UML WHEN YOU NEED RIGOR

UML diagrams online, every type on one board

Class, sequence, activity, state machine — and the rest of the notation, with real compartments, real relationships, and your team editing beside you.

Backend engineers

Sketch the service boundary before the PR, not after. A sequence diagram settles a retry argument faster than three paragraphs in a thread.

Architects

Keep component and deployment views next to the classes they describe, in one model, with roles that let reviewers comment but not redraw.

Tech leads onboarding

Hand a new joiner a link, not a folder of stale PNGs. They can comment on the shape they don't understand.

Why bother with real notation

Because a diagram is an argument, and a sloppy one wins anyway. Draw a line between two boxes and everybody reads a different relationship into it — owns, uses, becomes — and the disagreement only surfaces months later, in code. UML exists so the line means one thing, and so the person who wasn't in the room reads what you meant.

That is worth the rigor for a design review, an onboarding doc or an RFC — and not worth it for a five-minute sketch. Here you don't have to choose up front. The freeform board and the notation sit on the same canvas, so the sketch that turns out to matter hardens into a class diagram instead of being redrawn somewhere else.

Every element, named

Class diagrams

Class
Interface
Package
Enumeration
Data Type
Note
Association
Aggregation
Composition
Generalization
Realization
Dependency

Sequence diagrams

Actor
Participant
Activation
Fragment
Sync Message
Async Message
Reply Message
Create Message
Destroy Message

Activity diagrams

Action
Decision
Initial Node
Activity Final
Flow Final
Fork/Join
Send Signal
Accept Event
Object
Swimlanes

State machines

State
Composite State
Submachine
Transition
History
Junction
Entry Point
Exit Point
Terminate

Use cases

Actor
Use Case
System Boundary
Include
Extend

Draw your first class diagram

Free, no install, no credit card. Bring the team when you're ready.

Start diagramming — free