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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Excalidraw Has a Free Whiteboard for Hand-Drawn Diagrams

Excalidraw is a free, open-source virtual whiteboard for drawing hand-drawn style diagrams. It is beautiful, collaborative, and runs in your browser.

What Is Excalidraw?

Excalidraw is a whiteboard tool that produces diagrams with a hand-drawn feel. Perfect for architecture diagrams, wireframes, and brainstorming.

Key features:

  • Hand-drawn aesthetic
  • Real-time collaboration
  • End-to-end encryption
  • Library of shapes and icons
  • Export to PNG, SVG, clipboard
  • Dark mode
  • Self-hostable
  • No signup needed
  • Works offline

Just Open and Draw

Go to excalidraw.com. Start drawing. No account needed.

Use Cases

  • Architecture diagrams
  • System design interviews
  • Wireframes and mockups
  • Flow charts
  • Mind maps
  • Teaching and presentations

Collaboration

Click "Live collaboration" → share link → draw together in real-time. End-to-end encrypted.

VS Code Extension

Draw Excalidraw diagrams directly in VS Code. Save as .excalidraw files in your repo.

Excalidraw vs Alternatives

Feature draw.io Miro Excalidraw
Style Technical Sticky notes Hand-drawn
Signup No Yes No
Real-time No Yes Yes
E2E encryption No No Yes
Self-host Yes No Yes
Offline Yes No Yes

With 90K+ GitHub stars. The most loved diagramming tool.


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