I've been working on ArchStudio, a free and open-source tool for designing software architectures. It's still an early beta, and I'm looking for feedback. I wanted to try a different approach to architecture diagrams. Instead of just drawing boxes and connecting them, components have their own properties and trade-offs. Databases have replication and consistency settings, queues have delivery guarantees, caches have invalidation strategies and so on. There's a drag-and-drop canvas with automatic connection routing and layout, architectural boundaries, and templates for common system designs. Everything can be saved as plain JSON. I've also built an optional AI assistant that understands the architecture and can review designs or propose changes. Instead of silently modifying things, it shows a visual diff where you can accept or reject each change individually. You can try it here: Website: https://archstudio.app/ GitHub: https://github.com/JamieLivingstone/ArchStudio Desktop downloads are also available for macOS, Windows and Linux through GitHub Releases. I'm also working on whiteboard import, so you can turn a photo of an architecture drawn in the office into an editable diagram, along with an interactive system design interview mode. It's still early days, so I'd love to hear what people think. Particularly anything that's confusing, missing or could be improved.   submitted by   /u/Initial_Mode_2821 [link]   [comments]