The best BJJ flowchart app depends on whether you want to study someone else’s map or build your own. If you want a finished curriculum of charts with video, BJJFlowCharts is the most complete option. If you want to map your own game, Grapple Flows (the app I build) is free, runs in the browser, and can draft a chart from a voice note, a YouTube video, or an Instagram reel. BJJ Flow Tracker, Jiu-Jitsu Chart, and the JJXF flowchart tool are smaller web builders, and MindBJJ is a free read-only map of the whole sport.
A note on bias before anything else. I make Grapple Flows, and before that we ran BuddyTape, a free BJJ flowchart tool we launched in 2019. So I’m not neutral. What I’ve tried to do here is describe each tool from its own site or store listing, as of late September 2026, and say plainly where I couldn’t find something. I also left out a few names that still show up in search results, YoFlo, BJJ GRiD, and Flow Roll JJ, because I couldn’t find a live website or app store listing for any of them when I checked.
Quick comparison
| App | Platforms | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grapple Flows | Web (desktop and phone browser) | Free, optional Pro | Building your own maps, including from voice notes and videos |
| BJJFlowCharts | iOS, Android | Free Fundamentals course; $74 lifetime membership on the App Store | Studying a finished curriculum of charts with video |
| Jiu-Jitsu Chart | Web | I couldn’t find pricing | A game plan, technique log, and belt checklist in one place |
| BJJ Flow Tracker | Web (desktop and mobile) | No pricing listed; guest mode available | Starting from a template of 90+ techniques |
| JJXF flowchart tool | Web | Free with sign-up | Charts with typed nodes and opponent reactions marked |
| MindBJJ | Web | Free, no account | Exploring how the whole sport connects (read-only) |
| Miro, Whimsical | Web and apps | Free tiers with caps | Testing whether flowcharts suit you |
Grapple Flows
Grapple Flows is a free BJJ flowchart app that turns voice notes and videos into visual maps of jiu-jitsu techniques, positions, and transitions you can study, edit, and share. You can build a chart by hand on an infinite canvas, or let it draft one from a short voice note, a YouTube video, or an Instagram reel and then fix what it got wrong. There’s a community library at /explore, and position pages like closed guard and half guard collect finished maps for a position in one place.
What it’s good at is the thing I built it for: getting a chart out of your head the same night you learned the move. I wrote about why at more length. Drawing a chart from scratch is the step where most people quit, and editing a rough draft is a lot less work than starting from a blank page.
Where it falls short: it runs in the browser, so there’s no App Store download (you can add it to your phone’s home screen). The generated drafts need editing; they get the shape of a sequence right more often than the fine details. And it doesn’t ship a paid curriculum of pro instruction the way BJJFlowCharts does. The maps in the library are shared flowcharts, not a filmed course from one instructor.
Creating flowcharts is free, and there’s an optional Pro tier.
BJJFlowCharts
BJJFlowCharts is the best-known name in the category, and for good reason. It’s built by Maxi Garami, a black belt, and it pairs flowcharts with instructional video. The app has eight courses (Fundamentals, Defenses, Guards, Passing, Attacks, Leglocks, Wrestle Jitsu, and Kids), and the site describes it as 8 courses, 675 videos, and 100 flowcharts, with new videos every week.
The App Store listing shows it as a free download with the full Fundamentals course included, and a $74 lifetime membership as the in-app purchase. It’s on iPhone, iPad, and Android. Separately, the website sells chart sets organized around John Danaher and Gordon Ryan instructional series (Back Attacks, Half Guard, Kimura, Guard Retention, and others), listed at $29.90 each when I checked.
Who it suits: someone who wants to be handed a structured curriculum and study it, the way you’d work through a textbook. If you own a Danaher instructional and never finished it, a chart of how its pieces connect is a useful companion. I couldn’t find anything on the site about building your own charts in the app, so if you want to map your own game, this is a study tool rather than a notebook.
Jiu-Jitsu Chart
Jiu-Jitsu Chart is a web app that bundles a node-based flowchart editor with a video library, a “Technical Mastery Log” for technique notes, a digital belt checklist, and a community section for sharing. It also links to a custom ChatGPT for generating a game plan flowchart.
It suits someone who wants several training-log tools in one place rather than a flowchart tool alone. I couldn’t find pricing on the site, and I couldn’t find a mobile app.
BJJ Flow Tracker
BJJ Flow Tracker is a smaller web app that works on desktop and mobile browsers. You add techniques, sort them by category (pass, sweep, submission), and connect them into flows. It starts you with 90+ techniques and templates so you aren’t staring at an empty screen, and it’s available in English and Japanese.
You can sign in with Google or try it as a guest. The site doesn’t list pricing. It suits someone who likes the idea of building from a starter template and growing it after each class, which is a sensible way to avoid the blank-page problem.
JJXF flowchart tool
Jiu Jitsu X Factor is mainly an instructional site, selling courses from $19.95 to $64.95, but it also has a free web flowchart tool you get by signing up. The design is more opinionated than most. There are eight color-coded node types (Control, Escape, Guard, Passing, Position, Takedown, Technique, Submission), opponent reactions are drawn as dotted nodes, and each connection can be tagged as neutral, offensive, or defensive.
That structure is its strength. Marking which boxes are your moves and which are your partner’s reactions is exactly the discipline that makes a flowchart useful, and JJXF builds it into the tool. Their guide to BJJ flowcharts walks through it. I didn’t find a mobile app.
MindBJJ
MindBJJ is different from everything else here. It’s a free, interactive map of the sport (positions, transitions, sweeps, escapes, submissions) that you explore rather than edit. There’s no account and no paywall, and clicking a technique at the end of a branch runs a YouTube search for it.
It’s a good way for a newer student to see how much connects to a given position, and it’s free. As far as I could tell it doesn’t let you build or save your own map, so it pairs with a builder rather than replacing one.
BuddyTape
BuddyTape was our first go at this, launched in 2019 as a free flowchart tool for jiu-jitsu. The site still loads, but Grapple Flows is where the work goes now. The BuddyTape to Grapple Flows post covers what changed and why. If you have old charts there, they’re worth rebuilding in Grapple Flows.
General tools: Miro, Whimsical, MindMeister, Notion
Plenty of people map their game in general diagram tools, and it works. Miro’s free plan gives you three editable boards. Whimsical’s free plan caps you at 50 board objects a month, which is about one medium chart. MindMeister’s free plan allows three mind maps. Notion has a free plan for individuals, but it’s a document tool, and a guard system crammed into nested toggles gets hard to read fast.
What you give up is anything specific to jiu-jitsu: no technique library, no position pages, no way to start from someone else’s closed guard map. What you gain is a tool you might already know. They’re a cheap way to find out whether the format suits your brain. I covered that question in mind maps vs. flowcharts vs. linear notes: a mind map treats every branch as equal, and a flowchart makes you write the condition under each one.
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No account needed Map one position in the Grapple Flows editor and see if the format sticks. Open the editor →
How to choose
Start with what you want the chart to do. If you want to learn a system someone else designed, pick BJJFlowCharts, or a JJXF course plus its flowchart tool. If you want to record your own game, pick a builder: Grapple Flows, BJJ Flow Tracker, Jiu-Jitsu Chart, or JJXF. If you only want to see how the sport connects before committing to anything, spend twenty minutes in MindBJJ.
Then be honest about where you’ll quit. For most people it isn’t the app, it’s the drawing. A chart takes five or ten minutes to build properly, and after a 9pm class that’s a lot. If that’s you, pick the tool that makes the first draft cheapest, whether that’s a template (BJJ Flow Tracker), a voice note or video (Grapple Flows), or a finished chart you edit instead of draw.
Platform matters less than people think. Most of these run in a phone browser. If you want an app from the App Store or Google Play, BJJFlowCharts is the one in this list built that way.
Whatever you pick, start with one position. Map your de la riva guard or your guard passing, not your whole game. A single chart you open before Thursday’s class is worth more than an ambitious map you abandon halfway.
Common questions
Is there a free BJJ flowchart app? Yes. Grapple Flows, BJJ Flow Tracker, the JJXF flowchart tool, and MindBJJ can all be used without paying. MindBJJ is a read-only map; the other three let you build your own charts. BJJFlowCharts has a free Fundamentals course, with the rest behind a paid membership.
What’s the best app for pre-made BJJ flowcharts? BJJFlowCharts. It’s built around a curriculum of charts paired with instructional video, and the site also sells charts organized around John Danaher and Gordon Ryan instructional series.
Can I make BJJ flowcharts in Miro or Whimsical? Yes, and they’re good for testing whether the format suits you. They have no jiu-jitsu vocabulary or technique library, and their free tiers cap how much you can build.
Do I need a flowchart app at all? No. A pen and a notebook page work if you commit to them. An app helps when drawing by hand is the reason you stop, or when you want video on each branch and charts you can share. Why flowcharts stick after class covers why the format is worth the effort in the first place.
