# Monodraw

17 Hacker News commenters recommended Monodraw and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for ASCII diagrams and doodles, and cheap as a one-time purchase. Caveats: it is in maintenance mode and its file format is not open.

## Why people recommend it

- Favorite app, used often (4 comments): "Monodraw for Mac is my favorite. I'm a customer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46570773)) "There is Monodraw, the best out there." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47005064)) "I love Monodraw, and use it every week" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47006112))
- Missed after leaving the Mac (3 comments): "This is my most missed app since switching from Mac to Windows." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47006035)) "One of the few things I miss after ditching the mac" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47008938)) "I used to love monodraw when I had a mac." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47005764))
- ASCII diagrams and doodles (2 comments): "Handy for making diagrams or just doodling and making custom headers for config files" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47002798)) "a really nice little application for building generic ASCII diagrams" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46805085))
- Cheap one-time purchase (2 comments): "Great little app. And it's $10, once. Hardly breaking the bank." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47002496)) "my favorite one-time-purchase software of all time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46559083))

## What people warn about

- Closed file format, not editable (2 comments): "My experience with Monodraw was that you had to maintain the original file format to do this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47002593)) "But it's not open, and can't be edited by those who want to." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47003452))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Excalidraw](https://hackerapproved.com/p/excalidraw.md): 56 recommend
- [draw.io](https://hackerapproved.com/p/draw-io.md): 16 recommend
- [Microsoft Visio](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-visio.md): 10 recommend
- [OmniGraffle](https://hackerapproved.com/p/omnigraffle.md): 7 recommend
- [LibreOffice Draw](https://hackerapproved.com/p/libreoffice-draw.md): 5 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://monodraw.helftone.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Monodraw", https://hackerapproved.com/p/monodraw/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).