STEVEN GOODHEART  This program has a hell of a lot of horsepower and features for a free program. I own and use Mindjet MindManager for mind mapping, and this free program has an amazing amount of the same advanced features, like filtering, notes, hot links to the web and docs, and customizable icons that allow you filter. Plus, the program is quite zippy (on my Intel iMac with Snow Leopard) even though its Java-based. (Maybe I shouldn't expect it to be slow -- Personal Brain mind mapper is also Java-based and it totally responsive with its live links and way-cool animated navigation.)

The biggest difference between this free program and something like MindManager is the overall refinement of the user interface, the look and feel, and navigation. For example, unless I missed it, I didn't see a way in FreeMind to hoist a node, or hide other nodes so I could just see a node I wanted to focus on, and I missed MindManager's nifty ability to "Fit Selection" to your screen. (In a huge mind map, being able to select a node and its children, and then hide others, and then have your selected node expanded or shrunk to "fit to screen" is a huge aid in working with your data. Again, FreeMind may do these things, but I couldn't find out how, if it does. I found the bazillion icons all around the FreeMind window hard to interpret, though each icon did have a hover pop-up -- after a while, I guess you'd get to know what the icons meant.

That said, of course one might expect a paid program of the price of MindManager to be way more refined and visually appealing, but in terms of pure functionality, FreeMind has the majority of features even a hard-core mind mapper would want. If I didn't own MindManager, I think FreeMind would definitely be my program of choice. Kudos to the open source community for making a remarkably powerful and useful program.  
(Version 0.9rc6)

DOOBIEXX  only PPC? Mistake or are there still people coding apps just for ppc's?  
(Version 0.9rc1)

ERIC DURBROW  XMIND is a more elegant and powerful free alternative to FreeMind.  
(Version 0.9rc1)

REV SCOTT  I have been looking at mind mapping software for a while, but the price always drove me away. Since FreeMind was Free, I figured I would try it. Right now I am using it for document management as I have 1000's of ebooks, etc for my ministry. It is quickly becoming one of those tools that I do not know how I got along without it. I now have everything nicely sorted by catageory that I can easily find with just a click, and it does not hog my hard drive space like MS onenote did.

I am so glad I discovered mind mapping and this product. It now one of my crucial apps I could not live without and makes my mac that much more enjoyable.  
(Version 0.8.1)

ZZAMBONI  This is a very useful application. On a Mac it suffers from "not looking like a Mac app" (as others have commented) because it is implemented in Java, but in exchange it is cross-platform, so you can easily share mindmaps with users using Windows or Linux. It has a bit of a learning curve, but once you get over it, you can quickly and easily use it to brainstorm, to create outlines, to plan projects or papers, etc.  
(Version 0.8.1)

KRUNKOSAURUS  I was very excited to find free "mind map" software, but I found this software grossly unintuitive. Besides the supplied commands documented in the help section, a user should be able to do natural things like double-clicking white space to create a new node, and hooking it in afterwards the way he or she sees fit. My first experience with a "mind map" was with a PC app at work. I don't recall what it was called but I definitely didn't need to read extensive documentation to use it. I will continue my search for good, intuitive mind-mapping software for the mac - paying for it if necessary, and until FreeMind improves, I suggest you do the same.  
(Version 0.8)

NADAMAC  It's fantastic to have an application like that for free!

But there's room for improvement, too. The icons are so ugly they look like from a homepage of a 12 years old PC user. And the quality of the German translation is not ready for primetime.  
(Version 0.8)

L-I-N-K  FreeMind is an application to recommend. I have tested version 0.8.0 and it feels already like a full featured mind mapping application.

Of course it has to evolve some graphical issues (e.g. icon quality).  
(Version 0.8)

UMAROMC  I've been using this for a few days now and after getting over the small hump of a learning curve (I've never used an app like this, either, but I've recent need of one) I've found this to be fairly straight forward and intuitive.

I don't know what else I'd suggest that might end up making this bloatware... but I'm sure I can't be the only person that'd benefit from LARGER ICONS.

Thanks!  
(Version 0.8)

PITERPAN  This could be a much more intuitive and easy to use application. But it's not. It's got a lot of features... But (for me at least) it's very confusing to use on a Mac. I'm really sad about this, because it's a cross platform app (Linux/Mac/Win). And I wanted to use it because of that particular reason.

FreeMind should be more like this one MyMind:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11451

This is truly intuitive, a pleasure to use ,(altought it's not bug free) and it's free.

Download here:

http://files.5star-network.com/Mac/Business/MyMind12.dmg

Just try it!

(I'm not the developer! :-) )

Is there any more apps like this?? Anyone?

thanks.  
(Version 0.8)

REEDYBLOKE  This was a great app before but 0.8 is a big step up from 0.7 which was more like a beta project. This looks and operates like an up and coming commercial app. There appear to be many new features which whilst not constituting a major new version are a significant upgrade. This means it is much more usable but begs the question 'Were the features there before but hidden behind the old interface?' Documentation works better and uses the app to both demo and inform user of features. Each to there own but this reviewer thinks this is a great app, thanks for distributing for free.  
(Version 0.8)

TOM  Sorry, forgot to mention 1) the more then 20 language translations and 2) free keyboard commands ...   
(Version 0.8)

TOM  I know the program for quite some time. Give this thing a HOTPICK status, IHMO the best MM tool around. Additional export formats like PDF, OpenOffice, XSLT, SVG, JPG, PNG, .. and cross-platform availability make it simply the best ...  
(Version 0.8)

YANNI  Has anybody managed to get this thing to d/l yet?

Is it worth the effort?  
(Version 0.8)