The Verdict
Initially it wasn’t immediately obvious to us which of our five products would take the top spot – after all, they each have their pros and cons – but averaging the scores for each of our tests gives an unequivocal answer. Note that, while three products are shown with equal scores of 6/10, their order is definitely as shown, because the scores all differ when worked out to reveal fractional values.
While the combined scores favour Inkscape, which is slightly ahead of Gravit Designer, it’s not necessarily the best product for everyone because different users have different needs. If we look exclusively at the drawing functions provided, the top two spots are the same as the averaged rankings, with Inkscape the clear leader and Gravit Designer second.
However, this alone shouldn’t be your primary consideration unless you want to go beyond technical diagrams or business charts. If you are interested in more artistic use, advanced features will be important, otherwise different aspects will come to the fore.
Productivity is, of course, particularly important, especially for business users. However, aspects such as ease-of-use and the provision of user documentation and tutorials, when taken together, don’t suggest a clear leader in this area.
Licensing will concern some potential users and, while all are free, only Inkscape and Libreoffice Draw are open source. There is also the question over the future of the free version of Gravit
Designer, given that it has now been joined by the commercial Pro version.
On the subject of productivity, the availability of both an online and offline version can help but, while Gravit Designer and Vectr offer both, a locally installed copy of Vectr can only be used with a connection to the internet.
Collaboration will be relevant to some users, and packages differ in how well they support this by supporting a wide range of import and export file formats, and being available on several operating systems. Here Inkscape is head and shoulders above of the others.
In terms of specific support for collaborative editing, though,
Google Drawings is the clear winner, despite its very basic drawing facilities falling somewhat behind the competition.
1st Inkscape 9/10
web: inkscape.org Licence: open source
Version: 0.48
Unparalleled for its advanced features, albeit more than many users will need.
2nd Gravit designer 8/10
web: gravit.io Licence: Closed source
Version: 3.5.6
Excellent all-rounder but there are concerns about the free version’s lifespan.
3rd Libreoffice draw 6/10
web: www.libreoffice.org/discover/draw Licence: open source Version: 6.0.7
Ideal for most technical applications and pre-installed with many distros.
4th Vectr 6/10
web: vectr.com Licence: Closed source Version: 0.1.16
Reasonable overall, with just the odd drop-off.
5th Google drawings 6/10
web: docs.google.com/drawings Licence: Closed source Version: Not specified
Ideal for teams due to its support for real-time collaboration.