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Top 10 Creately Alternatives List
By Matt Mazur · Last updated April 15, 2022
If you’re in the market for timeline software, you may have stumbled across Creately — or maybe you’re already using it. Whatever the case, you might not be aware of how Creately’s competitors compare.
This guide will give you an overview of the best Creately alternatives, looking at their key features, unique selling points, pricing, and best use cases.
Comparison Chart
Let’s take a quick look at the 10 best Creately alternatives on the market, all of which you'll find more details on further down in this article.
| Tool | Price | Key features |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Preceden | Preceden is free to try with paid plans starting at $12/month. |
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| 2. ChronoFlo | ChronoFlo has a free plan that lets you create 1 timeline with up to 50 events. There's also a Bronze plan ($10/month) that supports 5 timelines with up to 500 events, and a Silver plan ($29.50/month) that supports up to 25 timelines and up to 1,000 events per timeline. |
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| 3. Timeline Maker Pro | One-time purchases ranging from $49 for students to $535 for enterprise teams. |
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| 4. Time.Graphics | Free public timelines up to 18 events. Premium plans from $4.90/day to $97.90/year. |
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| 5. Tiki-Toki | Tiki-Toki's free plan is limited to 1 timeline with paid plans starting at $9.50/month that support multiple timelines and additional features. |
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| 6. Aeon Timeline | Free 14-day trial, then a one-time purchase of $64.99. |
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| 7. TimeToast | Timetoast has a free plan that lets you create unlimited public timelines, with paid plans starting at $5.99/month that add premium features. |
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| 8. Timeline 3D | Timeline 3D is free to use. |
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| 9. Timeline JS | TimelineJS is free to use. |
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| 10. Kronoli | Kronoli is a free service. |
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Choosing a Creately Alternative
Knowing your options is a good place to start when looking for an alternative to Creately. Before you decide whether to use Creately or something else though, it’s helpful to dive a little deeper.
To start, ask yourself these 3 questions:
- What can I afford? Most timeline tools provide a free option which may be more than enough for you. If not though, you'll want to make sure to choose a tool in your budget, which may be drastically different depending on whether you're a student or a project manager at a Fortune 100 company.
- What features are non-negotiable? For example, some tools support collaboration whereas others don't. Some tools let you create interactive timelines, some only graphical ones. Some are web-based and can be used from any device, some only work on Windows or Macs.
- What style would I prefer? Every tool creates a different style of timeline. A cartoon-looking timelines might be fine if you're working on a homework assignment but may not work well if you'll be presenting the timeline to your Board of Directors.
After answering these questions, narrow your list down to a few tools and try them out. Having this hands-on experience can help get a feel for how easy they are to use and whether they’ll satisfy your requirements.
Beyond the features and timeline style, be sure to check out other aspects of each offering. Some may not have been worked on for years and have poor support (you can send an email to their support team to see how quickly they respond). If you like multiple tools, the strength of their support docs and quality of their response could be a deciding factor.
Top 10 Creately Alternatives
1. Preceden
Best Creately alternative for creating timelines quickly.
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Preceden is a web-based timeline maker that lets you quickly create, customize, and share professional-looking timelines. It offers a variety of templates to help you get started and makes it easy to adjust your timeline's style with its variety of appearance settings. It's actively developed and provides fast customer support.
As an alternative to Creately, you’ll find that Preceden is easier to use, has more customization options, and gives you more ways to share your timeline. It strives to have all features you need (and nothing you don't) including:
- Layers to organize events
- Variety of customization options
- Privacy settings to control who can see your timeline
- Multiple ways to share, collaborate, and export
Pricing: Preceden is free to try with paid plans starting at $12/month.
2. ChronoFlo
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ChronoFlo, made by the same developer as TikiToki, lets you create stylish timeline visualizations directly in your browser.
Pricing: ChronoFlo has a free plan that lets you create 1 timeline with up to 50 events. There's also a Bronze plan ($10/month) that supports 5 timelines with up to 500 events, and a Silver plan ($29.50/month) that supports up to 25 timelines and up to 1,000 events per timeline.
3. Timeline Maker Pro
Best Creately alternative for private investigators.
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Timeline Maker Pro is a Windows program helps private investigators, researchers, and planners create timelines in a variety of formats. It's one of the oldest timeline makers (it launched in 1995), but does not appear to be under active development.
Unlike Creately, it is Windows software so you'll need a PC in order to use it.
Pricing: One-time purchases ranging from $49 for students to $535 for enterprise teams.
4. Time.Graphics
Best Creately alternative for embedding charts in your timeline.
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Time.Graphics is an online timeline tool that supports a wide variety of rich media like charts, videos, and images.
Pricing: Free public timelines up to 18 events. Premium plans from $4.90/day to $97.90/year.
5. Tiki-Toki
Best Creately alternative for multimedia heavy timelines.
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Tiki-Toki is a cloud-based timeline generator that lets you create timelines with a distinctive stylish graphical background. Unlike most other tools, Tiki-Toki lets users embed videos (YouTube, Vimeo, or MP4) directly in timelines.
Pricing: Tiki-Toki's free plan is limited to 1 timeline with paid plans starting at $9.50/month that support multiple timelines and additional features.
6. Aeon Timeline
Best Creately alternative for writers.
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Aeon Timeline is a Mac and Windows app that helps users create data-rich timelines. Unlike Creately, it lets users sync their timelines with Scrivener and Ulysses to avoid copy-pasting data between applications.
Pricing: Free 14-day trial, then a one-time purchase of $64.99.
7. TimeToast
Best Creately alternative for simple horizontal timelines.
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Timetoast lets users create simple historical timelines with events displayed above a long horizontal bar. Unlike Creately, it lets users create unlimited public timelines for free.
Pricing: Timetoast has a free plan that lets you create unlimited public timelines, with paid plans starting at $5.99/month that add premium features.
8. Timeline 3D
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Timeline 3D is a Mac app for creating beautiful multimedia timelines.
Pricing: Timeline 3D is free to use.
9. Timeline JS
Best Creately alternative for open source enthusiasts.
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Timeline JS is one of the few open source timeline creators, meaning you can view and even customize its source code if you'd like. It's somewhat limited in features and customization options, but might be a good option if you like the style as-is or want to support an open source project.
Unlike Creately, Timeline JS has you enter your data in a Google Sheet which is then read by your timeline.
Pricing: TimelineJS is free to use.
10. Kronoli
Best Creately alternative for vertical timelines.
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Kronoli is a website that lets users create basic vertical timelines. Unlike Creately and most other tools, Kronoli's timelines can range billions of years, letting you visualization things like the geologic history of Earth.
Pricing: Kronoli is a free service.