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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 freeComparison
Both are free infinite canvases, and that is roughly where the resemblance ends. One is an open-source web app that opens anywhere and answers to nobody; the other is the best pencil-and-paper feel on an iPad and cannot be opened outside Apple's ecosystem at all.
Reviewed · written by the team behind Drawdy, which competes with both
They fail in opposite directions, so the choice is usually made for you. Excalidraw opens anywhere and exports to open formats; Freeform is the nicer place to think on an iPad and cannot be opened outside Apple's ecosystem.
Anyone who will ever touch the board is on Windows, Android or Linux, or you want open source, self-hosting, or an export you can edit later.
Your work is solo or all-Apple and you sketch on an iPad with a Pencil: better drawing feel, media straight onto the canvas, and nothing to install.
Before you commit
Excalidraw is the reason the hand-drawn whiteboard category exists. The free app at excalidraw.com gives you 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.
Around it sits an ecosystem nothing else in the category matches: thousands of community shape libraries, a VS Code extension, and an Obsidian plugin.
Its limits are commercial rather than technical: cloud boards, version history, shared team libraries, comments, and presentation export live in Excalidraw Plus at $6 per user per month.
Freeform is Apple's free whiteboard, preinstalled on every supported iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro. On an iPad with Apple Pencil it is the nicest sketching experience in the category: native latency, real brush styles, and Snap to Shape cleaning a rough stroke into a clean one.
Photos, video, audio, PDFs, and paper you scan with the built-in document scanner drop straight onto the board, and collaboration rides on Messages and FaceTime.
Its limit is the wall around it. Apple requires everyone who opens a shared board, to view as much as to edit, to be signed in to an Apple Account on iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, macOS 13.1 or later, and Freeform is not one of the apps on iCloud.com, so there is no web fallback.
| Feature | Excalidraw | Apple Freeform |
|---|---|---|
| Opens on Windows, Android, or any browserFreeform is macOS, iPadOS, iOS and visionOS only, and is not one of the apps on iCloud.com | Yes | No |
| Free to use | Yes | Yes |
| No account needed to startFreeform sync and every form of sharing need an Apple Account | Yes | No |
| Hand-drawn look as the defaultFreeform's default is clean vector shapes; freehand is a separate drawing tool | Yes | No |
| Open source and self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Real-time collaborationExcalidraw live sessions are end-to-end encrypted; Freeform invites ride on Messages and FaceTime, Apple Accounts required | Yes | Yes |
| Native iPad app with Apple Pencil supportExcalidraw runs in the browser | No | Yes |
| Sketched-shape recognitionFreeform calls it Snap to Shape | No | Yes |
| Built-in document scanner and Continuity capture | No | Yes |
| Boards synced to the cloudFreeform syncs over iCloud; Excalidraw's free app keeps drawings in your browser | Paid plan only | Yes |
| Version historyApple documents no version history; a deleted board sits in Recently Deleted for 30 days | Paid plan only | No |
| Presentation modeFreeform calls it Scenes; Excalidraw's presentation export is a Plus feature | Paid plan only | Yes |
| Works offlineApple publishes no offline guarantee for Freeform either way, so we do not claim one | Yes | Not published |
| Export to PNG, SVG, and an editable file formatFreeform exports PDF only; Apple's documented route to an image is opening that PDF in Preview | Yes | No |
| End-to-end encrypted by defaultFreeform is end-to-end encrypted only with Advanced Data Protection turned on; otherwise Apple holds the keys | Yes | No |
| Community shape libraries and integrationsVS Code extension, Obsidian plugin, thousands of shared libraries | Yes | No |
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, and that is what unlocks cloud boards, workspaces, version history, comments, voice and screensharing, and presentation export to PDF or PPTX.
Freeform ships free on every supported iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro, and the core app stays free.
Since 2026 four features, Image Generation, Shape Generation, Super Resolution and Auto Crop, sit behind Apple Creator Studio at US $12.99 a month or $129 a year after a one-month trial. Cancel and you keep Freeform without those.
Full disclosure
We build Drawdy, a browser whiteboard in the same hand-drawn family as Excalidraw, so read this paragraph with that in mind. If the reason you are comparing these two is that Excalidraw keeps version history and presentation mode for Plus while Freeform locks out everyone off Apple hardware, Drawdy sits in that gap: it runs in any browser, needs no account to start, includes version history, presentation mode, and shape recognition in the free tier, and share links are end-to-end encrypted on their own.
It is not the answer if you want Excalidraw's open source and ecosystem, or Freeform's native Pencil feel — the head-to-heads below say where each of them beats us.
FAQ
No. Apple's sharing documentation states that to edit or view the board, everyone you share with must be signed in to their Apple Account on devices running iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, macOS 13.1 or later, and Freeform is not one of the apps available on iCloud.com, so there is no web fallback. Apple's own suggested workaround is to export the board as a PDF and send that flat copy. Excalidraw runs in any modern browser on any platform.
Freeform, and it is not close. It is a native app with Apple Pencil latency, brush styles, Snap to Shape, and Scenes, and it is already installed. Excalidraw works on an iPad through the browser, which is serviceable for shapes and text but is not a native drawing experience.
Both are genuinely free for the core product, with different edges. Excalidraw's free app is the full editor with encrypted live collaboration, but keeping boards in the cloud, version history, team libraries, and presentation export need Excalidraw Plus at $6 per user per month. Freeform is free and preinstalled, with iCloud sync included; since 2026 four AI features (Image Generation, Shape Generation, Super Resolution, Auto Crop) need an Apple Creator Studio subscription at $12.99 a month, and everything else stays free.
Excalidraw's live-collaboration sessions are end-to-end encrypted by default, and the free app keeps drawings in your browser rather than on a server. Freeform reaches end-to-end encryption only if you turn on iCloud's Advanced Data Protection; under standard protection, Apple's published data-security table lists it as encrypted in transit and on server with Apple holding the keys.
Only as a picture. Freeform exports PDF and nothing else, so an Excalidraw import of real, editable elements is not possible, and Excalidraw's PNG, SVG, and .excalidraw exports have no route into Freeform beyond dropping an image onto the canvas. Whichever you pick, assume the boards stay there.
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