Freeware tool needed for drawing simple (but good looking) application diagrams

Question

So, what I would need is NOT UML or developer - only - diagrams, but more something similar to what one can do with Visio Professional.

I don't need to provide code generation or something, also the main focus is the looks of the diagrams (so DIA and similar applications are a no - go).

Also, whats needed is a good library of graphics items, such as "PC", "Internet - Cloud", etc...

What I want to accomplish is drawing easily understandable, good looking drawings of the very coarse software architecture, so I can show it to people and say:

"Look, here is the server that takes all the data, and here we communicate via the Internet to feed that data to the clients... and do you see this box here? This is the business layer of the client application, where we prepare the data before we send it to the server and do all the validation."

Any ideas?

As I said, I need really good looking graphics, thats what it is all about. And a library of application / PC related cliparts, like Visio Professional (which I can't use here) has it.

Answer 1

I admit I am not an expert in diagrams (and even less in those you would like to create), but some friends suggested me Dia as a nice alternative to Visio.

Answer 2

Gliffy online has a free option, it's an online app: http://www.gliffy.com/online.shtml

another similar one is Lovely charts: http://www.lovelycharts.com/

Answer 3

OpenOffice Draw has served me well in the past - http://www.openoffice.org/product/draw.html

There's also Kivio (part of KOffice) www.koffice.org/kivio/