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Both are open source, both are free, and both put an infinite canvas in a browser tab. They are still built for different jobs: one is a sketchpad for thinking out loud, the other is a diagram editor with the shape libraries a network engineer expects.
Reviewed · written by the team behind Drawdy, which competes with both
Choose draw.io when the output is a diagram somebody else has to maintain, and Excalidraw when the output is thinking. Both are free and open source, so the decision is about the job, not the bill.
You are sketching to think, you want the hand-drawn look without switching a style on, and live collaboration that is end-to-end encrypted matters more than formal stencils.
The diagram is UML, an entity-relationship model, a network or rack layout, an org chart or a floorplan, and the file should live in your own Drive, GitHub or on disk.
Before you commit
Excalidraw is the reason the hand-drawn whiteboard category exists. The free app at excalidraw.com is the full editor with no account, live-collaboration sessions are end-to-end encrypted, it works offline in the browser, and the source is public and self-hostable.
The ecosystem around it is the real moat: thousands of community shape libraries, a VS Code extension, and an Obsidian plugin.
Its limits are commercial rather than technical. Excalidraw's own comparison table puts unlimited scenes under Plus, alongside cloud boards, version history, shared libraries, comments and presentation export, at $6 per user per month. Drawings in the free app live in your browser rather than on a server.
draw.io, also known as diagrams.net, makes a promise almost nobody else makes and then keeps it. The editor is free forever under the Apache 2.0 licence, takes no account and no card, and the project's line on storage is hard to improve on: store your data wherever you want, we cannot access it, ever. Files go to Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, GitHub or GitLab, your browser, or straight to disk.
For technical diagramming it is deeper than anything in the sketching family: UML, entity-relationship models, network infrastructure, rack and circuit diagrams, org charts, floorplans, attack trees and dependency graphs, with the libraries to match.
It ships an offline desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, self-hosts from an official Docker image, embeds inside your own application, and its Confluence and Jira apps are the reason many teams have it at all.
| Feature | Excalidraw | draw.io |
|---|---|---|
| Free to use | Yes | Yes |
| No account needed to start | Yes | Yes |
| Hand-drawn look as the defaultdraw.io has a sketch style you switch on; in Excalidraw the hand-drawn feel is the whole point | Yes | No |
| Open source and self-hostabledraw.io is Apache 2.0 with an official Docker image; Excalidraw's source is public and self-hostable too | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited saved boards or diagramsExcalidraw's comparison table lists unlimited scenes under Plus; draw.io has no cap because the files are yours | Paid plan only | Yes |
| Real-time collaboration built into the editordrawio.com markets real-time collaboration with shared cursors, while the jgraph/drawio repository states it does not support real-time collaborative editing in this version; the route its feature docs describe is storage-mediated, via Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or Confluence | Yes | Unclear |
| Technical shape libraries: UML, ERD, network, rackExcalidraw has community libraries rather than formal diagram stencils | No | Yes |
| Community shape libraries, VS Code and Obsidian pluginsdraw.io does not publish either plugin; its own published integrations are Confluence and Jira | Yes | No |
| Diagrams inside Confluence and Jira pagesThis is draw.io's commercial product, sold through the Atlassian Marketplace; Excalidraw does not publish a Confluence or Jira app | No | Yes |
| Offline desktop app for Windows, macOS and LinuxExcalidraw runs in the browser and works offline there | No | Yes |
| Files kept in your own Drive, OneDrive, GitHub, or on diskExcalidraw's free app keeps drawings in your browser and does not publish storage-provider integrations | No | Yes |
| Version historydraw.io holds no files of its own, so history is whatever Drive, Confluence or Git gives you; Excalidraw's is a Plus feature | Paid plan only | Via storage |
| Presentation modeExcalidraw's presentation export to PDF or PPTX is a Plus feature | Paid plan only | Yes |
| End-to-end encrypted share linksdraw.io never hosts your files, which is a strong privacy answer of a different kind; sharing security is your storage provider's, not theirs | Yes | No |
| Sketched-shape recognitionNeither reads a freehand stroke and hands back a clean shape; draw.io's sketch style restyles shapes you place | No | No |
| Export to PNG and SVGExcalidraw adds its own .excalidraw JSON; draw.io adds JPEG, WebP, animated GIF, PDF, HTML and .drawio XML | Yes | Yes |
The open-source app at excalidraw.com is free, with drawings kept in your browser.
Excalidraw Plus is $6 per user per month with a 14-day trial. That is what unlocks unlimited scenes, cloud boards, workspaces, version history, shared libraries, comments, voice and screensharing, and presentation export to PDF or PPTX.
The editor is free forever, with no account and no card, under the Apache 2.0 licence, and there is no paid tier for it. Nothing in the editor is held back, and draw.io does not host your files, so store your data wherever you want and they cannot access it.
What is sold commercially is the Atlassian side, draw.io for Confluence and Jira, billed through the Atlassian Marketplace; a Confluence Cloud licence also covers Jira Cloud at no extra cost. draw.io does not publish those prices on its own site, so get a quote from the Marketplace.
Full disclosure
We build Drawdy, a browser whiteboard in the same hand-drawn family as Excalidraw, so read this paragraph knowing we have a side. If what sent you to this comparison is that Excalidraw keeps version history and presentation mode for Plus, Drawdy puts both in the free tier.
It adds shape recognition that turns a rough rectangle into a clean one, unlimited boards on your device plus one cloud board, and share links that are end-to-end encrypted. There is no account needed to start, real-time collaboration is built into the editor with guests joining from a link, and boards export to PNG, SVG or open .drawdy JSON.
It is not the answer if you came here for draw.io's formal stencils, because Drawdy has no UML, entity-relationship or network shape libraries at all, and it is not the answer if you want Excalidraw's open source, its SDK, or its plugin ecosystem, because we have none of those either. Drawdy also cannot open a saved .excalidraw file yet, though elements pasted out of Excalidraw arrive as editable objects. If either of those is your requirement, the two tools on this page beat us.
FAQ
draw.io, and it is not a close call. It ships shape libraries for UML, entity-relationship models, network infrastructure, rack and circuit diagrams, org charts, floorplans, attack trees and dependency graphs, all in the free editor. Excalidraw has community libraries rather than formal stencils, so a UML diagram there is shapes you assemble and label yourself. If the diagram has to be read and maintained by other engineers, use draw.io.
draw.io's own two sources disagree, so treat live co-editing as something to verify yourself. The drawio.com site lists real-time collaboration and describes working together with shared cursors, while the jgraph/drawio repository states that draw.io does not support real-time collaborative editing in this version. What the feature documentation describes is storage-mediated: keep the file in Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or Confluence and those services synchronise changes between editors. Excalidraw's position needs no interpretation, because live sessions are built into the free app and end-to-end encrypted.
Both are free, but only draw.io is free with nothing held back. The draw.io editor is free forever under Apache 2.0, needs no sign-up and no card, has no board cap, and has no paid tier at all; its commercial product is the Confluence and Jira integration sold through the Atlassian Marketplace. Excalidraw's free app is the full editor with encrypted live collaboration, but unlimited scenes, cloud boards, version history, shared libraries and presentation export need Excalidraw Plus at $6 per user per month.
Not as editable elements. Neither project publishes an import path for the other's file format, so an .excalidraw file has no route into draw.io and a .drawio XML file has no route into Excalidraw. Both export PNG and SVG, which means the picture travels and the ability to edit it does not. Pick the tool you expect to keep the diagram in.
Most teams end up running both, and that is a reasonable outcome rather than a failure to decide. draw.io is where the architecture, network and data-model diagrams live, especially if your documentation is in Confluence, because they stay accurate for years and cost nothing. Excalidraw is where the sketching happens: a design discussion, a pull-request explanation, a whiteboard session two people draw on together. The one thing worth deciding deliberately is storage, since draw.io puts the files in your own Drive or repository while Excalidraw keeps them in the browser until somebody pays for Plus.
The canvas is open
Sketch a system, map a flow, or think it through with your team — no signup, no setup, just a canvas and a link to share.
Start drawing — it’s free