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.
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.
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).
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.
Where Excalidraw stands out
Verified capabilities most alternatives don't have.
Why people leave Excalidraw
Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.
Sign in to add a reason — new reasons go through moderation before appearing.
Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the Online whiteboards checklist (14 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| Online whiteboards checklist | Excalidraw | tldraw | Mural | FigJam | Freeform | Miro |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
| Starts at | ||||||
| License | ||||||
| Platforms | ||||||
| Infinite canvas | ||||||
| Real-time collaboration | ||||||
| Templates library | ||||||
| Diagramming shapes | ||||||
| Video chat built in | ||||||
| Open source | ||||||
| Self-hostable | ||||||
| Free tier limits | ||||||
| Hand-drawn style | ||||||
| Embeds in docs |
Every fact and feature listed for Excalidraw is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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Status active verified 2026-07-09
Active GitHub development.
An open source virtual hand-drawn style whiteboard. Collaborative and end-to-end encrypted.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/master/README.md -
License MIT verified 2026-07-09
MIT License Copyright (c) 2020 Excalidraw
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/master/LICENSE -
Pricing model OSS + paid hosting verified 2026-07-09
Free forever ... $6 a month per user ... Everything in Free +
https://plus.excalidraw.com/pricing -
Starts at $6/user/month verified 2026-07-09
$6 per user/month paid yearly · $7 per user/month paid monthly.
https://plus.excalidraw.com/pricing -
Infinite canvas Yes verified 2026-07-09
Infinite, canvas-based whiteboard.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/master/README.md -
Real-time collaboration Yes verified 2026-07-09
Real-time collaboration.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/master/README.md -
Templates library No verified 2026-07-09
Shape libraries only; no dedicated templates library.
Libraries ... Public libraries ... Personal library ... Workspace libraries
https://plus.excalidraw.com/pricing -
Diagramming shapes Yes verified 2026-07-09
Wide range of tools - rectangle, circle, diamond, arrow, line, free-draw, eraser...
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/master/README.md -
Video chat built in Partial verified 2026-07-09
Voice hangout + screensharing is a paid Plus feature; no video.
Voice hangout & screensharing
https://plus.excalidraw.com/pricing -
Open source Yes verified 2026-07-09
MIT License Copyright (c) 2020 Excalidraw
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/master/LICENSE -
Self-hostable Partial verified 2026-07-09
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
https://docs.excalidraw.com/docs/introduction/development -
Free tier limits Yes verified 2026-07-09
1 infinite scene ... Unlimited scenes and folders [Plus only]
https://plus.excalidraw.com/pricing -
Hand-drawn style Yes verified 2026-07-09
An open source virtual hand-drawn style whiteboard.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/master/README.md -
Embeds in docs Yes verified 2026-07-09
Read-Only links & Embeds ... Notion, Obsidian and other integrations
https://plus.excalidraw.com/pricing
FAQ
Yes. Mural, FigJam and Freeform have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
tldraw — every license claim links its source.