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Chin’s experience with mind mappers:

1. Mind Manager - this it the mindmapper I got introduced to while in Thailand in 2003.
   • this is the tool used by the mindmap champion of Thailand. I am pretty sure he has a personal relationship with Tony Buzan. I can introduce you on LinkedIn when you are ready to discuss the book with him. He translated Tony’s books into Thai I think. I’ve been wanting to touchbase back with him to see if he’s moved on from Mind Manager or not.
   • it was solid between 2002-2008. best-in-class. meant for enterprise use. catered to Windows users. the Mac client was horrible - lacked functionality. the app started to go to sh*t when they tried to copy Microsoft’s “ribbon bar”. It was very promising when they acquired CoHuman and have a vision for Mindjet Vision to connect mindmapping to a task-management system like ‣ - then the developer left, I had a chat I think with the VP of marketing and next thing I know Mindjet got acquired by Corel, they killed Mindjet Vision (thankfully Mindjet Tasks is still up and running) and I am pretty much giving up on them. Mindjet has lost their direction and probably because their top executives left with the cash out.
2. TheBrain - this has withstood the test of time. Just look at my autobiography: http://autobiography.chinarut.com - haven’t stopped updating it since 2010 whenever something significant happens or comes into my life. The iPadOS app is not maturing. While it doesn’t have all the features of the desktop apps, it is acceptable to keep maintaining my online brain.
   1. I have rapport with Jerry - he is the owner of the world’s biggest online brain. He runs a pseudo-think tank - his brain is worth exploring.
3. XMind - best free solution out there. I can make mindmaps on my ‣ and that’s all that matters 🙂
4. Simplemind - I seem to recall using it and it clearly didn’t stick. If you end up trying it, be sure to edit this block with your experience.
5. Coggle - very promising in that you could collaborate on the same mindmap like you can on a Google Doc (or ‣) - awkward interface. It’s noteworthy but I stopped using it. I just want Google to officially release a new document/mindmap type and do away with the 3rd party
6. Rizzoma - an attempt to keep Google Wave alive (after Google killed the project) and reinvent how we communicate/collaborate. It was meant to be the successor to gmail and Google Docs rolled up into one tool. Rizzoma added a key component, to track tasks. it is a bit of a stretch to call this tool a “mindmapper” - but if you look at their marketing materials, they do have a goal to help you visualize a map of your converastions.
7. Miro - Miro is absolutely in a class of its own. It is an Apple Pencil/iPad first app so mindmapping in this tool is closer to what Tony Buzan envisions -it’s more freeform and not as “mechanical” as most mapping programs listed above. I personally haven’t gotten into the habit of using it yet because (1) it doesn’t support offline mode (2) i tend to think in terms of discrete outlines so organizing data the Notion way works better for me. I am sure this will shift over time and there is a YouTuber that absolutely raves about Miro because it shifts the landscape as to what a “notetaking app” can be...