Freeplane

Freeplane is a versatile program for creating mind maps and other diagrams to help you express your ideas and share them with colleagues. All features are clearly accessible through the app's intuitive interface, meaning that even inexperienced users can use the program with ease.

Pros

Password protection: This program gives you the option of entering a password to protect your files. In many cases, you may feel there is no need to take a precaution like this, but it's always a nice option to have.

Tabbed interface: You can have multiple mind maps open at once when you're using this program. Moving between them is quite easy as well, because each page is represented by a labeled tab running across the bottom of the interface.

Searchable node lists: Mind maps can get pretty large and unwieldy at times, which can make it hard to find exactly the information you're looking for. That's why the search feature in this program is so nice. It presents all of the nodes of your current map in a searchable list, and there are even filters you can enable to make finding what you want even easier.

Cons

Help format: The Help document that comes with this program is in the form of a mind map. While this is a nice way to display the features of the program, it's not necessarily the easiest way for everyone to navigate and absorb information. This is especially true in the case of users who have no experience with this type of program and who need the Help file the most.

Bottom Line

Freeplane is an efficient free program that gives you the tools to outline your ideas in whatever way you see fit. It offers a lot of nice features, and it ran smoothly all during testing.