cacoo.com vs Cloud 66 vs Cloudcraft: Which Is Right for You in 2026?

Cacoo and Cloudcraft both produce diagrams, but they solve very different problems: Cacoo is a general-purpose, hand-drawn diagramming tool for flowcharts,…

cacoo.com

Freemium subscription, priced per user per month with an unlimited-user free tier · From Free; paid plans start at $6/user/month

Best for: Product, engineering, and design teams needing real-time collaborative diagramming for flowcharts, wireframes, org charts, and UML models.

Cloud 66

Tiered monthly or annual subscription based on number of deployment servers and static sites, with a free plan and custom Enterprise pricing · From Free plan available; paid plans start at $23/month (Developer)

Best for: Teams wanting automated, zero-downtime deployment and management of Rails, Node.js, Docker, and Kubernetes workloads across public or private clouds.

Cloudcraft

Freemium subscription with a free tier for individuals plus paid per-user Pro and Enterprise tiers, billed monthly or annually · From Free plan available; Pro plan around $40.83/user/month billed annually ($99/month billed monthly)

Best for: Cloud architecture and DevOps teams wanting diagrams auto-generated from live AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle Cloud, or vSphere infrastructure rather than drawn by hand.

At a Glance

 cacoo.comCloud 66Cloudcraft
Primary categoryProject ManagementProject ManagementProject Management
RatingNot documentedNot documentedNot documented
Pricing modelFreemium subscription, priced per user per month with an unlimited-user free tierTiered monthly or annual subscription based on number of deployment servers and static sites, with a free plan and custom Enterprise pricingFreemium subscription with a free tier for individuals plus paid per-user Pro and Enterprise tiers, billed monthly or annually
Starting priceFree; paid plans start at $6/user/monthFree plan available; paid plans start at $23/month (Developer)Free plan available; Pro plan around $40.83/user/month billed annually ($99/month billed monthly)
Free planNot documentedNot documentedNot documented
Free trialNot documentedNot documentedNot documented
PlatformsNot documentedNot documentedNot documented
Team collaborationNot documentedNot documentedNot documented
AI featuresNot documentedNot documentedNot documented
Public APINot documentedNot documentedNot documented

Standout Differences

Manual diagramming vs. auto-generated infrastructure diagrams

Cacoo requires users to draw diagrams by hand across a broad range of types — flowcharts, wireframes, mind maps, ERDs, and UML. Cloudcraft instead reads a team's live cloud infrastructure data and automatically generates and keeps architecture diagrams current, which is a fundamentally different workflow aimed at a narrower use case.

cacoo.com, Cloudcraft

Cloud 66 doesn't diagram anything — it deploys applications

Cloud 66 automates building, deploying, and managing applications and databases across AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, DigitalOcean, and Linode, with zero-downtime deployments and autoscaling. It has no described diagramming capability, so it isn't a real alternative to either Cacoo or Cloudcraft.

Cloud 66

Cloudcraft's Datadog acquisition matters for long-term buyers

Cloudcraft was acquired by Datadog in November 2022 and now runs both as a standalone product at cloudcraft.co and as an integrated feature inside the Datadog observability platform. Teams already on Datadog get a natural integration path; teams that aren't should weigh long-term standalone-product risk.

Cloudcraft

Cacoo's Nulab ecosystem is a differentiator for existing Backlog users

Cacoo comes from Nulab, the same company behind the Backlog project management platform, with a shared login and consistent design language across products. Teams already using Backlog can adopt Cacoo with minimal onboarding friction, something neither Cloud 66 nor Cloudcraft offers.

cacoo.com

Cloudcraft is the priciest of the three past the free tier

Cloudcraft's Pro plan runs about $40.83/user/month billed annually ($99/month billed monthly), notably higher than Cloud 66's Developer plan at $23/month and Cacoo's paid plans starting at $6/user/month.

cacoo.com, Cloud 66, Cloudcraft

Feature-by-Feature

Primary Function

Featurecacoo.comCloud 66Cloudcraft
General-purpose diagramming (flowcharts, wireframes, UML, ERDs, mind maps)AvailableUnavailableUnavailable
Auto-generated diagrams from live cloud infrastructure dataUnavailableUnavailableAvailable
Application build/deploy automationUnavailableAvailableUnavailable
Zero-downtime deployments and autoscalingUnavailableAvailableUnavailable

Collaboration

Featurecacoo.comCloud 66Cloudcraft
Real-time multi-user editing with live cursorsAvailableNot documentedNot documented
Embeddable in Google Workspace / ConfluenceAvailableNot documentedNot documented

Cloud Provider Coverage

Featurecacoo.comCloud 66Cloudcraft
AWS, Azure, GCP supportNot documentedAvailableAvailable
vSphere / Oracle Cloud supportUnavailableUnavailableAvailable

Pricing & Plans

Featurecacoo.comCloud 66Cloudcraft
Free plan availableAvailableAvailableAvailable
Custom Enterprise pricingNot documentedAvailableNot documented

Pricing Compared

Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.

cacoo.com

Free — $0 N/A
Pro — $6/user/month monthly or annual (17% off annual)
Team — $6/user/month monthly or annual (17% off annual)
Enterprise — Custom custom

Cloud 66

Free — $0 per month
Developer — $23 per month
Team — $47 per month, billed annually
Business — $80 per month
Enterprise — Custom custom

Cloudcraft

Free — $0 per month
Pro — $40.83/user (annual) or $99/user (monthly) monthly or annual
Enterprise — $100/user (annual) or $120/user (monthly) monthly or annual

Pros & Cons

cacoo.com

Pros

  • Genuinely usable free plan with unlimited users, not just a time-limited trial
  • Real-time multiplayer editing with built-in video chat reduces the need for separate call tools
  • Wide range of supported diagram types in a single product
  • Natural fit for teams already using Nulab's Backlog project management tool
  • Enterprise plan covers SSO, SCIM, and audit logging for larger, security-conscious organizations

Cons

  • Free plan is capped at just six diagram sheets, which active users will exceed quickly
  • Per-user pricing on Pro and Team plans can be less predictable for large or fluctuating teams
  • Less name recognition outside of Nulab's existing customer base compared with category leaders like Lucidchart or Miro
  • Enterprise pricing is not published and requires a custom sales conversation
  • Feature parity between Pro and Team tiers is close, which can make plan selection confusing

Cloud 66

Pros

  • Deploys directly into the customer's own cloud account rather than a shared vendor platform, avoiding compute lock-in
  • Supports a wide range of cloud providers including AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, DigitalOcean, and Linode
  • Advanced deployment strategies like blue-green and canary releases are included on paid plans
  • Free tier available for small projects and evaluation before committing to a paid plan
  • Automatic preview environments simplify reviewing pull requests in a live setting
  • Long operating history since 2012 with enterprise customers such as Adobe and the BBC

Cons

  • Smaller company (11-50 employees) than large hyperscaler-native deployment tools, which may affect long-term roadmap pace
  • Pricing scales with number of servers, which can add up for larger fleets compared to some competitors
  • Historically strongest for Ruby on Rails, so framework support depth can vary for newer stacks
  • Enterprise pricing is not public and requires a sales conversation
  • Less brand recognition than major platforms like Heroku or Render, which can mean a smaller community and fewer third-party guides
  • Extra charges for build minutes and storage overage can make cost less predictable at scale

Cloudcraft

Pros

  • Automatically generates diagrams from live infrastructure data instead of requiring fully manual drawing
  • Distinctive isometric visual style makes diagrams easier to read than flat, generic box diagrams
  • Backed by Datadog's financial resources and platform integration since the November 2022 acquisition
  • Supports multiple major clouds (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud) plus VMware vSphere, not just AWS
  • Free tier available for individuals, with a 14-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee on Pro
  • Built-in cost estimation overlays help teams see the cost impact of architecture decisions directly on the diagram

Cons

  • Pro and Enterprise per-user pricing can add up for larger architecture and platform teams
  • As part of Datadog, product roadmap priorities may be shaped by Datadog's broader observability strategy rather than standing alone
  • Free plan is limited to individual, non-live-sync-focused use cases for AWS and Azure only
  • Live-diagram accuracy depends on granting Cloudcraft read access to cloud accounts, which some security-conscious teams may need to review carefully
  • Smaller, focused product team size compared to broader Datadog product lines
  • Primarily useful for infrastructure visualization rather than full infrastructure-as-code management or provisioning

Use Cases

Choose cacoo.com: Product, engineering, and design teams needing real-time collaborative diagramming for flowcharts, wireframes, org charts, and UML models.
Choose Cloud 66: Teams wanting automated, zero-downtime deployment and management of Rails, Node.js, Docker, and Kubernetes workloads across public or private clouds.
Choose Cloudcraft: Cloud architecture and DevOps teams wanting diagrams auto-generated from live AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle Cloud, or vSphere infrastructure rather than drawn by hand.

cacoo.com

  • Cross-functional real-time flowcharting — A product and engineering team maps out a new process or system architecture together on a live shared canvas instead of passing static images back and forth.
  • Wireframing and UX collaboration — A design team sketches early-stage wireframes and mockups in Cacoo, gathering live feedback via comments and video chat before moving to a dedicated design tool.
  • Diagramming inside an existing Nulab workflow — A team already using Backlog for sprint planning adds Cacoo to document system architecture and org charts under the same Nulab account.

Cloud 66

  • Deploying Rails and Node applications to any cloud — Development teams use Cloud 66 to deploy and manage Ruby on Rails or Node.js applications on their own AWS, Google Cloud, or DigitalOcean accounts without manually configuring servers.
  • Zero-downtime production releases — Teams with customer-facing production apps use Cloud 66's blue-green and canary deployment strategies to release updates without service interruption.
  • Reviewing pull requests in live preview environments — Engineering teams use automatic preview environments tied to pull requests to review functional changes before merging to production.
  • Managing databases with automated backups — Teams rely on Cloud 66's managed database features for automated backups and replication instead of operating database infrastructure manually.

Cloudcraft

  • Cloud architecture documentation — Platform and infrastructure teams use Cloudcraft to keep accurate, current architecture diagrams for internal documentation and onboarding.
  • Security and compliance reviews — Teams use auto-generated Cloudcraft diagrams to give auditors and security reviewers an accurate picture of deployed cloud resources.
  • Cost visualization and planning — Teams use Cloudcraft's cost estimation overlays to see the financial impact of architecture decisions directly on the diagram.
  • Combined observability and architecture views — Datadog customers use Cloudcraft alongside Datadog monitoring to combine live architecture diagrams with real-time performance and security data.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Cloudcraft the same kind of tool as Cacoo?

Only loosely — both are diagramming tools, but Cacoo is a general-purpose, manually-drawn diagramming platform for flowcharts, wireframes, mind maps, and UML, while Cloudcraft automatically generates and keeps updated architecture diagrams by reading a team's live AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle Cloud, or vSphere infrastructure. They serve overlapping categories (diagramming) but different specific jobs.

Does Cloud 66 compete with Cacoo or Cloudcraft?

No. Cloud 66 is a DevOps-as-a-Service platform that automates building, deploying, and managing applications and databases across clouds — it has no diagramming functionality described. It would sit alongside a tool like Cloudcraft (which could diagram the infrastructure Cloud 66 deploys to) rather than competing with it.

Which is best if my team already uses Backlog?

Cacoo, since it comes from the same company, Nulab, with a shared login and consistent design language across Backlog, Cacoo, and Typetalk. Teams already inside the Nulab ecosystem can adopt Cacoo with minimal additional onboarding.

Is Cloudcraft still available as a standalone product after being acquired by Datadog?

Yes. Cloudcraft was acquired by Datadog in November 2022 but continues to operate both as a standalone product at cloudcraft.co and as an integrated feature within the Datadog observability platform.

Which of the three is cheapest to try for a small team?

Cacoo's free plan covers up to 6 diagram sheets for unlimited users, making it the most accessible free tier of the three. Cloud 66 also has a free plan with paid plans starting at $23/month, while Cloudcraft's free plan gives way to a notably higher Pro tier around $40.83/user/month billed annually ($99/month billed monthly).

Read the full cacoo.com review · Read the full Cloud 66 review · Read the full Cloudcraft review