Miro

Miro blends aspects of several different categories of software into one. It's part diagramming and flowchart software and part presentation app—you could throw mind mapping and video conferencing in there, too. Everything about it is collaborative. You can use it to draw an idea or create a slideshow, either by yourself or with others editing simultaneously. Miro has video and audio calling built in, plus screen sharing, so you can discuss how you're working while you're working or give a talk while showing your creation. What makes Miro truly extraordinary is how easy it is to pick up and use, even though it sounds like a hodgepodge of ideas. It's infinitely useful and easily deserving of our Editors' Choice award.

How Much Does Miro Cost?

Miro lets you try out the service for free. With a Free account, you can edit three boards and collaborate with any number of people. You also get access to Miro's templates, core integrations, and other basic features.

Miro Starter ($10 per person per month or $96 per person per year) gives you one workspace with unlimited boards, which you can export at high resolution. You can share boards with as many visitors as you want, who can only view them and don't need to sign in. Starter also comes with Talktracks, a feature that lets you record a video of yourself walking someone through your board that they can watch any time, as well as version history, a built-in timer, voting tools, video chat, and more.

Miro Business ($20 per person per month or $192 per person per year) includes everything in Starter plus unlimited workspaces with unlimited boards. At this level, you can also require that guests sign in to view your boards for sharing with clients, for example. You also get more diagramming shapes, the ability to import and manage multiple issue types from Jira, and support for single sign-on.

Finally, Miro Enterprise (custom pricing) comes with enterprise-grade administration tools, premium support and personalized onboarding, and other upgrades in regards to managing users and licenses.

Miro costs a little more than diagramming apps or mind-mapping software and about the same as other apps that include tools for collaborating and presenting. Mural is one of Miro's closest competitors. It charges $12 per person per month for its Team Plus plan or $215.88 per person per year for a more advanced Business plan.

Prezi, an unconventional presentation app, has much in common with Miro. To get the best features, it costs $7 to $29 per person per month (billed annually, however). That's in the same ballpark as Miro. The collaborative diagramming app Lucidchart has a Free plan and an Individual plan for $7.95 per month for a single person. Team accounts cost $9 per person per month, with discounts for paying annually. 

Many of the best video conferencing services, including Zoom (paid accounts from $15.99 per month), have collaborative whiteboards built into them for real-time brainstorming. That's different, however, from being able to save, reuse, and build out your boards the way you can with Miro.

Getting Started With Miro

To use Miro, you run it on a web browser or use an app. There are apps for macOS and Windows (32- and 64-bit); Android, iOS, and the Microsoft Surface Hub, as well as Microsoft interactive displays.

Miro handles storage for all types of accounts. Currently, you cannot bring your own cloud storage.

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When you first create an account, Miro provides tips for getting started and learning how the app works. Videos and text-based help files also do a good job of introducing you to the tools that will be most valuable to a new user.

The desktop app has a simple interface. Its main view is a dashboard, and tabs are across the top. Each tab is a board you can open, making it easy to navigate your projects.

To use Miro, you more or less need an internet connection. There's little support for working offline. The most you can do is view a board that's already open and loaded in the app. You can't open or edit an existing board much less make a new one while offline.

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Templates, Tools, and File Types

Miro's templates cover a broad range of use cases. Some examples are Mind Map, Flowchart, Product Roadmap, Kanban Framework, Timeline Builder, Brainwriting, User Story Map Framework, and UX Research. Paid account holders can make custom templates, too.

Whether you use a template or start from scratch, Miro gives you a generous board space. A small zoom-pan window appears at the bottom right corner of the screen. 

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There are two toolbars, one at the left and one at the top. The left toolbar lets you add shapes, text, stickies, arrows, tables, and other elements. The top toolbar allows you to move into presentation mode, start a video call, run a timer, access the board history, and more. 

A Note feature, integrated into the top ribbon, lets you add freeform text or formatted text as a note attached to (but not on) a board, such as a to-do list, meeting agenda, or project summary.

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A commenting tool and framing tool show up redundantly (but handily) on both toolbars. Frames are borders you place around some portion of your board to make it a set piece. It's a handy way to segment your boards if, for example, you want to turn them into slides for a presentation or when you want to export their content. For example, if you have data on your board that would work in a different report or presentation, you can frame it and export it as a JPG, PDF, or CSV, depending on what it contains and what you need to do with it.

Miro makes it easy for people who aren't especially skilled at design to create good-looking visual materials. For example, a Smart Drawing feature, which you have to enable, identifies common shapes you draw by hand, such as arrows and circles, and turns them into neater and more uniform objects. A Wireframe library gives you objects for mockups, such as buttons commonly found in mobile apps, standard icons, and whatnot. Miro has other libraries with more specific iconography, including a Cisco icon set, an Azure set, and a generic set of icons.

You may also integrate other things into your boards, from Google images to charts, code blocks, tables, or even stickers, emojis, and GIFs (via Giphy). 

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You can also pull onto your board data from other apps that you connect to Miro. For example, if your team uses JIRA, Asana, or Trello, you pull in cards and display them on your board. Miro also supports connectivity with storage services, including Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and OneDrive, so that you can easily bring in assets from those places, too. Miro even has a web clipper, which is a browser extension you install that allows you to copy content from web pages and automatically display it on a board. Many other integrations exist, too, including one for Slack and Microsoft Teams to get alerts to activity.

There’s also a super cool feature that enables you to record an immersive audio or video walkthrough for a board. Instead of traditional screen recording, the Talktrack feature focuses on capturing interactive walkthroughs. The feature makes use of your device’s camera and microphone, but you can always block out either of them. The recording shows your image (or video) in the corner of the screen, while an arrow with your name moves to wherever you moved your mouse during the session. 

Miro Assist

Miro has an AI assistant called Miro Assist. The feature is designed to help streamline workflows and boost creativity. You can use it to summarize takeaways and ideas from your board, extract key action points, or create presentations, sticky notes, and images. 

The assistant works pretty well, though it was still in beta as of our testing. After we asked it to extract key action points from our board, the assistant created a thorough list with multiple main issues and plenty of bullet points below each one. 

Aside from accessing the full AI features from the button on the bottom right, you can also click on any of the items on your board and tap the assistant button to access various features. For instance, you can fix the grammar and spelling or have AI rewrite the text for clarity. You can also ask it to change the tone or summarize the content. 

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Collaboration and Presenting

Miro's collaboration works in real time. When you invite colleagues to view or edit your boards and they are active on the board, icons representing them appear at the top. This is somewhat similar to how collaboration works in any Google app. 

You can see your coworkers' cursors moving in real time or hide them if you prefer. Because boards can be quite large, there's a button that takes you to any person's cursor so you can quickly see what they're doing and work together. Another option is "bring to me" whichever collaborators you select; if you're discussing an edit and the other person isn't sure where you are on the board, this option swiftly resolves that issue.

Frames, as mentioned earlier, can help turn your canvas into a presentation. On the top toolbar is a button to put your board into Presentation mode. Once you begin to present, Miro will move through your frames as if they were slides. You can use the standard Next and Back buttons at the bottom to help you along.

Miro also has audio and video connectivity that allows you to have a call with collaborators either while you're working with them or presenting your board. There's a screen-sharing option, timer, and other tools. Many of these features are not included in the free plan, although as of this writing, you can try them out for two weeks without putting down a credit card—a great trial to include, as many new members will be interested in it. If Miro isn't your video conferencing tool of choice, you can always connect it to Zoom or Microsoft Teams instead.

Verdict: An Entire Collaboration Toolbox

Miro blends aspects of diagramming software, mind-mapping apps, and video conferencing tools into one grand collaboration app. It's highly capable, with a wonderful feature set, and it's easy to use. There's plenty to explore, too, making it well worth the price. For all these reasons, it's an Editors' Choice winner for collaboration tools.