Excalidraw

What is Excalidraw?

Excalidraw is an open source virtual whiteboard for sketching diagrams, wireframes, and ideas on an infinite canvas. Its signature is a hand-drawn look — shapes and arrows render as if you sketched them by hand. It runs free in the browser at excalidraw.com, embeds into other apps as a React component, and is MIT-licensed, so you can self-host it.

What is Excalidraw best for?

Fast, low-friction visual thinking — architecture sketches, flowcharts, wireframes, and quick whiteboarding sessions where you want an idea down in seconds rather than a polished, brand-styled diagram. It suits developers and small teams who value a canvas that opens instantly and gets out of the way, and who want to own their data instead of routing it through a SaaS whiteboard.

What can Excalidraw do?

• Draw on an infinite canvas with hand-drawn-style shapes, arrows, lines, text, and free-draw
• Collaborate in real time with end-to-end encrypted sessions on excalidraw.com
• Work offline — it’s local-first and autosaves the canvas to your browser
• Export to PNG, SVG, clipboard, or the open .excalidraw JSON format
• Reuse shapes from libraries, and convert Mermaid diagrams or text to Excalidraw
• Embed the editor in your own app via the @excalidraw/excalidraw npm/React package
• Self-host the full editor with the official Docker image

Is Excalidraw free?

Yes — the core editor is free and open source under the MIT license, free to use at excalidraw.com and free to self-host. Excalidraw Plus is a separate paid cloud service ($6 per user/month, or about $5 billed annually) that layers accounts, unlimited saved scenes and folders, managed cloud storage, live presentations, and enhanced AI on top of the same open source editor.

Where does Excalidraw fall short?

• It’s a focused sketchpad, not a workshop platform. There’s no built-in video chat, voting, timers, or large template gallery — the facilitation features that make Miro and FigJam meeting tools. That minimalism is deliberate, but it’s a real gap if you run structured workshops.
• The free and self-hosted editor keeps your work in browser local storage, one scene at a time — no accounts, folders, or cloud sync are built in. Named workspaces, multi-scene persistence, and managed storage only come with the paid Excalidraw Plus.
• Self-hosted real-time collaboration means running the separate excalidraw-room server, not just the editor container — the editor you self-host on its own is single-player until you add it.

What does Excalidraw replace?

Excalidraw is an open source alternative to Miro and FigJam for the sketch-and-diagram side of whiteboarding. It covers the infinite canvas, live drawing, and export those tools charge per seat for, while deliberately skipping their heavier workshop, templating, and project-management layers. If you want a whiteboard bundled with docs and databases in one app, AFFiNE is a heavier open source option.

FAQ

Is Excalidraw open source? Yes. Excalidraw is released under the permissive MIT license — genuinely open source, not just source-available — so it’s free to use, modify, self-host, and embed in your own products.

Can I self-host Excalidraw for free? Yes. The editor ships with an official Docker image and costs nothing to run. Live collaboration needs the separate excalidraw-room server, and the paid Plus cloud features (accounts, folders, managed storage) aren’t part of the self-hosted app.

Is Excalidraw a good Miro alternative? For fast diagramming and sketching, yes — it’s quicker, lighter, and has no per-seat fee. For large facilitated workshops with templates, voting, and built-in video, Miro still does more.

What do I need to run Excalidraw? Nothing to use it at excalidraw.com — it runs in the browser. To self-host, a server with Docker runs the editor; add the excalidraw-room server if you want live collaboration.