Best for
Best for engineering teams that keep architecture and system diagrams as code next to their design docs.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Whiteboards & Diagramming Comparison
Eraser vs. Gliffy
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for teams that document systems and processes in Confluence and want the diagrams on the same page.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Eraser | Gliffy |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free; Starter from $15 / member / month Starter is $15 per member and month billed annually or $20 monthly; Business is $45 billed annually or $60 monthly. Guests are free on every plan. | lower value Free up to 10 users; from $3.80 / user / month The paid Cloud tier covers 11 to 100 users and is billed annually through the Atlassian Marketplace. Enterprise sites from 20,000 users are priced on request. Data Center is sold as a perpetual licence with 12 months of support and updates. |
| Free trial | Free plan with 3 files and 3 AI diagrams | Free for up to 10 users with no time limit; 30-day evaluation on Cloud and Data Center |
| Output | Technical diagrams and markdown design documents on an infinite canvas | Process, architecture, network, UML, BPMN and Mermaid diagrams embedded in Confluence pages |
| Hosting | Cloud web app; Enterprise offers flexible deployments | Not stated |
| What it makes | Architecture, cloud, sequence, flow chart, entity relationship and BPMN diagrams on an infinite canvas, next to markdown notes in the same file | Flowcharts, process, architecture and network diagrams, UML and BPMN, plus entity-relationship and UML diagrams written as Mermaid code |
| Templates and styling | Templates, AI presets, team style presets, references and naming rules that ground generated diagrams in a team's conventions; more than 3,000 tech icons, plus 20 custom icons on Starter and 100 on Business | Diagram templates and shape libraries on Cloud, Zero Egress and Data Center |
| Diagramming | Diagram-as-code for flow charts, ERDs, cloud architecture, sequence and BPMN diagrams with automatic layout, plus a visual editor for placing and styling elements by hand | Drag-and-drop editing with drawing guides and a grid, expand and collapse for layered detail, and Mermaid diagrams created from code without placing shapes; editing one diagram updates all its copies across the Confluence space |
| Collaboration and facilitation | Real-time collaboration, commenting and tagging on every plan | Real-time collaboration, diagrams in Confluence comments, sticky notes and a freehand drawing tool for whiteboarding sessions |
| Permissions and guests | Unlimited free guests who edit and comment only on files they are invited to; publicly viewable and editable files on every plan, private files from Starter and SAML SSO from Business | Permissions are managed through Confluence; the Zero Egress edition keeps all diagram data inside the Atlassian environment |
| Export and sharing | Export to PDF, PNG, SVG and markdown, embeddable canvas figures, and integrations with GitHub, Notion, Confluence and VS Code | Export to JPEG, PNG and SVG, import from Microsoft Visio and draw.io, and mass conversion of draw.io diagrams |
| AI features | Yes, AI diagrams from a prompt, an image or a file such as Terraform or a database schema, refined by chat or by hand, plus AI documents; Eraserbot keeps codebase diagrams current as the code changes. AI credits are 3 on Free, 40 on Starter and 250 on Business | Yes, generates fully editable diagrams from natural language prompts |
| API | Yes, a REST API to create, generate from a prompt or DSL, update and export diagrams and files, with usage-based monthly calls on paid plans, plus an MCP server and agent integrations | No developer API is named on the Gliffy for Confluence product page |
| MCP-ready | stated Yes | No |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), On-premise |
| Support | Community forum | Not stated |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | Not stated |
| Company size | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | more entries GitHub, Notion, Confluence, VS Code | Confluence |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Eraser Free; Starter from $15 / member / month Gliffy Free up to 10 users; from $3.80 / user / month
- Free trial Eraser Free plan with 3 files and 3 AI diagrams Gliffy Free for up to 10 users with no time limit; 30-day evaluation on Cloud and Data Center
- Deployment Eraser Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based Gliffy Cloud (SaaS), On-premise
- MCP-ready Eraser Yes Gliffy No
- Output Eraser Technical diagrams and markdown design documents on an infinite canvas Gliffy Process, architecture, network, UML, BPMN and Mermaid diagrams embedded in Confluence pages
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Eraser
Strengths
- Diagrams are text, so they can be read, diffed and edited like code
- Unlimited free guests on every plan
- An MCP server gives coding agents read and write access to diagrams
Limitations
- The Free plan is limited to 3 files and 3 AI diagrams
- API calls are not included on the Free plan
- SAML SSO starts at the Business plan
Gliffy
Strengths
- Diagram text is searchable inside Confluence
- Free for Confluence sites with up to 10 users, without a time limit
- Zero Egress edition for Atlassian Government Cloud and Isolated Cloud
Limitations
- Sold only as a Confluence app through the Atlassian Marketplace
- If the Cloud subscription is not renewed, diagrams become read-only
Plans
Pricing
Eraser
- Free $0 Per member and month, free forever. 3 files, 3 AI diagrams, 7-day version history, unlimited guests, diagram-as-code and markdown notes.
- Starter $15 Per member and month billed annually, or $20 monthly. Unlimited files, 40 AI diagrams, 90-day version history, private files, 20 custom icons and API calls.
- Business $45 Per member and month billed annually, or $60 monthly. Unlimited files, 250 AI diagrams, unlimited version history, SAML SSO, 100 custom icons and reference diagrams.
- Enterprise Not stated Custom pricing. Unlimited AI diagrams, flexible deployments, a customer success manager, ACH and wire transfer, and usage reporting.
Gliffy
- Up to 10 users $0 Gliffy Diagrams for Confluence for up to 10 users, with no time limit.
- 11 to 100 users $3.80 Per user and month for 11 to 100 users, billed annually through the Atlassian Marketplace. Unlimited diagrams.
- Zero Egress $2.80 Listed as "as low as" for 1 to 100 users; the page does not state the unit or billing period. For Atlassian Government Cloud and Isolated Cloud; diagram data never leaves the Atlassian environment.
- Enterprise Not stated For sites with 20,000 users or more, priced on request.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Eraser
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
Gliffy
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Reviews are not published yet. The form on a tool's page works and reaches us, but nothing from it appears on this site, so no score here is based on a review. The rules below are the ones that will apply once reviews go live.
Every review is read by a person before it appears. We require a working email address and use it to come back to the author, so a review has a reachable sender rather than being anonymous. We publish positive and negative reviews alike, we pay nothing and offer nothing for a review, and we accept none that was bought or incentivised.
What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on what they tell us, plus the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.
A vendor cannot have a review removed, cannot buy one, and cannot have one changed. Paid placement and a paid listing have no effect on which reviews appear or on any score.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Eraser https://www.eraser.io/ · checked against the official source on 2026-10-17
Gliffy https://www.gliffy.com · checked against the official source on 2026-10-12
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.