Freemind is one of the best-known free mind mapping software tools. It's a very user-friendly no-nonsense program, which allows you to organize ideas and plan out projects. It's fairly intuitive, with each mind map starting with a central node, to which you can add any kind of information you want. It uses the typical hierarchical structure of mind maps, with branches and sub-branches of nodes connected to the centre.

Even though it's free and doesn't have the depth of options that you see in commercial software, it has some neat tricks up its sleeve. One of them is the possibility to re-organize the nodes simply by dragging them. This is very useful when your map grows in size and you want to introduce changes to its structure. Another very useful option is what they call folding, which allows you to hide all the sub-nodes of any given branch.

Freemind is a more than competent program, especially for someone who is now starting to use mind mapping software and is not sure if it's worth to pay for the extra features. It has all the basic options one can expect and should be up to the task for most common users.

URL: freemind.sourceforge.net

RATING: 3.5/5