Lucidchart is a polished general-purpose diagramming platform at a premium price. PfdLabs costs less and comes with industrial process symbols and flowsheet templates built in — while still covering every general flowchart you need.
| Feature | PfdLabs | Lucidchart |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial process symbols (3D, 2D, schematic) | ✓ 100+ symbols | ✗ Generic shapes only |
| Built-in flowsheet templates (Gold CIL, Cu flotation, SX-EW...) | ✓ 7 templates | ✗ None for mineral processing |
| General flowcharts & decision diagrams | ✓ Full support | ✓ Full support |
| Presentation-ready visual style out of the box | ✓ Polished by default | ✓ Polished by default |
| Smart port-based edge routing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Export PNG, SVG, PDF | ✓ | ✓ (PDF on paid plans) |
| Pricing | Free start · €3/mo Pro | Free tier limited · $7.95+/mo Pro |
| Real-time collaboration | Coming soon | ✓ |
| Learning curve for engineering diagrams | Low — symbols ready to use | Medium — build symbols yourself |
PfdLabs started as a specialized tool, but the editor is a complete diagramming app. Whatever you need to draw, it handles it.
100+ industrial symbols across 3 visual styles — photorealistic 3D, detailed 2D technical, and clean schematic — for mineral processing and hydrometallurgy circuits.
Boxes, diamonds, pills and arrows with smart routing — perfect for approval workflows, troubleshooting guides, onboarding flows or any business process.
Export clean PNG or SVG diagrams to drop straight into a slide deck, report or client proposal — no extra styling needed to make it presentation-ready.
Architecture diagrams, system overviews and structural illustrations for documentation, wikis and engineering handbooks.
"Lucidchart looks great but I was paying $90 a year for a tool with no mining symbols. PfdLabs has the actual equipment ready to use, and costs a fraction of the price."
Lucidchart is a mature, well-built platform with strong real-time collaboration, a huge integration ecosystem (Slack, Confluence, Jira) and excellent support for org charts, UML and wireframes. If your team needs heavy multi-user collaboration across many unrelated diagram types, Lucidchart's broader feature set may be worth the higher price. PfdLabs focuses on doing process engineering diagrams exceptionally well, at a fraction of the cost.
€3/month vs $7.95+/month for Lucidchart's individual plan — with industrial symbols included, not as an add-on.
No more manually drawing crushers, thickeners or flotation cells from rectangles. Drag the real symbol and connect it.
Seven ready-made flowsheets and flowcharts — from Gold CIL circuits to approval workflows — to edit instead of starting blank.
No credit card required · 5 diagrams included · Full symbol library
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