During many years, I have been using Mindjet Mindmanager as a Mindmapping tool. As finance are tighter I wanted review the software licences we had and see if I could find some nice and free/open source alternatives. After evaluating Freemind, I found its little brother named Freeplane and I think it’s going to become my information gathering/brainstorming tool for the coming years.

What is Freeplane ?

Freeplane is free and open source software to support thinking, sharing information and getting things done at work, in school and at home. The core of the software consists of functions for mind mapping, also called concept mapping or information mapping, and tools for using mapped information. Freeplane runs on any operating system on which a current version of Java is installed and from USB.

Easy to install (on any OS) and easy to use, this open source software will easily replace my old mindmapping tool.

The two features that I am going to miss compared to MindManager are:

• Adding embedded pictures in notes (not just a hyperlink)
• The capability to embed files in the map (not just link as well)

I hope that they will soon be implemented in Freeplane! Anyone out there ready for a new challenge? )

You can find more information at http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page and you can download it here.