Price: US$69

More screenshots and details for Kidspiration on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

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Price: EUR119

More screenshots and details for I-Navigation on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

Price: Professional $250; Standard $125; Collaboration (up to 5 users) $20/mth

More screenshots and details for MindMapper on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

If Vic’s Picks are not comprehensive and detailed enough for you, The Master List is what you need.

To search the Master List, go to its front page for hundreds of visual tools, with thumbnails, full-size screenshots, descriptions, prices and links, as well as Vic’s own observations.

Use the tabbed area to find exactly what you want – the tab “Refine software list” pictured above gives finer grained controls on what you see listed.

Vic’s main blog is here.

The Master List at Mind-Mapping.Org claims to have every concept mapping, mind mapping and related type of visual organizer there is (or was).

Well, to be honest, new ones keep appearing and get added to the foot of my To Do list. But “every one there is” is the aim. At the time of writing, there are 377 entries: 290 being current software and 87 historical, making this the most comprehensive source on the Web.

But if you’re looking for a quick guide to what’s available, that’s a formidable list, so I instituted Vic’s Picks — a section of Mind-Mapping.Org for those looking for just the more popular mapping software.

Vic’s Picks is really two things: A place for readers to quickly find what’s significant, but more importantly, a place for crowdsourcing: Here you can mark your favourite software and comment about your own experience of it in use.

How Vic’s Picks works

The entries:

On the Vic’s Picks pages you’ll see many entries like the illustration on the left.  The red tab will let you see the name and a brief summary of the software for each entry.

The arrow button at its bottom right will link to the Vic’s Pick entry for this. That in turn includes a link to the main article for the product in The Master List.

Rate the tool:

You will be able to add your personal rating of the tool by clicking on the yellow ‘Favourite’ star.

Add a comment:

And you will be able to add comments about a specific package, if you wish, from the blue speech bubble on each entry on the Vic’s Picks pages.

The menu:

To see visual tools from one of the broad categories shown here, use the menu at the top of the page (here it’s just an image).

The categories:

For a narrower breakdown by tool type, Operating System (OS) or price, use the Categories selector in the right-hand column which is illustrated in the image here.

In case you’re wondering, if you select, for example, Fishbone charts, you may not see entries that show images of Fishbone charts – the seletion just ensures that you can see entries for software that can produce those charts. That’s because each entry in Vic’s Picks has only one image.  More detail is available in the main entry that Vic’s Picks links to.

Price: SE: free; Lite: US$50; Pro: US$110

This is flagged as a “Fave” because I use it every day and couldn’t do without it.

More screenshots and details for 3D Topicscape on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

Price: EUR49

More screenshots and details for Aibase on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

Price: Free

More screenshots and details for Argunet on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

Price: AUD349

More screenshots and details for bCisive on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

There are two versions. The Beta version is accessible from a button at the bottom right side of the screen, and this allows the addition of linking phrases between nodes. With bubbl.us, you are not limited to a tree hierarchy, meaning that you can make pretty good concept maps, particularly with the Beta.

You can allow other users access for editing, making this a useful tool for occasional collaborative projects. Be aware, however, that it sometimes goes off-line for a few hours or more. So far, it has always returned with all my maps intact, but do keep backups (images and XML files) if you use it for anything important.

Price: Free

More screenshots and details for bubbl.us on Mind-mapping.org

This is flagged as a “Fave” because I use it for casual collaborative projects, and admire the elegant simplicity of its user interface.

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

I could not see how to generate the code to embed, and if anyone can tell me in a comment here, please do.

Price: Free; (commercial license “middle of 2010″ – noted in Aug 2010)

More screenshots and details for Cacoo on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

It has some qualities of mind mapping software: Organic lines and colour; but at the same time, the connections it can make allow it to be used to make concept maps with cross links and linking phrases.  It even lets you have multiple maps on the same page, and has a good ergonomic design to handle this, providing for ‘parking’ separate maps at the foot of the screen.  Nodes can have pictures and hyperlinks, links to files, and dates/times for project management tasks.

Be prepared to spend a few minutes understanding how it works, because it is not quite like other mappers, but it is well worth the time, because it has a flexibility that other mappers do not.

Its most unexpected feature, perhaps, is that it uses the self-centering mechanism like Topicscape or Brain.  Click a node and that moves to the centre and its branches expand.  This can be switched off, and it will operate in ‘Fixed mode’.

It comes with a help map, but also has built-in help.

Price: Free

This is attractive and useful so I’ve flagged it as a “Fave”.

More screenshots and details for Cayra on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

Price: Free

More screenshots and details for CmapTools on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

Price: Free

More screenshots and details for Cohere on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

This makes a strict tree-style mind maps. The main node must be on the left and the sub-nodes always branch out to the right.  There is a nice re-sizing option when you change the window size, but the rigidity of layout is not what I look for in mind mapping software. There is a desktop version based on Adobe Air.

Price: $49 p.a.; Desktop $99

More screenshots and details for Comapping on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

Price: Free

More screenshots and details for Compendium on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

Price: EUR169, Project version:EUR249

More screenshots and details for ConceptDraw MINDMAP on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.

Price: EUR75 (Starter); EUR595 (Modeler); EUR1,785 (Process Modeler).

More screenshots and details for Consideo Modeler on Mind-mapping.org

This is one of Vic’s Picks

Vic’s Picks are tools that Vic believes are significant and in the mainstream of mapping.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for regular posts
& follow me on Twitter for in-between items
about visual tools you never knew existed.