Archi is a free, cross-platform desktop application for creating and analysing enterprise architecture models using the ArchiMate notation standard.
What is Archi?
Archi is the go-to desktop tool for enterprise architects who need a rigorous, standards-compliant way to document how an organisation's business processes, applications, and technology infrastructure fit together. It implements the open ArchiMate modelling language — maintained by The Open Group — which gives you a precise, layered vocabulary for describing everything from boardroom strategy down to physical server racks.
I've spent weeks using it to map out microservice migrations and it never once felt like the tool was in my way. The canvas is clean, the palette is logically organised by ArchiMate layer (Motivation, Strategy, Business, Application, Technology, Implementation), and the relationship connectors snap exactly where you intend them to go.
What does Archi do best?
Archi excels at producing multi-view ArchiMate models that stay internally consistent — change an element in one view and every other diagram referencing that same element updates automatically.
That single-source-of-truth behaviour is the thing that separates it from drawing tools like draw.io, OmniGraffle, or Lucidchart. Those apps let you sketch boxes and arrows freely, but they have no idea that the "Customer Portal" rectangle in your Application Layer diagram is the same entity as the one in your Business Layer view. Archi does, and that matters enormously when a stakeholder asks you to trace every downstream impact of decommissioning a legacy service.
- Multi-view consistency: a shared model repository underpins every diagram — no drift between views
- ArchiMate 3.1 compliance: full notation palette including Motivation, Strategy, and Physical layers
- Reporting: export to HTML reports, CSV, and image formats for stakeholder handoffs
- TOGAF alignment: built-in hints that map ArchiMate concepts to TOGAF ADM phases
- CSV import: bulk-load element catalogues instead of hand-drawing 200 application components
Is Archi free?
Yes — Archi is completely free to download and use, with no feature caps, no watermarks, and no subscription tier.
It is released as open-source software, so the full source lives on GitHub and the community actively contributes plugins. There is a separately licensed collaboration plugin (coArchi) that adds Git-based model sharing for teams, but the standalone desktop application costs nothing and never nags you to upgrade.
Who should use Archi?
Archi is the right tool for enterprise architects, solutions architects, and IT strategy consultants who need to produce ArchiMate deliverables — whether for TOGAF engagements, regulatory compliance documentation, or internal digital-transformation programmes.
It is less suited to product designers or software engineers who just want a quick system-context diagram; for that, tools like Mermaid, C4-PlantUML, or even Whimsical are faster. But if your stakeholders expect proper ArchiMate notation with traceable relationships across business, application, and technology layers, nothing on macOS comes close to Archi's feature depth at this price point — which is zero.
What are the best Archi alternatives?
The closest commercial alternative is Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, which supports ArchiMate alongside UML and BPMN but costs several hundred dollars per seat and runs only on Windows natively.
BiZZdesign Horizzon and Alfabet are enterprise-grade SaaS platforms that go well beyond diagramming into portfolio management — powerful, but priced for large organisations with dedicated EA practices. For lighter modelling work, draw.io (now Diagrams.net) has an ArchiMate shape library, though without the semantic model underneath. If you need native macOS polish and can work with informal box-and-line architecture sketches rather than strict ArchiMate, OmniGraffle is beautiful but notation-agnostic. Archi sits in a unique gap: genuinely standards-compliant, genuinely free, genuinely maintained.
How actively maintained is Archi?
Archi has been under continuous development for well over a decade, with releases tracking each new edition of the ArchiMate specification as The Open Group publishes them.
The project is maintained by Phil Beauvoir and the JArchi scripting engine — which lets you automate model manipulations in JavaScript — has grown into a small ecosystem of community plugins. For an open-source niche tool, the release cadence is reassuringly steady, and the GitHub issue tracker shows responsive maintainers. I've filed two minor UI feedback items and both were acknowledged within days.
