Nice network diagram editor?

Question

Writing a commercial proposal, I want to create a nice graphic showing the clients the architecture I thought of for their IT network, with servers, network connections, firewall, load-balancing, etc.

For years I have been using dia, but I am tired of it because: the results are not satisfying, very few network elements are available, and each element's graphic representation is really ugly.

Question: How to create nice network diagrams?

If a better set of elements was available for dia, that would be a solution.

Solution 1

Inkscape is all you need. For additional clip art graphics ('elements'), use openclipart.org. OpenClipart is actually built into Inkscape these days. There's really no need to resort to non-free apps.

Solution 2

Try these LibreOffice/OpenOffice galleries with Draw: http://www.vrt.com.au/downloads/vrt-network-equipment

CC licensed, also available in Fedora repos and the libreoffice extensions site.

UPDATE: v1.1 release added new darker variants (like VMware's shapes), and a set logical network symbols added - now near 200 symbols in 5 gallery themes.

Solution 3

I decided to move my diagrams to the cloud after I saw Cacoo. It's a very intuitive tool, having a lot of diagram and icons choices and mostly it has options for online collaboration. The only downside is that is a proprietary software :/

Here is my sample

Solution 4

By looking in the Dia official FAQ, I discovered there is a way to extend Dia and its elements set.

Extending Dia

Q: How do I add new shapes/sheets? A: An explanation is given in doc/custom-shapes in the source distribution on how the shape format works. However, Dia now also has the capability of exporting a diagram as a shape. Each collection of shapes (called a sheet) should be kept together in a subdirectory of ~/.dia/shapes, e.g, ~/.dia/shapes/Engines. To make a shape, first design it in Dia. Then export it into your subdirectory. Two files will be generated, a .shape file and a .png file (the icon).

From version 0.90 and up, Dia features a Sheets and Objects editor which will allow you to load the shape into a sheet. It will also update Dia's loaded objects on the fly.

If you still want to do things by hand, update the corresponding sheet file in ~/.dia/sheets, in this case called Engines.sheet. Example contents of a sheet file is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- xml -*- -->

<sheet xmlns="http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia/dia-sheet-ns">
  <name>Engines</name>
  <description>Mechanical Engines</description>
  <contents>
    <object name="Engines - Gas">
      <description>A gas engine</description>
    </object>
  </contents>
</sheet>

Each new object should be added to the sheet by adding an object section. Next time you restart Dia, the new objects should show up in the list of sheets.

So I suggest you to add your own shapes to Dia and live happily:)

Solution 5

yED Graph Editor is a desktop application that can be used to quickly and effectively generate high-quality diagrams. It can also be used to generate network diagrams. Here is a sample diagram that was created using this software.

Source for the above image: yED image gallery

View more solutions

Comments

[Nicolas Raoul]

Kivio has been dropped from Ubuntu :-( But actually, Kivio's network diagrams are about as ugly as those produced by Dia: ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1573191 thekompany.com/projects/kivio/pics/document_full_dock.png

[Nicolas Raoul]

Jgraph is even poorer on elements :'-( Only "printer", screen-keyboard, and a shape that labeled "server" that does not look like any server...

[Nicolas Raoul]

+1 The Cisco elements are indeed more numerous and a bit nicer, but still b&w pixel-by-pixel drawings, and there is no rack-shaped server. btw: I never tried Visio.

[Nicolas Raoul]

I don't really like using proprietary apps, but I have to admit this one is the nicest tool I have found so far. I was lucky enough to find the elements I need, with very nice graphics!

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre]

Right. I do have them in color though, maybe you just need to use a newer version of dia? FWIW, lucid has the color drawings. That said, few applications ship with rack-shaped servers if you're trying to do visual plans of what goes where from the front of a rack -- images for this are either shipped by the hardware vendors, or you get to have to take a picture of your hardware :)

[belacqua]

Unfortunately, having proprietary/sensitive data in the cloud can be a problem for some who would use this.

[Nicolas Raoul]

+1 Very nice! I would love to see this set extended. It seems to be Open Source, so I wonder why it is not included by default in Ubuntu's Dia.

[Nicolas Raoul]

+1 Very nice! Controls (like moving/creating objects) are a bit different than usual, but I feel that it could be more efficient than Cacoo with a bit of doc reading. Even though not open source, unlimited files is a great plus over Cacoo. Website says both yED and yEd so not sure about the capitalization.

[Aaron]

This looks like the one they used in the movie Jurassic Park!

[shaunhusain]

These are excellent for a basic diagram for a small business owner who isn't super tech savvy, good find, thank you and to those who made these and posted them.

[nhed]

LibreOffice crashed for me twice in 5 minutes with 4 of those logos above, guess i'm gonna look for something else

[Noir]

-1 This "solution" requires flash. When a solution of my problem in 2017 requires flash I want my problem back.

[Noir]

A little warning for everyone who's interested: The latest Linux release at the time of this post contains almost no network related shapes. Maybe there are more steps required to draw stuff like on the provided picture but it doesn't look like you get things done with this quickly. I haven't tested the browser version of this because it's either broken or it requires java enabled in the browser (If this is the case: WTF dudes? It's 2017)

[kravemir]

Don't like having my data stored somewhere outside of me,... Cloud storage, is as far as I would go for my data,... I want my drawings, pictures, documents, to be in locally readable format,... !

[Chris1804505]

Checkout my stencil set, so you can easily import this into yEd: github.com/danger89/yEd_cisco_network_icons @Noir

[Jon Bentley]

For anyone who wants nicer looking shapes in Dia, I've exported the VRT shapes from this answer and posted the link in my answer here.

[Jon Bentley]

For anyone who wants additional nicer looking shapes in Dia, I've exported the VRT shapes from this answer and posted the link in my answer here.

[Jon Bentley]

For anyone who wants nicer looking shapes in Dia, I've exported the VRT shapes from this answer and posted the link in my answer here.

[Jon Bentley]

For anyone who wants to use these in Dia, I've exported them and posted the link in my answer here.