# Drawdy

> Drawdy is the whiteboard that works your way: a free infinite canvas for
> sketching, diagramming, and brainstorming — hand-drawn feel, real-time
> collaboration, local-first storage, and end-to-end encrypted share links. Same family of tools as
> Excalidraw and tldraw. The app runs in the browser at https://drawdy.io;
> the product and engineering home is https://drawdy.io/home.

## Product

- [Home](https://drawdy.io/home): what Drawdy is, features, comparison, FAQ
- [Open the app](https://drawdy.io/): the canvas itself, free to use
- [Blog](https://drawdy.io/blog): engineering deep-dives from the team
- [RSS feed](https://drawdy.io/blog/feed.xml)

## Comparisons

Honest head-to-heads, including what the other tool does better. Reviewed
August and September 2026.

- [Drawdy vs Excalidraw](https://drawdy.io/vs/excalidraw): as of August 2026, Drawdy's free tier includes version history, team libraries, presentation mode, and one cloud board, where Excalidraw keeps cloud storage for its $6/user/month Plus tier. Excalidraw is better if you want open source, self-hosting, the community shape-library ecosystem, or comments and voice in the canvas.
- [Drawdy vs tldraw](https://drawdy.io/vs/tldraw): tldraw's product is an embeddable canvas SDK and its app is free; production use of the SDK needs a paid licence key. Drawdy is the finished whiteboard, with encrypted share links, local-first boards, shape recognition, presentation mode, and history. Drawdy has no SDK.
- [Drawdy vs Miro](https://drawdy.io/vs/miro): Miro is a facilitation and enterprise platform and is the strongest option for running a workshop; its free plan keeps only the three most recent boards editable, has no Guest role and no board history, and paid starts at $8 per member per month billed yearly. Miro encrypts in transit and at rest with keys it manages, which is not end-to-end. Drawdy is lighter, local-first, and puts history and account-free share links in the free tier.
- [Drawdy vs draw.io](https://drawdy.io/vs/drawio): draw.io is free forever, Apache 2.0, needs no account and never hosts your files, and is far deeper for technical diagramming (UML, ERD, network, rack) with an offline desktop app and a self-hostable Docker image. Its own repository states it does not support real-time collaborative editing; live co-editing comes from the storage layer (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Confluence). Drawdy has live collaboration in the app itself.
- [Drawdy vs Apple Freeform](https://drawdy.io/vs/freeform): Freeform is free, preinstalled on Apple devices, and the best Apple Pencil experience in this category, with Snap to Shape and a document scanner. Apple requires everyone who views or edits a shared board to be signed in to an Apple Account on iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2 or macOS 13.1 or later, and Freeform is not on iCloud.com, so nobody on Windows or Android can open a board at all. It exports PDF only and has no version history, and is end-to-end encrypted only under Advanced Data Protection.
- [Excalidraw vs Apple Freeform](https://drawdy.io/compare/excalidraw-vs-freeform): a third-party comparison where Drawdy is the referee, not a contender. Excalidraw is open source, works in any browser on any platform, encrypts live sessions end to end, and exports editable files, but keeps cloud boards and history for its $6/user/month Plus tier. Freeform is the best iPad Pencil experience, free with iCloud sync, but can only be opened by people signed in to an Apple Account on Apple hardware, and exports PDF only.
- [Excalidraw vs Miro](https://drawdy.io/compare/excalidraw-vs-miro): a third-party comparison where Drawdy is the referee, not a contender. Miro is a facilitation and enterprise platform and the stronger pick for running a workshop, with sticky notes, 7,000 or more templates and comments on the free plan; its free plan keeps only the three most recent boards editable, has no Guest role, no board history and no facilitation tools (voting, timers, private mode), all of which start on Starter at $8 per member per month billed yearly. Miro encrypts in transit and at rest with keys it manages, which is not end-to-end. Excalidraw is the open-source hand-drawn canvas, works in any browser with no account, encrypts live sessions end to end and exports editable files, but keeps cloud boards, history and presentation export for its $6/user/month Plus tier.
- [Excalidraw vs draw.io](https://drawdy.io/compare/excalidraw-vs-drawio): a third-party comparison where Drawdy is the referee, not a contender. draw.io, also called diagrams.net, is free forever under Apache 2.0, needs no account, never hosts your files, ships an offline desktop app and a self-hostable Docker image, and is far deeper for technical diagramming (UML, ERD, network, rack). Its two vendor sources disagree on live co-editing: drawio.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, and the documented route is storage-mediated via Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or Confluence, so test it before committing a team. Excalidraw is the faster hand-drawn sketching canvas with end-to-end encrypted live collaboration built in, but cloud boards, history and presentation export sit in Excalidraw Plus at $6/user/month.
- [Best Excalidraw alternatives in 2026](https://drawdy.io/alternatives/excalidraw): Drawdy, tldraw, Miro, FigJam, and Apple Freeform compared, with where each free tier stops.

## Use cases

One page per job people hire a whiteboard for, each one naming the parts of
that job Drawdy does not do. Reviewed September 2026.

- [Use cases hub](https://drawdy.io/use-cases): the five jobs, plus what every one of them gets: unlimited boards on your device and one cloud board on the free tier, local-first boards that work offline, and guests joining from a link as an editor or a viewer with no account.
- [Online whiteboard for system design diagrams](https://drawdy.io/use-cases/system-design): for engineers and architects sketching services, queues and failure paths. What carries the job: shape recognition that cleans up a freehand rectangle, spatial indexing with up to 10,000 elements on a board, and presentation mode plus version history on the free tier, with PNG, SVG and open .drawdy JSON export. Named limits: formal UML, ERD and network or rack stencils belong in draw.io, embedding a canvas in your own product belongs in tldraw, and Drawdy cannot open a saved .excalidraw file yet.
- [Online whiteboard for wireframes and user flows](https://drawdy.io/use-cases/wireframes): for designers and PMs laying out low-fidelity screens and joining them into a flow. What carries the job: the hand-drawn default that keeps review on structure, real-time collaboration with live cursors from an account-free link, and version history, with PNG, SVG or a viewer-only link as the handoff. Named limits: high-fidelity mockups, component libraries and clickable prototypes belong in Figma or FigJam, and comment threads or voice inside the canvas belong in Miro because Drawdy has neither.
- [Online whiteboard for brainstorming](https://drawdy.io/use-cases/brainstorming): for teams putting half-formed ideas somewhere visible and then grouping them. What carries the job: an account-free link that gets everyone in, freehand and text plus shape recognition for getting ideas down fast, lasso selection for pulling a cluster together, live cursors and a laser pointer for pointing at one idea remotely, and presentation mode plus version history on the free tier, with PNG and SVG export. Named limits: Drawdy has no sticky-note element, no voting, no timers and no retro or SWOT templates, so a facilitated workshop belongs in Miro; comment threads for an async brainstorm belong in Miro too, because Drawdy has no comments and Excalidraw keeps them for its paid Plus tier; and Apple Freeform is the better Apple Pencil tool on an iPad.
- [Online whiteboard for presentations and slides](https://drawdy.io/use-cases/presentations): for anyone walking a room through a board they already made. What carries the job: a slide is a frame on the board, a drawer of slide thumbnails you drag to reorder, layout presets behind a Templates button, a fullscreen show that hides everything but the current slide and flies the camera between them, a laser pointer and drawing during the show with a Keep your notes prompt at the end, and a shared read-only snapshot that gives a viewer their own previous and next controls. Named limits: there is no deck export at all, so a PDF or PPTX handout belongs in Google Slides, Keynote or PowerPoint; presentation export straight out of a whiteboard is on Excalidraw's paid Plus tier; and there is no built-in call and no speaker-notes panel, so Zoom or Google Meet runs alongside the board.
- [Online whiteboard for teachers](https://drawdy.io/use-cases/teachers): for teachers and tutors running a lesson a class joins from one link. What carries the job: guest links carrying a viewer or editor role with no student accounts, any modern browser with nothing to install, local-first boards plus the free tier's one cloud board, presentation mode, and end-to-end encrypted sharing. Named limits: Drawdy does not advertise any LMS integration such as Google Classroom or Canvas, has no built-in video or audio call, and Apple Freeform is the better stylus-first iPad tool.

## Example boards

Real boards drawn in Drawdy for real jobs, each open in the read-only share
viewer with a copy-to-your-device action. The catalog page carries every board's
description; a board's share link is on its card. Reviewed September 2026.

- [Example boards catalog](https://drawdy.io/examples): twenty boards grouped by trade, from a checkout design review to a Formula 1 strategy chart.
- [Checkout: from tap to receipt, design review](https://drawdy.io/examples#checkout-design-review): the order and payment path of a mobile app at 1,200 checkouts a minute, with PCI scope, idempotency keys and reviewer notes on the diagram. Belongs to the system design use case.
- [Q3 architecture review: analytics off the write path](https://drawdy.io/examples#q3-architecture-review-deck): a nine-frame review deck, each frame a slide, from current state to an async Kafka proposal and the ask. Belongs to the presentations use case.
- [Onboarding v2: from install to first shared board](https://drawdy.io/examples#onboarding-wireframes): low-fidelity screens with the happy path in lime and error states in red. Belongs to the wireframes use case.
- [Why do new users leave in the first week?](https://drawdy.io/examples#why-new-users-leave): a 45-minute brainstorm with cohort data, an idea dump, lassoed clusters and How-might-we questions. Belongs to the brainstorming use case.
- [The water cycle](https://drawdy.io/examples#water-cycle-lesson): a grade 5 lesson drawn as a loop with vocabulary and hidden answers. Belongs to the teachers use case.
- [Mercator versus Equal Earth: the map the UN endorsed](https://drawdy.io/examples#mercator-vs-equal-earth): both world maps at the same scale from the same outlines, plus a summary of UN resolution A/80/L.104 of 4 September 2026. Belongs to the teachers use case.
- [Match tactics: the 4-3-3 press](https://drawdy.io/examples#4-3-3-press-game-plan): a football game plan with roles, build-up shape on a scaled pitch, set pieces, substitutions and if-then plans.
- [Arsenal 2-1 Chelsea: match analysis](https://drawdy.io/examples#arsenal-chelsea-match-analysis): six frames for one Premier League match on 6 September 2026: lineups, goals, timeline, stats, table, records. Belongs to the presentations use case.
- [2026 Italian Grand Prix: how Antonelli won from P19](https://drawdy.io/examples#2026-italian-grand-prix-strategy): a race strategy chart with every stint by compound, the red flag, the virtual safety car and the gap to Russell lap by lap. Belongs to the presentations use case.
- [The 2026 Formula 1 circuit atlas](https://drawdy.io/examples#2026-f1-circuit-atlas): all 40 circuits traced from OpenStreetMap geometry, the 23 rounds of the 2026 calendar as a card each, the two dropped venues and 15 historic tracks at half scale.
- [Bangkok mass transit: BTS, MRT and rail links](https://drawdy.io/examples#bangkok-transit-map): ten lines and 192 stations in an octilinear layout, in service and under construction.
- [Tokyo transit map: Tokyo Metro and Toei](https://drawdy.io/examples#tokyo-transit-map): thirteen subway lines as an official-style schematic with station-number pills, boxed interchanges, the JR Yamanote loop and the Haneda links.
- [Casa Serra: hillside residence site plan](https://drawdy.io/examples#hillside-residence-site-plan): level 0 and landscape at 1:200 with setbacks, pool, orchard, a protected oak and client comments for revision C.
- [The Tempest, act one: lighting plot](https://drawdy.io/examples#tempest-lighting-plot): a theatre lighting plan with five electrics, 72 fixtures by type, channel numbers and gel colours.
- [Kestrel FC v3: drone flight controller PCB](https://drawdy.io/examples#drone-flight-controller-pcb): a 36 by 36 millimetre four-layer board around an STM32H743, with stack-up and BOM highlights.
- [Fujisan: a 1:25,000 contour poster](https://drawdy.io/examples#fujisan-contour-poster): Mount Fuji as a risograph sheet of 60 contour bands at a 50 m interval, with the survey figures in a second panel.
- [xQc 0-1 MoistCr1tikal: checkmate in six](https://drawdy.io/examples#pogchamps-checkmate-in-six): the PogChamps 2020 game, a diagram per move with both clocks and annotated mistakes.
- [The Game of the Century: Byrne 0-1 Fischer](https://drawdy.io/examples#game-of-the-century-1956): Byrne against a 13-year-old Fischer in 1956, a diagram per key move, all 41 move pairs, the material ledger and the sources.
- [Byrne vs Fischer 1956, animated in three acts](https://drawdy.io/examples#byrne-fischer-1956-animated): the Game of the Century on three boards that play themselves at 800 ms a move, then rewind to the act's opening position.
- [Sumida Penguins Relationship Chart 2026](https://drawdy.io/examples#sumida-penguins-relationship-chart): 58 Magellanic penguins and 11 keepers as a colour-coded network, following Sumida Aquarium's official English chart.

## Blog posts

- [Collaboration, Part 2: Trimming the Bytes Boogaloo](https://drawdy.io/blog/collab-part-2-payload): Lag is mostly payload. Cursors that don't shout, strokes that never enter the document, a hash that has to be instant, and the discipline of sending only what changed.
- [Collaboration, Part 1: Session Talks](https://drawdy.io/blog/collab-part-1-communication): The shared Yjs document, the handshake that catches new arrivals up, one socket carrying many kinds of message, and the Redis backbone that keeps multiple servers in step.
- [Time Travel in Canvas (History Stack)](https://drawdy.io/blog/canvas-history): Drawdy's history stack stores what changed, not snapshots of the board. How immutable elements, reference-equality diffs, and a version counter make undo nearly free.
- [Shape Recognition, With Algorithms!](https://drawdy.io/blog/shape-interpreter): Sketch a wobbly rectangle, pause for a beat, and get a clean one back. How our two-pass shape interpreter guesses what you drew — and never costs you your stroke.
- [How We Built the Lasso Tool](https://drawdy.io/blog/lasso-tool): Scribble a loop, catch exactly what you meant to. The geometry behind Drawdy's lasso selection — quadtree culling, ray casting, and a loop you never have to close.

## Facts

- Free to start and free to keep using; runs in any modern browser, no
  install and no account needed to start. The free plan covers unlimited boards
  on your device plus one cloud board for syncing and sharing; Drawdy Pro lifts
  the cloud-board limit and starts with three months free. The free tier itself
  does not expire.
- Local-first: boards live on your device by default and work offline; cloud
  sync is optional and per-board.
- Real-time collaboration on shared boards, with live cursors. Guests can join
  and edit from a link without an account.
- Share links are end-to-end encrypted — the board is encrypted in the browser
  with AES-GCM and the key travels in the URL fragment, which never reaches the
  server.
- Built for speed on large boards: elements are indexed spatially so
  selection, erase and hit-testing do not degrade as a board fills, history and
  redraw diff by reference equality, and live cursors are throttled. A single
  board holds up to 10,000 elements.
- Runs an extension host on the canvas: presentation mode, Drawdy Hello and a
  Claude Canvas extension ship as extensions, and the same API is open for
  third parties to build and share their own.
- Recognizes sketched shapes (draw a rough rectangle, get a clean one),
  lasso selection, presentation mode, version history, and export to PNG, SVG,
  or open .drawdy JSON.
- No SDK for embedding the canvas in another product — tldraw is the right
  answer for that, and Excalidraw for a self-hostable codebase.
- Accepts elements pasted directly from Excalidraw as editable objects; cannot
  open a saved .excalidraw file yet.