# Netgraf vs Kumu

> Netgraf vs Kumu for relationship mapping: pricing, privacy of free maps, imports, and network metrics. A free Kumu alternative with no account needed.

Source: https://netgraf.isik.co/compare/kumu
Updated: 2026-09-24

Kumu is a mature hosted platform for mapping systems, stakeholders and networks, with a free tier for public projects. Netgraf is a lighter, free tool for drawing and sharing people maps with no account, whose maps are never indexed. Choose Kumu for large, styled, team projects; choose Netgraf to map people quickly and privately.

Verified against Kumu's own pages: 2026-09-24

## At a glance

|  | Netgraf | Kumu |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | Free | Public projects free; private projects from $9 a month; Pro workspace $10 a month |
| Account | No account | Registration required |
| Free maps | Unlisted by default and never indexed by search engines | Public projects are visible to everyone and indexed by search engines |
| Import | CSV, TSV, pasted spreadsheets, GraphML, GEXF, its own JSON | Excel, CSV, Google Sheets, JSON blueprints |
| Analysis | Degree, betweenness, harmonic closeness, PageRank, clustering, Louvain communities, density, centralization, assortativity | Degree, closeness, betweenness, eigenvector, reach, MICMAC; SLPA community detection |
| Styling | Colour by relationship kind, size by a measure, colour by community | Decorations, filters and clustering |

## The main difference: privacy of free maps

On Kumu's free tier, projects are public: Kumu's pricing page states that public projects "are visible to everyone and indexed by search engines". That is fine for a system map meant for publication, and a real problem for a map of actual business relationships, a family or a client's stakeholders. Every Netgraf map is unlisted and carries noindex for the major search and AI crawlers, while still producing a preview card when you choose to share the link.

## When to choose Kumu

- You are building a large, long-lived systems or stakeholder map with a team and need workspaces and permissions.
- You need Kumu's decorations and filters, or its systems-mapping features.
- You want overlapping community detection (SLPA) or measures such as reach and MICMAC.

## When to choose Netgraf

- You want to map people and share the result in minutes, without signing up.
- The map is about real people and should stay out of search engines.
- You want sources and confidence levels on every tie, a timeline, or a guided tour.
- You want the key measures explained in plain words rather than configured.

## Questions

### Is there a free alternative to Kumu?

Yes. Netgraf is free with no account and keeps maps unlisted. Graph Commons has a free public tier up to 100 nodes per graph, and Gephi is free desktop software for large-scale analysis.

### Can I move a map from Kumu to Netgraf?

Yes, through a spreadsheet. Kumu projects are usually built from a connections sheet with From and To columns: save that sheet as CSV and import it into Netgraf, which reads From and To as the two ends of each tie.

## Example maps

- https://netgraf.isik.co/m/stakeholder-map
- https://netgraf.isik.co/m/paypal-mafia