`t feel surprised at its UI which is extremely similar to that of PPT in Microsoft Office. After years of research and development, Novamind comes to the stage of mind mapping with the motto “Everyone is a Pro”. Not as flamboyant as other mind map software, Novamind keeps a low profile in its field with relatively low charge. You are allowed to create mind maps with up to 25 topics under a free lite subscription of Novamind. So far, what makes Novamind not perfect is that it reacts a bit slow to show users all the examples and adapts them to create a new map.

Scapple

Highlights: Completely freeform notes; Small disk space; Low price; Easy to master

Pricing: USD$ 14.99

With double-clicking anywhere on the canvas, you can create a note. Sounds amazing, right? Scapple is a mind mapping tool which is more close to a freeform text editor where you can take notes anywhere on the canvas and connect them with lines and arrows using drag-and-drop however you like. As its slogan “ Rough it out” indicates, there are no predefined templates in Scapple, thus committing no limitations on your creation. In this case, users, even mind mapping beginners, will find it easy to get started and master it in no time. Having no complicated icons and templates, Scapple occupies very small disk space of only 80Mb. What`s more, the price is much cheaper than other mind mapping software. Typing whatever you want and connecting them however you like! That`s the beauty of Scapple. Creative ideas need complete freedom to sparkle.

Browsing brief introduction and pictures above, you may have had a primary impression on exactly what a mind map is as well as some popular mind mapping software for Windows. All the software mentioned offering a free one-month trial. Try them out and choose the one suits you best.

When it comes to organizing ideas and thoughts, mind mapping is an ideal method. Thanks to Tony Buzan, the inventor of mind mapping, we can quickly organize our thoughts for business or personal uses.

Although there are plenty of Mac mind mapping apps available in the App Store, most of them require payment and not worth it just for occasional users. Luckily, here we found the 9 best mind mapping software for Mac.

Top Free Mind Mapping Software for Mac

GitMind (Web)

GitMindis a free browser-based mind mapping application. It has an extremely simple interface and numerous mind map templates to choose from. The template categories vary widely from project management to wedding timeline. Thus, when you need some graphic tools to present your ideas intuitively, and you have no idea about designing a mind map, GitMind is the best choice for you.

Features:

• Automatic layout
• Support team collaboration on one map
• Hundreds of free editable mind map templates
• Retrieve history versions & secure cloud storage

Get Started:GitMind Website

SimpleMind (macOS, Windows, iOS, Android)

SimpleMind is as easy to use as its name implies. The most unique function of SimpleMind is you can import a PDF file and transfer it to a mind map. It’s extremely useful when you want to mind map the ideas in an e-book or an article. For mobile versions, users can add video and voice memos to mind maps. It’s dedicated to simplifying the process of making a mind map.

Features:

• Allows to convert PDF to mind maps
• Users can create reusable mind map styles

Download:SimpleMind Mac Version

FreeMind (Any OS)

FreeMind is a premier open-source mind mapping application written in Java. Though FreeMind may not be updated any longer, it’s still very popular for making mind maps. FreeMind users built a mind map gallery voluntarily so that you can refer to it for inspiration. FreeMind allows users to export mind maps to HTML files. Moreover, since FreeMind stores maps in XML files, it takes little risks of switching away to another mind map tool.

Features:

• Can switch to other mind map tools
• Limited support for fancy graphics

Download:FreeMind

iMindMap (macOS, Windows, iOS)

Ayoa was previously called iMindMap, but includes much more than mind mapping. If you are looking for an alternative to Trello for project and task management, Ayoa is what you need. Its task side panel stores due dates, file attachments, and checklists. What’s more, you can even receive a daily review email to check upcoming deadlines.

Features:

Mind Map Mac Os X

• Real-time collaboration on mind maps and task boards
• Instant messaging
• Sync with Google, Evernote and Dropbox

Download:iMindMap Mac Version

Mindly (macOS, iOS, Android)

If you are looking for some tools which could maximize your creativity, Mindly is the answer. One concept leads to another and with Mindly it’s even easier to form a universe of thoughts. To some degree, its expanding hierarchical structure is not always befitting formal cases.

Features:

• Sync data on different devices
• Keeps focused on one element

Download:Mindly Mac Version

MindMeister (Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows)

For MindMeister, it’s worth mentioning that it allows you to embed live videos into the canvas. You may add members of the team and also comment on ideas. Since MindMeister is integrated with MeisterTask, it makes project management even more convenient.

Features:

• Supports to import FreeMind, XMind, MindManager files
• Users can create an animated presentation of the mind map

Download:MindMeister Mac Version

Draw.io (Web, macOS, Linux, Windows, Chrome OS)

Mind Map Software Mac Os

With Draw.io, you can almost create anything you want, not only mind maps. Besides an extensive shape library and various templates, it also integrates with Confluence and Jira. Confluence users can convert Gliffy to Draw.io with one click and Jira users can find every diagram related to Jira issues.

Features:

• Works online & offline
• Integrates with Google Drive, Office 365 and etc
• A little harder than common mind map makers

Get Started:Draw.io Website

Coggle (Web)

Coggle is a browser-based mind mapping tool as well. It’s special because of its multiple starting points, floating texts and images. Users can control line paths and change text alignments in Coggle. Additionally, users can invite collaborators by sharing a link and they can edit the mind map anonymously, which means no registration is required.

Features:

• Team members don’t need to log in to collaborate
• Still can view diagrams if subscription expired

Get Started:Coggle Website

MindMup (Web)

MindMup is an online option for mind mapping. Google and Office 365 authentication make account management easier. Users can also add measurements to mind map nodes to present important factors.

Features:

• Convert mind maps to PDF, PPT and outlines
• Users can create a storyboard of idea slides

Get Started:MindMup Website

Conclusion

Above are the best 9 mind mapping software for macOS we selected in 2020. Whether you like simple and fast solutions, or you have a rigid standard on designing and displaying, you can find an application that fits you.