# Alternatives to Excalidraw Hand-drawn style open source sketching. Excalidraw ranks #1 of 6 in Online whiteboards, with an Alt Score of 82. It is licensed under MIT and open source with paid hosting from $6/user/month. 10 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source. Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/excalidraw/ Category: Online whiteboards ## Where Excalidraw stands out - **Open source** — 1 of 6 apps with a verified answer have this ## Overview - **Who it's for**: Anyone who needs to quickly sketch diagrams, wireframes, or visual ideas — developers, designers, product teams, and educators — especially those who want a lightweight, hand-drawn look rather than polished vector graphics. - **What you get**: An infinite canvas with a hand-drawn aesthetic for drawing shapes, arrows, text, and freehand sketches. It supports real-time, end-to-end encrypted collaboration with others via shareable links, plus reusable shape libraries and dark mode. Work can be exported as PNG, SVG, or the native .excalidraw JSON format, and it's free and open source (also embeddable via an npm package or used via its VS Code extension). - **How it works**: Open the canvas and draw or place shapes, arrows, and text directly on it, using the hand-drawn style renderer. Invite collaborators to a session for live simultaneous editing, or work solo with local browser autosave, then export or share the finished diagram. ## Profile - **License**: MIT (verified 2026-07-09) - **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting (verified 2026-07-09) - **Starts at**: $6/user/month (verified 2026-07-09) - **Platforms**: ? - **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-09) ## Ranked alternatives | # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms | |---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------| | 1 | [tldraw](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/tldraw.md) | 73 | tldraw license (source-available; commercial license required for production) | ? | | 2 | [Mural](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/mural.md) | 68 | Proprietary | Web, iOS, Android, Windows | | 3 | [FigJam](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/figjam.md) | 64 | ? | Web, Windows, macOS, iOS | | 4 | [Freeform](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/freeform.md) | 55 | ? | macOS, iOS | | 5 | [Miro](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/miro.md) | 55 | ? | Web, Windows, macOS, iOS | Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/ ## Feature comparison Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified). | Online whiteboards checklist | Excalidraw | tldraw | Mural | FigJam | Freeform | Miro | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Pricing model | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | Freemium | Freemium | Free | Freemium | | Starts at | $6/user/month | Free | $9.99/month | Free | Free | $8/member/month | | License | MIT | tldraw license (source-available; commercial license required for production) | Proprietary | ? | ? | ? | | Platforms | ? | ? | Web, iOS, Android, Windows, macOS | Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android | macOS, iOS | Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android | | Infinite canvas | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | | Real-time collaboration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Templates library | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | Diagramming shapes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Video chat built in | Partial | No | No | No | Yes | No | | Open source | Yes | Partial | No | No | No | No | | Self-hostable | Partial | Yes | No | No | No | No | | Free tier limits | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | Hand-drawn style | Yes | Yes | Partial | ? | Yes | No | | Embeds in docs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ## Sources Sources for Excalidraw. Each alternative is sourced on its own page. - **Status**: active — (verified 2026-07-09) - Note: Active GitHub development. - Quote: “An open source virtual hand-drawn style whiteboard. Collaborative and end-to-end encrypted.” - **License**: MIT — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “MIT License Copyright (c) 2020 Excalidraw” - **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “Free forever ... $6 a month per user ... Everything in Free +” - **Starts at**: $6/user/month — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “$6 per user/month paid yearly · $7 per user/month paid monthly.” - **Infinite canvas**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “Infinite, canvas-based whiteboard.” - **Real-time collaboration**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “Real-time collaboration.” - **Templates library**: No — (verified 2026-07-09) - Note: Shape libraries only; no dedicated templates library. - Quote: “Libraries ... Public libraries ... Personal library ... Workspace libraries” - **Diagramming shapes**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “Wide range of tools - rectangle, circle, diamond, arrow, line, free-draw, eraser...” - **Video chat built in**: Partial — (verified 2026-07-09) - Note: Voice hangout + screensharing is a paid Plus feature; no video. - Quote: “Voice hangout & screensharing” - **Open source**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “MIT License Copyright (c) 2020 Excalidraw” - **Self-hostable**: Partial — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “We publish a Docker image with the Excalidraw client ... You can use it to self-host your own client under your own domain ... At the moment, self-hosting your own instance doesn't support sharing or ” - **Free tier limits**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “1 infinite scene ... Unlimited scenes and folders [Plus only]” - **Hand-drawn style**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “An open source virtual hand-drawn style whiteboard.” - **Embeds in docs**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-09) - Quote: “Read-Only links & Embeds ... Notion, Obsidian and other integrations” --- Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/