Draw.io Download: Desktop, Web, and VS Code (2026)

Do you need to download draw.io at all?

For most people, no. The full editor runs in the browser at app.diagrams.net with no install, no account, and no signup wall. It is the same codebase as the desktop app, so every shape library, keyboard shortcut, and export option is identical. If your search for a draw.io download was really a search for the tool itself, open that URL and you are done.

One naming note that trips people up: draw.io and diagrams.net are the same product. The project rebranded its primary domain to diagrams.net in 2020 because .io domains had a shakier security reputation, but the draw.io name stuck in common usage and the draw.io domain still works. When you see diagrams.net download in search results, it points to the exact same desktop releases covered below.

The browser version stores nothing on a server by default. On first launch it asks where to save your file — your device, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, GitHub, or GitLab — and the diagram data goes only to the destination you pick. That client-side model is why security-conscious teams that ban most SaaS diagram tools still allow draw.io.

How do I download the draw.io desktop app?

The desktop app is published on GitHub at github.com/jgraph/drawio-desktop under Releases, with installers for macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Windows, and Linux. It is an Electron wrapper around the same editor as the web version, which means the UI is pixel-for-pixel what you get at app.diagrams.net — just running locally with native file dialogs and no network dependency.

Package managers are the faster route on most systems. On macOS: brew install --cask drawio. On Windows: winget install JGraph.Draw, or grab the .exe installer from the releases page. On Linux you can choose a .deb, .rpm, AppImage, or snap install drawio, depending on your distribution. All channels ship the same build.

The main reason to pick desktop over web is offline use. The app makes zero network calls to edit or save, which matters on planes, in air-gapped environments, and in organizations with strict data-egress policies. Files save as plain .drawio XML anywhere on disk, so they slot into a git repo or a shared drive like any other text file. The tradeoff: you update it yourself (or via your package manager) rather than always getting the latest editor the way the web version does.

How does the draw.io VS Code extension work?

Install hediet.vscode-drawio (Draw.io Integration by Henning Dieterichs) from the VS Code marketplace and any file named .drawio, .dio, .drawio.svg, or .drawio.png opens as a full draw.io canvas inside the editor. It is an unofficial extension, but it has been the de facto standard for years, with millions of installs and support in VS Code forks like Cursor and VSCodium via Open VSX.

The killer feature is the .drawio.png and .drawio.svg dual format. The file is a valid PNG or SVG that renders anywhere — GitHub READMEs, wikis, Slack previews — but it also embeds the full draw.io XML, so double-clicking it in VS Code reopens the editable diagram. You commit one file to git and get both the image and the source, with no export step to forget and no stale-diagram drift between the two.

This is the setup to pick if you want architecture diagrams reviewed in pull requests alongside the code they describe. The honest caveat: XML diffs are noisy, so reviewers will mostly diff the rendered image, and if you want genuinely readable text diffs for simple flowcharts, a text-native tool like Mermaid is the better fit. Draw.io wins once you need precise layout control or cloud-provider icon sets that Mermaid cannot render.

What about draw.io for Confluence and Jira?

Draw.io began as a Confluence plugin, and the Atlassian apps remain its main commercial product. Installed from the Atlassian Marketplace, they embed the editor directly in Confluence pages and Jira issues, with diagrams versioned alongside the page they live on. Unlike everything else in this guide, the Atlassian apps are paid, priced per user through Marketplace billing — that revenue is what funds the free editor.

If your organization already runs Confluence as its documentation home, the plugin is usually worth it: diagrams stay next to the docs that reference them, page-level permissions apply automatically, and non-engineers can edit without installing anything. If your docs live in git as Markdown, skip it and use the VS Code extension instead.

Is draw.io free, and which version should you choose?

Yes. The draw.io editor is open source under the Apache 2.0 license, and the web app, desktop app, and VS Code extension are all free with no feature gates, no watermarks, and no account requirement. There is no premium tier hiding the good shapes — the AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes libraries are all in the free editor. Only the Confluence and Jira apps cost money. This is the sharpest contrast with Lucidchart, which caps free users at three editable documents and locks most shape libraries behind a subscription; Lucidchart counters with better real-time collaboration and a slicker UI, which is a fair trade for some teams.

Picking per use case is straightforward. Quick one-off diagram: app.diagrams.net in the browser. Offline or air-gapped work, or a locked-down corporate laptop: the desktop app. Diagrams versioned in git next to code: the VS Code extension with .drawio.png files. Team documentation in Atlassian tools: the Confluence or Jira plugin. There is no wrong answer on file compatibility, because every option reads and writes the same .drawio XML.

Storage is equally flexible across all of them. The web app connects to Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, GitHub, or GitLab, or saves straight to your device; desktop writes to the local filesystem; VS Code stores files in your repo. Because the format is plain XML, the same file also opens in third-party tools built on it — AIDrawIO, for example, generates draw.io-compatible XML from plain-English descriptions, and its output opens in any of the four setups above without conversion.

Can AI draw the diagram before you download anything?

Whichever draw.io flavor you install, the slowest part of diagramming is still the first twenty minutes: dragging shapes, hunting for the right AWS icon, untangling connector spaghetti. AI generation removes that step. You describe the diagram in plain English and get back draw.io XML with layout and icons already handled, then refine it in whatever editor you chose above.

A concrete prompt like 'Flowchart of a CI/CD pipeline: developer pushes to GitHub, GitHub Actions runs unit tests, on failure notify Slack, on success build a Docker image, push to ECR, then deploy to ECS with a manual approval gate before production' produces an editable flowchart in seconds at aidrawio.com/en/tools/flowchart-generator — free for 5 generations per hour, no account needed. It uses the official AWS and Azure icon sets for cloud architecture diagrams, and can also convert an uploaded whiteboard photo or screenshot into an editable vector diagram.

The output is standard draw.io XML, exportable as XML, SVG, or PNG. Save it as a .drawio.png in your repo and edit it with the VS Code extension, open it offline in the desktop app, or paste it into app.diagrams.net. The download choice and the authoring choice are independent — pick the runtime that fits your environment and let AI handle the blank canvas.