Brainstorming tools are one of the leading solutions to creating your brainstorming design flexibly with a low budget. Currently, you can easily find a wide collection of free brainstorming tools and techniques to get the finest results. In case you want to optimize your performance with advanced features, let’s register several premium plans.
In this article, we will introduce 7 popular brainstorming tools for students, as well as employees, to improve your design, including:
Table of Contents
Well, let’s start your discovery with us!
7 Best Brainstorming Tools You Should Not Miss
Coggle
Being one of the most popular brainstorming tools, Coggle impresses users with an intuitive dashboard and a broad range of templates. This is especially effective to have a custom design to boost your brainstorming performance.
Currently, Coggle offers the 3 following pricing plans:
- Free Forever: $0
- Awesome: $5/month
- Organization: $8/month
With simple-structured maps, it’s recommended to use the Free Forever plan to save your budget. With this package, you can use up to 3 free private designs and unlimited public diagrams. Besides that, you can easily use over 1600 icons and other features to create an impressive brainstorming.
| Pros | Cons |
| Free forever pricing plan Ready to use without additional apps Hotkeys supportCollaborative work for the free version | Little font colors or font styles |
Miro
Among the best brainstorming tools online, you should not miss the Miro platform. With this solution, you can use an online whiteboard that helps teams work together and create and share their ideas. Indeed, you can use Miro for various purposes, like brainstorming, project management, and even simple designing.
If you want to host online meetings with video and audio calls to share your ideas with team members, Miro can support you well. We think that Micro is more powerful than a brainstorming maker, with a wide collection of features.
| Pros | Cons |
| High compatibility with third-party servicesImpressive presentation and collaboration tools Feature-rich | Little offline support |
Lucidchart
Regarding brainstorming tools, Lucidchart is outstanding with its API features, including API workflows and algorithms. Additionally, you can easily integrate this platform with Microsoft Office, G Suite, and Slack to improve your brainstorming performance effectively.
From our experience, Lucidchart is one of the best digital whiteboards that encourage innovation for teams and individuals.
| Pros | Cons |
| User-friendly dashboardVarious templates and shapes Excellent collaborative featuresEasy to integrate with external apps | No desktop apps and dark modeNo offline mode for mobile apps |
Google Docs
Google Docs is one of the most famous brainstorming tools free, providing a user-friendly interface to customize all relevant elements. With Google Docs, you can freely create and share a new document with anyone you want to make your design more impressive. Indeed, the more familiar you are with Google Docs, the easier it is to get started with brainstorming.
| Pros | Cons |
| Free to access Brainstorming extension integrationsFundamental customization tools Unlimit the number of members editing | Difficult to have advanced modificationsNo templates |
Realtime Board
Another option in our suggested brainstorming tools for teams today is Realtime Board. This solution allows you to work together on a virtual whiteboard with sticky notes. Additionally, you can attach files, documents, and images from various sources to make your design more well-structured.
With the free version, you can access 3 boards and 2 other team members to complete a specific project. And, of course, if you want to show your design to your audiences, Realtime Board can also support you.
| Pros | Cons |
| 15+ external app integrationsAvailable on mobile and web devices Real-time sharing Various export formats | Boring designs and elementsRequire paid fees to get more powerful design features |
OneNote
Despite being a note-taking app, OneNote is one of the leading brainstorming tools you should not miss. You can use all elements in the Draw feature in OneNote to organize your ideas more visually and smartly.
However, from our experience, it’s not ideal to create complicated designs through OneNote. It is simply because OneNote was developed to support freewriting, and, of course, its brainstorming features are not powerful enough to get the finest results.
| Pros | Cons |
| User-friendly interface dashboardNearly available on Windows-based devices High security | Synchronization issuesLittle mistakes with removal features |
Popplet
The final solution in our brainstorming tools examples is Popplet. Basically, this platform offers a free online plan with a maximum number of 10 bubbles. To download the Popplet app, you need to pay $4.99/time.
In Popplet, users call each bubble that illustrates their idea “popple”. Normally, these popples include images, sketches, and links. Depending on your requirements, you can flexibly edit the size or connections of popples.
| Pros | Cons |
| Popplet board export as an image, PDF, or text fileEasy to adjust popple sizeWell-structured interface dashboard | Challenging to use keyboard shortcuts Limited mind map with the free version |
FAQs
What are the 4 methods of brainstorming?
We will suggest the 4 leading brainstorming techniques, including reverse brainstorming, mind map, 6-3-5 brainwriting, and rapid ideation. Besides that, you can use other methods to optimize your requirements. Indeed, there is no best technique; thus, you need to consider everything before using it.
What is a brainstorming tool?
A brainstorming tool was developed to organize your ideas and thoughts visually. This means that you can use any feature on this platform to improve your brainstorming design performance. Moreover, you can even share with others to support you.
What are the 7 easy ways to brainstorm?
With this question, we will list the 7 simple methods to brainstorm, such as:
Brain writing
Stepladder
Reverse Ideation
Mind Mapping
Rapid Ideation
Starbursting
Medici effect
What are the three 3 brainstorming techniques?
From our experiences, the 3 main brainstorming techniques comprise electronic brainstorming, verbal brainstorming, and nominal group technique.
Conclusion
We hope the 7 best brainstorming tools above can help you to tackle brainstorming tasks easily. These platforms can offer both free and paid pricing plans; thus, you can consider your requirements carefully to pick a proper solution. Have a wonderful time with the brainstorming world!
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