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CodeViz vs Swimm

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. CodeViz publishes a starting price ($19); Swimm does not. Only CodeViz has a free tier. Only CodeViz ships a public API.

CodeVizReads a codebase and draws its architecture, with diagrams for pull requests and export to Mermaid or draw.io.SwimmStatic analysis plus AI that reads legacy code and writes the documentation and diagrams a migration team needs.

Side by side

FactCodeVizSwimm
CategoryDocumentation GeneratorsDocumentation Generators
Pricing modelFreemiumContact
Starts at$19 month—
Public APIYesNo
PlatformsWeb, Vscode ExtWeb, Vscode Ext
CompanyEdisonLabs, Inc.Swimm
Launched—2019
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

CodeViz

Diagram tools usually rot because nobody updates them; CodeViz regenerates from the code itself, and exporting to Mermaid and draw.io means the output is not trapped in the vendor's viewer. The free tier is real enough to evaluate on a single repo. The gap between $19 Pro and $50 per seat Teams is steep, and multi-repository support only appears at that higher tier.

Pros

  • Generates diagrams directly from the repository rather than by hand
  • Exports to Mermaid, draw.io, and PNG so diagrams live outside the tool
  • Free tier of 5 diagrams a month on one repository
  • Jira, GitHub, Slack, and Figma integrations, plus PR visualisation on paid tiers

Cons

  • Multi-repository support requires the $50 per seat Teams plan
  • API access and on-premise deployment are Enterprise-only
  • Primarily a VS Code extension - other editors are not listed
  • The ROI and time-saved figures on the site are vendor claims with no methodology

Swimm

Swimm is the rare documentation tool that treats old code as the source of truth instead of asking humans to describe it. If you are staring at a COBOL or .NET estate nobody understands, the flow maps and extracted business rules are the useful part. The catch is that it is no longer a tool you can simply buy: it is a staged engagement with engineers attached, and the self-serve documentation product it was known for is not what the site sells today.

Pros

  • Deterministic static analysis backs the AI output, so traces come from the code rather than a guess
  • Produces diagrams and flow maps, not only prose
  • Covers mainframe and COBOL alongside .NET and Java
  • Work is broken into fixed-price stages you can stop after

Cons

  • No pricing published anywhere on the site
  • Repositioned away from the continuous-documentation product it was known for
  • Aimed at large estates, which makes it overkill for a normal repository

Which one fits

Choose CodeViz if you need

  • Onboarding engineers onto an unfamiliar codebase
  • Reviewing a large pull request as an architecture change, not a diff
  • Keeping Notion or Confluence architecture pages in sync with the code

Choose Swimm if you need

  • Teams documenting a mainframe or legacy .NET/Java estate before a migration
  • Architects who need job-flow and variable traces out of unfamiliar code
  • Enterprises that want non-engineers to read what the code actually does

More comparisons

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