Excalidraw vs tldraw

Excalidraw

• Quick architecture sketches, wireframes and diagrams
• Ad hoc sessions where guests join by link with no account
• Developers who want an open-source editor to embed or self-host
• Students and teachers, who get a reduced Excalidraw+ price

tldraw

• Quick sketches and diagrams without creating an account
• People who want whiteboard files kept locally on their computer
• Working on a canvas alongside coding agents such as Codex or Claude Code
• Developers evaluating the tldraw SDK for their own product

Excalidraw

• The free editor has 1 scene and no accounts or cloud saving; anything else has to be exported or saved to a file.
• Unlimited scenes, comments, access management, presentations and voice hangouts all need Excalidraw+.
• The vendor's pages list no desktop or mobile apps; Excalidraw runs in a web browser.
• Excalidraw+ bills every seat in every workspace, accepts credit cards only, and its terms make charges non-refundable.

tldraw

• The vendor describes tldraw.com as the flagship demo of its SDK and ships early SDK versions there for testing and evaluation.
• Sharing a board from tldraw.com requires signing in to an account.
• No native iOS or Android apps are listed; on phones and tablets tldraw runs in the browser.
• tldraw is not open source: the SDK is source-available, and using it in a product needs a commercial license whose price is not published.

Excalidraw

Hand-drawn style canvas

An infinite canvas with elementary drawing tools and a sketched, hand-drawn look. Keyboard shortcuts and a command palette speed up drawing.

Collaboration by link

Sharing a link starts a live session that anyone can join without an account. Excalidraw+ adds read-only links, edit or view rights, comments and embeds.

Libraries

Public libraries supply ready-made sketches to drop into a scene. A personal library is kept in the browser on the free editor and on the server with Excalidraw+.

Generative AI

Text to diagram builds and edits diagrams from a prompt, and wireframe to code turns a sketch into an interactive mockup. AI use is limited on Free and extended on Plus.

Excalidraw+ workspace

Scenes sync to the cloud and are organized into collections, with user accounts, team management and access control. An MCP server lets AI agents draw into a workspace.

Presentations and voice

With Plus, frames become slides for live presentations, scenes export to PDF and PPTX, and collaborators can talk over voice hangouts with screen sharing.

tldraw

Infinite canvas drawing tools

Draw freehand, add shapes, arrows and text with rich formatting, and drop in images and bookmarks. The site says it works in browsers on phones, tablets and desktops.

Accounts and cloud files

The app works without logging in. Signing in to a free account saves files to the cloud, syncs them between devices and lists them in a sidebar.

Sharing and multiplayer

A signed-in owner can invite guests as editors or viewers with a link, keep a file private, or publish a snapshot that can be updated later without a new link.

tldraw offline

A desktop app with no accounts and no server. Boards are saved as self-contained .tldraw files, and others on the same local network can join a file.

Canvas for AI agents

A plugin for ChatGPT and Codex and an MCP App for Cursor let agents draw on a board, and tldraw offline lets local agents such as Claude Code edit and script files.

Excalidraw

• Free$0

  Full editor with 1 infinite scene, unlimited collaborators by link, PNG and SVG export, libraries, and end-to-end encryption in the browser.

• Plus$6

  per user / month, billed annually ($7 billed monthly)

  Unlimited scenes and folders saved to the cloud, edit or view-only sharing, comments, team management, presentations, voice hangouts and extended AI.

tldraw

• Free$0

  The whiteboard at tldraw.com, with or without an account, and the tldraw offline desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux.

Excalidraw

• Annual discount

  Save 14% with annual billing

  Excalidraw+ is $6 per user a month when billed annually and $7 when billed monthly. The pricing page states the annual saving as 14%.

• Education

  Excalidraw+ for $4 a month with a school email

  Students and teachers with an educational email address can get Excalidraw+ for $4 monthly or $36 yearly, shown at checkout or after verification.

tldraw

No public discounts listed.