I'm no saint when it comes to actually paying for certain applications. Adobe products for example are really expensive either way you look at them; full license per product you need or the cost mounting up each month / year with the subscription option.
Hell I've been using the trial version of Sublime for over a year now, but I will probably purchase it at some point providing Atom (githubs own text editor) doesn't surpass Sublime - as it's not that far off from being perfect, but Sublime still has some features which keep me using it.
Double hell (hell) I haven't actually ever purchased Visionaire Studio either. Wasn't that long after I signed up that I sort of joined the VS team as English support - yes I know the wiki is lacking, but I'm still really busy, but I try to keep up with the questions on the forum. I'm currently on vacation & I'm still replying to peoples questions & threads.
In regards to the alternatives: they are more for use in combination as opposed to using a single alternative. i.e: you could combine an online planning service such as google docs / asana / wunderlist etc. with one of the flow chart tools such as: yEd or Mindmaple (I switched over to the free version of mindmaple a while ago, but I don't use that now either since I bought Articy).
