tldraw

Open SourceOtherSelf-hostable

Infinite canvas whiteboard and developer SDK for building canvas apps, with a famously polished feel — both a Miro alternative and a foundation for your own tools.

Open source alternative to

Miro

Visit tldraw View source

About tldraw

tldraw is two things at once: a ready-to-use infinite canvas whiteboard, and a full developer SDK for building your own canvas-based tools. Its interactions are famously polished — dragging, resizing and drawing all feel considered in a way few web canvases manage.

Real-time multiplayer and custom shapes/bindings come built into the SDK, which is why a growing number of other products are built directly on top of tldraw rather than writing a canvas from scratch.

Key features

Infinite canvas — An unbounded canvas ready to use out of the box, no setup required.
Full developer SDK — Embed, extend or build entirely new canvas-based products on top of tldraw's engine.
Real-time multiplayer — Built-in multiplayer sync for collaborative canvases, ready to wire up.
Custom shapes & bindings — Define your own shape types and behaviors beyond the default toolkit.

The honest read

What we like

Doubles as both a ready-to-use whiteboard and a serious developer SDK
Exceptionally polished interactions and performance
Active, well-funded development
Growing ecosystem of products built on the SDK
Real-time multiplayer built in

Worth knowing

Custom license (not a standard OSI license) for some SDK usage
Less workshop-ready out of the box than Miro (fewer templates, no facilitation tools)
Building on the SDK requires real frontend engineering
Smaller casual-user community than Excalidraw

FAQ

Is tldraw free to use?

The core canvas is free to use; some commercial SDK usage is governed by tldraw's custom license, so check the terms for your specific use case.

Is tldraw a whiteboard app or a developer tool?

Both — it's a ready-to-use infinite canvas whiteboard and a full SDK developers can build their own canvas products on top of.

Does tldraw support real-time collaboration?

Yes — real-time multiplayer sync is built into the SDK.

How is tldraw different from Excalidraw?

tldraw is also a full developer SDK for building canvas apps, with more polished, app-like interactions, while Excalidraw is more focused on being a simple, free hand-drawn-style diagramming tool.