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These are not two versions of the same product. One is a lightweight open-source sketchpad that opens in a tab and can be self-hosted; the other is a facilitation and enterprise platform built for running a session with fifteen people. The free tiers are where the decision actually gets made.
Reviewed · written by the team behind Drawdy, which competes with both
If the board is a workshop, pick Miro and pay for it. If the board is a drawing, pick Excalidraw, whose free tier is the better free tier.
You are diagramming solo or with two or three people, or you want to self-host, want live collaboration that is end-to-end encrypted, or want an export you can still edit later.
You are running a session with a team: retros, sprint planning, a workshop where people need a framework already on the board, sticky notes, a template to start from and someone facilitating.
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, real-time collaboration runs over end-to-end encrypted session links, it keeps working 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. Excalidraw Plus, at $6 per user per month with a 14-day trial, is what adds unlimited scenes and folders, cloud storage, teams and access management, comments, voice hangouts and screensharing, and presentations.
Miro is a facilitation platform that happens to have a canvas. Its free plan already carries the things that make a group session work: 7,000 or more Miro and community-made templates, docs, tables, slides, kanban and timelines as first-class formats, sticky notes, and 250 or more integrations including Microsoft, Slack, Google and Adobe.
Members are unlimited even on free, so a large team can share one workspace at no cost. The enterprise story behind it is real: SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO 42001 certifications, data residency in the EU, the US and Australia, and customer-managed encryption keys hosted in the customer's own AWS account on Enterprise.
The free plan is where the edges show, and they are sharp. Only your three most recent boards stay editable, there is no Guest role, no visitor editing, no board history, no high-resolution export, and no facilitation tools, so the voting and timers Miro is famous for are not in the plan you would try it on.
| Feature | Excalidraw | Miro |
|---|---|---|
| No account needed to startExcalidraw opens straight into the editor; Miro needs an account before you can make a board | Yes | No |
| Unlimited editable boards on the free tierMiro: create and share unlimited boards, but only the three most recent stay editable. Excalidraw's free app keeps drawings in your browser | Yes | No |
| Boards synced to the cloudMiro is cloud-first; Excalidraw's cloud storage and unlimited scenes are Plus features | Paid plan only | Yes |
| Version historyNeither free tier has it. Miro calls it board history and starts it on Starter; Excalidraw keeps it for Plus | Paid plan only | Paid plan only |
| Live session anyone can join and edit from a linkExcalidraw's free collaboration links need no account and are end-to-end encrypted. Miro calls it visitor editing and starts it on Starter; the free plan has no Guest role | Yes | Paid plan only |
| Open source and self-hostableMiro does not publish its source or offer a self-hosted option | Yes | No |
| End-to-end encrypted collaborationMiro encrypts in transit with TLS 1.3 and at rest with AES-256, but Miro manages the keys, so Miro can read board content | Yes | No |
| Works offline in the browserMiro boards live in Miro's cloud; it does not advertise a local-first mode | Yes | No |
| Hand-drawn look as the defaultMiro's default aesthetic is clean and corporate rather than sketchy | Yes | No |
| Sticky notes as a first-class elementExcalidraw does not advertise a sticky-note element; text inside a rectangle is the nearest thing | No | Yes |
| Board template libraryMiro's free plan lists 7,000 or more templates. Excalidraw's libraries are community shape sets, not whole-board templates | No | Yes |
| Facilitation tools: voting, timers, private modeNeither free tier has them. Miro lists facilitation tools among what the free plan does not include, so they start on Starter; Excalidraw does not offer them at any tier | No | Paid plan only |
| Comments threaded on the boardExcalidraw lists Comments under Plus; Miro does not list comments among its free-plan exclusions | Paid plan only | Yes |
| Integrations with Jira, Slack, Google and MicrosoftExcalidraw's ecosystem runs the other way: community shape libraries, a VS Code extension and an Obsidian plugin | No | Yes |
| High-resolution exportExcalidraw's free app exports PNG, SVG and clipboard; Miro lists high-resolution exports among what the free plan does not include | Yes | Paid plan only |
The open-source app at excalidraw.com is free, needs no account, and keeps drawings in your browser.
Excalidraw Plus is $6 per user per month with a 14-day trial. That is what unlocks unlimited scenes and folders, cloud storage, access management, sharing with edit and view rights, read-only links and embeds, teams, comments, voice hangouts and screensharing, and presentations.
Free with three editable boards: you can create and share unlimited boards, but only the three most recent stay editable. The free plan includes unlimited members, 7,000 or more templates and 250 or more integrations, and excludes the Guest role, visitor editing, board history, facilitation tools, high-resolution exports, SSO and developer APIs.
Starter is $8 per member per month billed yearly and adds unlimited boards, board history and visitor editing. Business is $20 per member per month billed yearly. Enterprise is custom and starts at 30 members. Miro publishes annual pricing and notes a 20% saving against paying monthly.
Full disclosure
We build Drawdy, a browser whiteboard in the same hand-drawn family as Excalidraw, so read this paragraph knowing we are not neutral. If what sent you to this comparison is that Miro's free plan keeps only three boards editable and holds back board history, while Excalidraw keeps version history and presentations for Plus, Drawdy sits in that gap.
The free tier has unlimited boards on your device plus one cloud board, no account needed to start, version history and presentation mode, sketched-shape recognition, and export to PNG, SVG or open .drawdy JSON. Real-time collaboration lets guests join and edit from a link, and share links are end-to-end encrypted in your browser so the key never reaches our server.
It is not the answer if you came here for Miro's facilitation toolkit or Excalidraw's openness. Drawdy has no sticky-note element, no comments, no voting or timers, no board templates and no SDK, so if you are running a workshop, Miro is the tool and we are not pretending otherwise. If you want open source, a self-hosted canvas, or the community library and editor-plugin ecosystem, that is Excalidraw. The two head-to-heads at the bottom of this page say where each of them beats us.
FAQ
Miro's free plan keeps only your three most recent boards editable. Miro's pricing page puts it as creating and sharing unlimited boards, with the three most recent ones remaining editable, so older boards stay visible but frozen. The free plan also has no Guest role, no visitor editing, no board history, no high-resolution export and no facilitation tools, which means voting, timers and private mode need Starter at $8 per member per month billed yearly. Members, though, are unlimited even on free.
Miro, and it is not close. Sticky notes, a library of 7,000 or more templates, docs and tables and timelines as native formats, voting, timers and private mode are the job Miro was built for, and Excalidraw has none of it. The catch is that the facilitation tools themselves are not on the free plan, so a real workshop means paying from Starter up.
Both have a genuinely free tier, and they stop in different places. Excalidraw's free app is the complete editor with no account and end-to-end encrypted collaboration links, but drawings live in your browser, and cloud storage, unlimited scenes, version history, comments and presentations need Excalidraw Plus at $6 per user per month. Miro's free plan is cloud-hosted with unlimited members, 7,000 or more templates and 250 or more integrations, but only the three most recent boards stay editable and board history, visitor editing and facilitation tools are all paid.
Excalidraw, by a clear margin, because its live-collaboration sessions are end-to-end encrypted and its free app keeps drawings in your browser rather than on a server. Miro's posture is strong but different: content is encrypted in transit with TLS 1.3 and at rest with AES-256, with Miro managing the keys, and Enterprise customers can bring their own keys hosted in their own AWS account. While the provider holds the keys, the provider can read the board, and that is the distinction that matters if the content is sensitive.
Not as editable elements, because neither vendor advertises an import path for the other's format. In practice you export an image from one and drop it onto the other's canvas, which gives you a picture rather than shapes you can move. Assume whichever you pick is where those boards live.
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