A fully-offline build of draw.io that keeps every feature, needs no internet, keeps your data 100 % private, and still goes toe-to-toe with paid diagram tools.
What is draw.io Desktop?
Before we dive in, a quick nod to the original draw.io (now diagrams.net): it’s the most complete, no-nonsense diagramming and white-boarding web app around, covering everything from simple flow-charts to complex network racks.
I almost recommended the on-line version years ago, but two blockers got in the way:
- Servers sat outside China, so loads were sluggish and saves felt like dial-up.
- Export relied on Google Drive or OneDrive—useless if those are fire-walled.
Today the site is CDN-accelerated and lets you save straight to disk, yet I still reach for the draw.io Desktop build. Here’s why.
Why draw.io Desktop is Better
- Pixel-perfect feature parity—every shape, stencil, layer, math-LaTeX and Mermaid toggle is included.
- Engineered for air-gapped work: no telemetry, no cloud nags, no login gates.
How the Offline Magic Works
The web app is just HTML/CSS + JavaScript, so the community wrapped it in Electron and shipped it as a native executable. The entire editor lives inside your .app or .exe; browsers are only used for rendering.
Security & Privacy
Being open source already keeps the code honest, but Desktop goes further: zero network traffic except when you manually check for updates. Diagrams never leave your machine—perfect for NDA flows, org charts or infra diagrams you’d rather not upload.
First-Launch Impressions
macOS, Windows and Linux builds are offered on the GitHub release page (grab the latest dmg, exe or AppImage). Installer weighs ~90 MB—heavier than a text editor, but half the size of most SaaS Electron clones.
New-file picker surfaces the same template gallery as the web version: ERD, UML, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, mind-map, etc. If you can click a placeholder in PowerPoint you can click a shape in draw.io; drag, drop, connect, done. I crank out dev flow-charts and decision trees in minutes, export to PNG/SVG/PDF, and drop them straight into Keynote or Confluence.
License & Cost
Apache-2.0, 100 % free, no ads, no trial watermarks. Both the core draw.io engine and the Electron wrapper are open source, so you can audit, fork or bundle it inside your company’s SOE image without legal headaches.