Excalidraw

A closer look at Excalidraw

Excalidraw is a hand-drawn style online whiteboard for quick diagrams, wireframes and live collaboration. The open-source editor runs in the browser with no sign-up: one infinite canvas, elementary drawing tools, ready-made libraries and PNG/SVG export. Excalidraw+ is the paid cloud workspace on top of it: $7 a month per user on monthly billing, or $6 a month per user on annual billing (the annual figure is a per-month average; the page publishes no annual total), adding unlimited cloud-saved scenes and folders, sharing with edit/view rights, comments, presentations, voice hangouts and extended AI.

Editorial guidance based on published documentation. The workflow below is a suggested starting point, not a measured product result.

When to choose Excalidraw

• Sketching quick hand-drawn diagrams, wireframes, meeting notes and brainstorms — the vendor's own listed use cases are meetings, brainstorming, diagrams, interviews and quick wireframing.
• Live collaboration by shareable link with no sign-up: anyone can join a session, and Plus adds read-only links, comments and voice hangouts for team feedback.
• Developers and teams who want the open-source editor itself: it ships as the @excalidraw/excalidraw npm package for embedding, can be self-hosted, and Plus adds a REST API and MCP server for agents.
• Turning text into diagrams or a wireframe into code with the built-in generative AI (Text to diagram, Wireframe to code, Mermaid to Excalidraw).

When to choose something else

• Needing free cloud saving and organisation for many drawings: the free editor holds 1 infinite scene saved only in the browser's storage — though scenes can be saved to local files — and unlimited scenes and folders saved on the cloud are a Plus feature.
• Heavy everyday AI use on the free plan: generative AI is capped at 10 requests a day on Free, rising to 100 a day (or bring your own key) only on Plus.
• Presenting work as slides or exporting it as PDF/PPTX: presentations, live real-time presentations, comments, voice hangouts and PDF/PPTX frame export are all Plus-only, and free image uploads are compressed while Plus allows up to 4k.

A practical starting workflow

1. Open excalidraw.com — no sign-up is needed — pick a tool and start drawing on the infinite canvas; move the canvas by holding the scroll wheel or Space while dragging, or with the hand tool.
2. Sketch with the elementary tools and drop in ready-made sketches from the Libraries, or type a prompt and use Text to diagram to generate and edit a diagram in the chat or the editor.
3. Share a link so collaborators can join and finish the idea together in real time; on Plus, use read-only links, comments and voice hangouts for feedback.
4. Save and export: the free editor keeps the scene in browser storage, so save it to a file regularly and export to PNG, SVG or JSON; on Plus the scene is saved securely on the cloud.
5. Present from the board when the work is ready: on Plus, turn frames into slides, run a live real-time presentation, or export frames to PDF or PPTX.

Check before committing

• The free editor warns on its own homepage that drawings are saved in the browser's storage and that browser storage can be cleared unexpectedly — save work to a file regularly.
• Plus has two billing states on the pricing page, all prices in USD: $7 a month per user on monthly billing, and $6 a month per user on annual billing. The $6 annual figure is a per-month average; the page publishes no annual total. The text read shows only the $6 headline because the billing-period toggle does not render in text; the $7 monthly figure comes from a browser capture of the same page with the toggle switched to Monthly on 2026-11-05 UTC.
• Workspace libraries and search in libraries are marked 'soon' on the vendor's own feature comparison table, not shipped.
• The only supported payment method stated in the pricing FAQ is credit card payment.
• The MCP and REST API are labelled public beta on the vendor's pricing and docs pages.

Common questions

Compare approaches for this task

• Miro — Teams planning together on a shared canvas, from workshops and brainstorming to roadmaps and delivery planning.; Organizations that want AI workflows, prototypes, diagrams, and two-way integrations with Jira, Asana, Linear, and ClickUp on the canvas.
• Canva — Turning an approved brief into presentation slides, social graphics, classroom materials, or campaign layouts.