Gramit vs Miro
Miro is a collaboration product first and a diagramming product second, and that shows in both directions. If you are here, it is probably because the free plan ran out of room, because everyone needs an account before they can see anything, or because a giant shared canvas turned out to be a bad place to keep an architecture diagram.
Side by side
Rows are ordered by where the two tools differ most, and the rows Miro wins are in here too.
| Feature | Gramit | Miro |
|---|---|---|
| Nested diagrams | Any node opens into its own board | One large canvas, with frames for grouping |
| Account required to open a board | No | Yes, in practice |
| Cost to use seriously | Free, with no board limit | Free plan is limited; real use tends to need a paid plan |
| End to end encryption | Yes, for boards saved to your account | No |
| Works offline | Yes, boards live in your browser | No |
| Diagram as code | Gramit YAML, in and out | No authoring format |
| Older boards stay editable | Every board stays editable, always | On the free plan the older ones drop to view only |
| Very large boards | Depth keeps any single canvas small | Large boards are reported to slow down |
| Weight | A canvas that opens in a second | A heavy application |
| Real time collaboration | Not yet, boards are shared by link | Yes |
GramitWhy people move over
Nobody has to sign up to look at it
A published board or a share link opens in a browser for anyone. The most common reason diagrams go unread is that reading them required an invitation.
Structure instead of a wall
An infinite canvas is the right shape for a workshop and the wrong shape for a system. Nesting keeps the top level readable and puts the detail exactly one level down from the thing it explains.
Your architecture stays private
Boards saved to a Gramit account are encrypted before they leave your device, so what you draw about your internal systems is not readable by us. That is often the difference between drawing it honestly and not drawing it at all.
Questions people ask
- Does Gramit do real time collaboration like Miro?
- Not yet. Boards are shared by link and can be published or embedded, but two people cannot move the same node at the same moment. If simultaneous editing is essential, Miro is the better fit today.
- Can I import my Miro boards?
- No. There is no Miro importer, so a board has to be rebuilt in Gramit.
- Is Gramit really free?
- Yes. You can open the editor and build a board without paying and without creating an account. Boards live in your browser until you decide to save them to an account.
- Do I need an account?
- No. An account only buys you sync across devices, publishing to the public gallery, and boards that follow you to another browser. Everything else works signed out.
- What happens to my boards if I never sign up?
- They stay in your browser, in local storage and IndexedDB, and they keep working offline. Clearing your browser data clears them too, so export anything you cannot lose.
The quickest way to compare is to draw something
The editor opens on an empty board with nothing in the way. Or start from a board somebody already published.