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Freeform costs nothing, is already installed on your Apple devices, and has the best pencil feel of anything in this category. It also cannot be opened by anyone on Windows or Android, not even to look. That single fact decides most of this comparison.
Freeform is a genuinely good app and an unusually generous one. It ships free on every supported iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro, there is no signup funnel and no seat licence, and Apple gives you over 700 shapes, alignment guides, and a canvas that expands as you fill it. For an all-Apple team it is already on every device, which is a kind of head start no web app can buy.
On an iPad with Apple Pencil it is the nicest sketching experience here, and we will not pretend otherwise. Snap to Shape cleans a rough stroke into a straight line or a clean shape if you hold still for a beat at the end. Photos, video, audio, PDFs and paper you scan with the built-in document scanner all drop straight onto the board, and Continuity lets you shoot a photo or sketch on your iPhone and land it in a Mac board. Collaboration lives inside Messages and FaceTime, so for people already in those apps the invite friction is close to zero.
The privacy ceiling is high too. With Advanced Data Protection turned on, Apple's published data-security table moves Freeform to end-to-end encryption with the keys held only on your trusted devices. Very few collaborative whiteboards can claim that at all. What Freeform will not do is leave the Apple ecosystem: Apple's own sharing documentation requires everyone who opens a board, to view it as much as to edit it, to be signed in to an Apple Account on iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, macOS 13.1 or later.
| Feature | Apple Freeform | Drawdy |
|---|---|---|
| Infinite canvas | Yes | Yes |
| Hand-drawn look as the defaultFreeform's default is clean vector shapes; freehand is a separate drawing tool | No | Yes |
| Free to use | Yes | Yes |
| Opens on Windows, Android, or any browserFreeform is macOS, iPadOS, iOS and visionOS only, and is not one of the apps on iCloud.com | No | Yes |
| No account needed to startApple publishes no signed-out path; sync and every form of sharing need an Apple Account | No | Yes |
| Real-time collaboration | Yes | Yes |
| Guests can edit from a link without an accountApple requires everyone you share with to be signed in to an Apple Account to edit or view the board | No | Yes |
| Native iPad app with Apple Pencil supportDrawdy runs in the browser and ships no native iPad app | Yes | No |
| Built-in document scanner and Continuity capture | Yes | No |
| Sketched-shape recognitionRough rectangle in, clean rectangle out. Freeform calls it Snap to Shape | Yes | Yes |
| Presentation modeFreeform calls it Scenes | Yes | Yes |
| Export to PNG, SVG, and JSONFreeform exports PDF only; Apple's documented route to an image is opening that PDF in Preview | No | Yes |
| End-to-end encrypted by defaultFreeform is end-to-end encrypted only with Advanced Data Protection turned on; otherwise Apple holds the keys | No | Yes |
| Version historyApple documents no version history; a deleted board sits in Recently Deleted for 30 days | No | Yes |
| Works offlineApple publishes no offline guarantee for Freeform either way, so we do not claim one | Not published | Yes |
| Extensions run inside the app | No | Yes |
Freeform ships free on every supported iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro, and the core app stays free. Some features now sit behind Apple Creator Studio, which also covers Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro and premium features in Keynote, Pages and Numbers: US $12.99 a month or $129 a year after a one-month trial, with a student and educator tier at $2.99 a month. The Freeform features it gates are Image Generation, Shape Generation, Super Resolution and Auto Crop. Cancel and you keep Freeform without those.
Free to start and free to keep using: unlimited boards on your device and one cloud board for syncing and sharing, with no card. Pro lifts the cloud-board limit and starts with three months free; the free tier itself does not expire.
FAQ
No, and this is the sharpest limit in the app. Apple's sharing documentation requires everyone you share with to be signed in to an Apple Account on iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, macOS 13.1 or later, to view as much as to edit. Freeform is not one of the apps on iCloud.com, so there is no web fallback, and the "anyone with the link" option widens who may be invited rather than removing the account requirement. Apple's own workaround is to export the board as a PDF and send that flat copy.
The app itself is free and comes preinstalled on supported Apple devices, with no card and no trial clock. Since 2026 a few features are gated behind an Apple Creator Studio subscription, US $12.99 a month or $129 a year, specifically Image Generation, Shape Generation, Super Resolution and Auto Crop. Everything else in Freeform stays free, and if you cancel you keep the app minus those features.
Only if you turn on Advanced Data Protection. Apple's published iCloud data-security table lists Freeform as encrypted "in transit and on server" with Apple holding the keys under standard data protection, and as end-to-end encrypted with keys on your trusted devices under Advanced Data Protection. Drawdy's share links are end-to-end encrypted on their own: the board is encrypted in your browser with AES-GCM and the key travels in the URL fragment, which never reaches our server.
Not directly. Apple documents PDF as the export format, for a whole board or per scene, and its own suggested route to an image file is to open that PDF in Preview and export it again from there, or to take a screenshot. There is no SVG export and no open board format. Drawdy exports PNG, SVG, and open .drawdy JSON.
Apple's collaboration documentation describes no version history, change log, or revert. The only recovery it publishes is Recently Deleted, which holds a whole deleted board for 30 days. Note also that if you delete a shared board you own, it disappears from everyone's device. Drawdy includes version history in the free tier.
They fail in opposite directions. Freeform is free, beautiful on an iPad, and completely closed: no web version and no way in for a non-Apple colleague. Excalidraw is open source, self-hostable and works in any browser, but keeps cloud boards for its $6 per user per month Plus tier. Pick Freeform for solo or all-Apple, pencil-driven work; pick Excalidraw for a browser canvas you can host yourself. Drawdy is built for the gap between them: a browser canvas with encrypted sharing, history and presentation mode, free.
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