draw.io (now diagrams.net) is the most popular free diagramming tool — you draw everything by hand, and it's genuinely great at that. Archway takes a different bet: tell an AI what you want, get a rendered diagram, then refine. You still get draw.io export if you want a drag-and-drop session afterward.
| Feature | Archway | draw.io |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free forever tier; Pro $12/mo | Free (MIT license) |
| AI generation from text | Yes — core feature | No |
| Generate from Terraform / K8s / Compose | Yes | No |
| Generate from GitHub repo | Yes — auto-updates on push | No |
| Cloud architecture icons | 1,900+ native | Cloud shape libraries (AWS/Azure/GCP); manual placement |
| Export to draw.io format | Yes — full round-trip | (Native) |
| Self-hosted | Enterprise tier | Yes (open source) |
| Real-time collaboration | Yes | Limited (via Google Drive / Confluence) |
| Offline desktop app | No | Yes (Electron build) |
| Best for | Teams generating + maintaining architecture docs | Hand-crafted diagrams, free tier |
Export your Archway output to draw.io format any time. They're not mutually exclusive — use Archway to generate, draw.io to hand-tune if you want.