Landscape: tools similar to vpcatlas

This page is background reading. It is a survey of other tools that map or diagram AWS networks, written while vpcatlas was being designed, and it is not part of the documentation of the tool: nothing here is needed to install or use vpcatlas. Prices and project status change, so check the sources before you decide anything from it.

Date of research: 2026-10-17. Method: web search and a handful of page fetches. Anything marked "unverified" was not confirmed on a primary source and must be re-checked before it is used in a decision.

Product under comparison

A read-only CLI, plus a dashboard that can be deployed on Lambda, Kubernetes or ECS. It discovers the whole AWS network (VPC, subnets, routes, IGW/NAT, Transit Gateway with attachments from other accounts, peering, VPN, Direct Connect, endpoints, ELB, Network Firewall, Route 53 Resolver, RAM shares). It builds a cross-account inventory and draws diagrams in the official AWS style, exportable to draw.io and Lucidchart.

Comparison table

Name	Type	Indicative price	Discovers (network, cross-account, TGW)	Export	CLI	Self-deploy	Status	Link
Lucidscale (Lucid)	Paid SaaS, add-on to Lucid Enterprise	Not public; a 2024 blog says about 2,000 USD/yr (unverified)	AWS/Azure/GCP import into Data Hub. Cross-account and TGW coverage not confirmed; a 2022 community post says CLI import worked but cross-role import did not (anecdotal)	Lucid documents; snapshot export to Lucidchart shapes (loses live link)	No	No	Active, but Lucid says Lucidscale features are moving into Lucidchart	https://lucid.co/lucidscale/create
Cloudcraft (Datadog)	Paid SaaS	Free tier; live AWS import is paid; about 41 USD/user/month on one aggregator (unverified)	AWS only, live import. Network depth and TGW not confirmed	draw.io (2D export), PNG, others	No	No	Active (Datadog-owned)	https://www.drawio.com/blog/drawio-aws-cloudcraft
Hava.io	Paid SaaS	Teams about 199-249 USD/month; older sources show 49/99/495 tiers	Continuously polls cloud config; AWS/Azure/GCP. TGW not confirmed	PDF, PNG, Visio (VSDX), CSV, JSON. draw.io not listed	No (API)	SaaS; self-hosted option not confirmed	Active	https://hava.io/pricing
Cloudockit	Paid SaaS	Not found	Multi-cloud documentation generator. Network depth not confirmed	draw.io, Word, PDF, Excel	No	No	Active (appears in draw.io integration docs)	https://www.drawio.com/blog/cloudockit-to-drawio
Hyperglance	Paid commercial, AWS Marketplace	About 899-1,458 USD/month, tiered by resource count	Interactive topology and inventory for AWS/Azure/GCP/K8s. TGW not confirmed	PNG, CSV, Visio (per a marketplace review); API automation	No	Yes, virtual appliance	Active	https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/reviews/reviews-list/B09YXC3S9P
Holori	Paid SaaS, free tier	Free plan; paid from 49 USD/user/month (vendor-authored sources)	Read-only AWS import, daily re-sync, change colouring. Network depth not confirmed	PDF, SVG, JSON, Terraform. No draw.io found	No	No	Active	https://holori.com/?p=3398
Cloudviz.io	Paid SaaS	Not found	Not verified; no useful results	Not verified	Not verified	Not verified	Not verified	n/a
AWS Workload Discovery on AWS	Official AWS Solution	Pay for the AWS resources it runs (Neptune, OpenSearch, etc.)	Multi-account and Organizations-wide graph, scan every 15 min; draw.io export. TGW coverage not confirmed	PNG, JSON, CSV, draw.io, myApplications	No	Yes (CloudFormation)	Discontinued. The AWS docs page now carries a notice of discontinuation	https://docs.aws.amazon.com/solutions/latest/workload-discovery-on-aws/features-and-benefits.html
AWS Perspective	Official AWS Solution (predecessor of the above)	AWS resource cost	Single-account diagrams	Not checked	No	Yes	Superseded	https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/implementations/aws-perspective/
Diagram generator (awslabs)	Open source, AWS Labs	Free	Search results say it renders VPCs, subnets, TGW, load balancers from an account scan (unverified; I did not open the repo). Needs Graphviz	Graphviz-style images	No (MCP)	No	Active (unverified)	search result only
cartography (Lyft, now cartography-cncf)	Open source, Apache 2.0	Free	Graph in Neo4j: EC2, ECS, EKS, Route 53, Lambda and more. TGW and peering not mentioned on the README. Multi-account yes	Neo4j browser views; no diagram export	Yes	Self-hosted (Neo4j)	Active (2,215 commits; release date not shown)	https://github.com/cartography-cncf/cartography
CloudMapper (Duo)	Open source, BSD-3	Free	Multi-account (Organizations discovery). Network map feature	HTML report, JSON	Yes	Self-hosted	The network visualization (prepare) is stated as no longer maintained; the README points to cartography instead	https://github.com/duo-labs/cloudmapper
Steampipe + Powerpipe (AWS Insights mod)	Open source	Free	VPC detail dashboard covers peering, NACLs, gateways, endpoints, relationships. No dedicated TGW dashboard found. Cross-account via aggregators (standard feature, not re-verified)	Dashboards in browser; no drawio/Lucid	Yes	Local server; self-hosted	Active; Steampipe dashboards deprecated in favour of Powerpipe	https://hub.powerpipe.io/mods/turbot/aws_insights
CloudQuery	Open core	CLI free; plugins mostly commercial and closed source; hub banner says CloudQuery is joining env zero	Broad asset sync to a database. Not a diagram tool	None (data sync)	Yes	Yes	Changing ownership	https://www.cloudquery.io/blog/aws-azure-gcp-pricing-changes
aws-visualizer (evilpete)	Open source	Free	Security-group dependency graph in one VPC	Graphs, HTML	Yes	Local	Archived 2022	https://github.com/evilpete/aws-visualizer
multicloud-diagrams	Open source (Python)	Free	Pulls resources via boto and compiles draw.io; depth unverified	draw.io	Yes	Local	Unverified	https://github.com/tsypuk/multicloud-diagrams
VizCon	Commercial desktop	About 399 USD one time (single PeerSpot review)	Reviewer says it captures VPCs, TGWs and route tables	Not checked	No	Local	Unverified	https://www.peerspot.com/products/vizcon-aws-network-serverless-architecture-visualizer-reviews
Terravision	Open source, AGPL-3.0, 1.7k stars	Free	Reads Terraform/OpenTofu code, not the live account. Needs no cloud access	PNG, SVG, PDF, editable draw.io, interactive HTML	Yes	Local	Active (1,018 commits; releases up to v0.50.0 seen)	https://github.com/patrickchugh/terravision
TerraViz (separate project)	Open source (Go)	Free	Reads Terraform state, local web view, 600+ AWS SVG icons	Interactive view	Yes	Local binary	Unverified	search result only
Brainboard	Paid SaaS	Not checked	Terraform design platform with generated diagrams	Not checked	No	No	Active	https://dev.to/miketysonofthecloud/make-terraform-as-diagram-30mh
diagrams.py (mingrammer)	Open source	Free	Diagram-as-code, no discovery	PNG, SVG	Library	Local	Not re-checked in this pass	n/a
aws-vpc-diagram, Infraviz	n/a	n/a	Not found. "Infraviz" returned no results at all	n/a	n/a	n/a	Unverified	n/a

Findings

1. The three closest to our product, and where they fall short

1. Workload Discovery on AWS (Perspective's successor). Closest in intent: read-only discovery, multi-account graph, self-deployed in the customer's account, draw.io export. It falls short because AWS has discontinued it. It also required a heavy stack, and I could not confirm that it models TGW attachments or Network Firewall or Resolver. It has no Lucidchart export and no CLI.
2. Cloudcraft (Datadog). Closest in output: AWS-style diagrams from a live account, with a draw.io export. It falls short because it is closed SaaS, paid for live import, has no CLI, cannot be self-deployed, and gives no cross-account link inventory that I could verify.
3. Lucidscale. Closest for the Lucid angle: imports cloud accounts and renders them in Lucid. It falls short because it is an enterprise add-on at undisclosed prices, is being folded into Lucidchart, has no CLI, no self-hosting, and its cross-account import path was reported as flaky. Export to Lucidchart loses the live link.

Honourable mentions: Hyperglance (strong topology, but 900-1,500 USD/month and no draw.io) and CloudMapper/cartography (open source and cross-account, but no drawing in the AWS style, and CloudMapper's network map is unmaintained).

2. The gap

There is a real gap, with the caveat that several vendors were only checked superficially.

I found no tool that combines all of these:

• open source and self-hosted,
• read-only discovery of the live account (not Terraform code),
• network-specific depth: Transit Gateway with attachments from other accounts, VPN, Direct Connect, Network Firewall, Resolver, RAM shares,
• an inventory of the links between accounts,
• diagrams with the official AWS Architecture Icons and the cloud, region, VPC, AZ, subnet containers,
• editable draw.io and Lucidchart output,
• a CLI plus a dashboard that deploys itself on Lambda, Kubernetes or ECS.

Existing open source tools split this up. Terravision gets the draw.io output and AWS styling, but starts from code. cartography and Steampipe get the live multi-account data, but have no diagram export. AWS's official solution, which came closest, is discontinued, which opens room for a replacement. I found no evidence of a tool that exports to Lucidchart from a live scan other than Lucidscale itself.

Risk to state plainly: Cloudcraft and Hava are mature and might already cover more network detail than I could confirm. Run a hands-on trial of both before positioning the product as unique.

3. Ideas worth copying

• Change highlighting between scans (Holori colours what changed since the last sync). A diff view of two scans is cheap to build and valuable for audits.
• Scheduled re-scan plus graph store (Workload Discovery scans every 15 minutes; cartography uses a graph). Keep the inventory as a graph or relational model, so the diagram is only one view of it.
• Draw.io as a first-class output and Terraform-aware layout (Terravision's editable draw.io, interactive HTML with search and zoom). Also consider emitting an optional Terraform import skeleton or JSON graph so the output is reusable.

Sources

• Lucidscale: https://lucid.co/lucidscale/create , https://lucidscale.com/compare/lucidscale-vs-cloudcraft , https://help.lucid.co/hc/en-us/sections/13409917528468-Cloud-Accelerator , https://community.lucid.co/product-questions-3/import-lucidscale-diagram-into-lucidchart-for-editing-1478
• Cloudcraft: https://www.drawio.com/blog/drawio-aws-cloudcraft
• Hava: https://hava.io/pricing , https://docs.hava.io/
• Cloudockit: https://www.drawio.com/blog/cloudockit-to-drawio
• Holori: https://holori.com/?p=3398 , https://dev.to/alexguerin/drawio-vs-holori-which-one-is-the-best-for-cloud-diagrams--2kkc
• Hyperglance: https://www.trustradius.com/compare-products/hyperglance-vs-kion
• Workload Discovery on AWS: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/solutions/latest/workload-discovery-on-aws/features-and-benefits.html
• cartography: https://github.com/cartography-cncf/cartography
• CloudMapper: https://github.com/duo-labs/cloudmapper
• Steampipe/Powerpipe: https://hub.powerpipe.io/mods/turbot/aws_insights
• CloudQuery: https://www.cloudquery.io/blog/aws-azure-gcp-pricing-changes
• Terravision: https://github.com/patrickchugh/terravision
• Others: https://github.com/evilpete/aws-visualizer , https://github.com/tsypuk/multicloud-diagrams

Limits of this research

About 20 tool calls. Pricing came largely from aggregators and vendor-authored posts. Cloudviz.io, Infraviz and aws-vpc-diagram returned nothing. Transit Gateway support was not confirmed for any commercial tool. Release dates were not shown for most GitHub projects.