Freeplane
Mind mapping and knowledge management that goes far beyond drawing bubbles, with scripting, conditional styles and attributes.
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About Freeplane
Freeplane started as a fork of FreeMind and has become the most capable free mind mapper. Beyond nodes and branches it has attributes on nodes, conditional styles that format nodes based on rules, filtering, hyperlinks between maps, LaTeX, and a scripting interface in Groovy that can generate or transform a whole map.
That makes it usable as a general outliner and knowledge tool rather than only a diagram program: task tracking, decision trees, structured research notes. It is written in Java with Swing, so it runs anywhere Java does, and can run from a USB drive without installing.
The interface density is the cost. It is not a program you pick up in five minutes.
Strengths
- Attributes, conditional styles, filtering and scripting go well beyond drawing a diagram
- Groovy scripting can generate or transform entire maps
- Runs on any operating system with a current Java, including from a USB drive
- A genuinely robust alternative to paid tools such as XMind and MindMeister
Limitations
- A dense interface with a real learning curve
- Java Swing looks and feels out of place on every platform
- Documentation is spread across a wiki and needs contributors, as the project says itself
- Maps with thousands of nodes get sluggish
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source under the GPL.
- License
- GPL-2.0
- Developer
- Freeplane
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Structured thinking and knowledge management, not just a quick diagram
- Categories
- Note-taking
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Selected from the TechWalrus downloads catalog (Notes); facts checked against the developer's own pages, 3 sources on file.