ChatUML Alternative

ChatUML announced that its service shut down on April 30, 2026. If you relied on it to create and edit PlantUML diagrams through a chat interface, you need a new home for that workflow — ideally one that keeps the same "describe it in plain English, get PlantUML" experience without making you re-learn a tool.

Diagramming AI offers the same core workflow: generate PlantUML diagrams from a natural-language prompt, refine them conversationally, and render a live preview. Because PlantUML is portable text, moving over is mostly copy-and-paste — and you also gain the ability to convert any diagram into an editable, hand-drawn Excalidraw sketch.

What happened to ChatUML?

ChatUML was a chat-based tool for creating PlantUML diagrams with AI. Its website now shows that the service was shut down on April 30, 2026. Diagrams and chat history tied to the service are no longer a reliable place to keep your work, so it is worth migrating the diagrams you still need.

The good news is that PlantUML itself is an open, text-based format. Any PlantUML code you wrote in ChatUML is plain text you can copy out and reuse anywhere — nothing about your diagrams is locked to the tool that is going away.

What to look for in a replacement

If you liked the chat-based workflow, look for a tool that lets you both generate diagrams from a description and edit existing PlantUML conversationally, rather than only producing a one-shot result. A live preview, reliable rendering, and clean export to PNG or SVG matter for everyday use.

It also helps to pick a tool that supports a broad set of PlantUML diagram types — class, sequence, activity, component, use case, and state — so you are not forced to change notations. Diagramming AI covers these and adds a hand-drawn Excalidraw conversion that ChatUML did not offer.

Moving your PlantUML diagrams over

Migration is straightforward because PlantUML is portable. Copy the PlantUML code for each diagram you want to keep, paste it into Diagramming AI, and it renders immediately. From there you can keep editing with AI, restyle it, or convert it to an editable Excalidraw drawing for reviews and presentations.

If you only have a description and not the original code, you can simply describe the diagram again in plain English and let the AI regenerate the PlantUML — often faster than recovering the old source.

Recreate your ChatUML diagrams

Create a PlantUML deployment diagram for a web app: a client browser talks over HTTPS to an Nginx web server that proxies an app process, and the app connects to a PostgreSQL database server.

@startuml
node "Client" {
  [Browser]
}
node "Web Server" {
  [Nginx]
  [App]
}
node "Database Server" {
  database "PostgreSQL"
}
[Browser] --> [Nginx] : HTTPS
[Nginx] --> [App]
[App] --> [PostgreSQL] : SQL
@enduml

Create a PlantUML mind map for a product release plan with three branches: Discovery (user interviews, competitive research), Build (backend API, frontend UI), and Launch (marketing, docs).

@startmindmap
* Release Plan
** Discovery
*** User interviews
*** Competitive research
** Build
*** Backend API
*** Frontend UI
** Launch
*** Marketing
*** Docs
@endmindmap

Frequently asked questions