ExcaliDash adds persistent storage, access control, version history, and real-time collaboration to Excalidraw, transforming ephemeral whiteboarding sessions into a managed drawing library your team can rely on. The Node.js/Express backend with React/TypeScript frontend deploys via Docker Compose on port 6767, using Prisma ORM on SQLite for all drawings, users, and metadata. WebSocket-powered collaboration lets multiple users edit the same canvas simultaneously with live cursor presence. Drawing snapshots preserve every revision with visual preview and one-click restore to any previous state. Three authentication modes handle different deployment needs: local email/password for personal use, hybrid mode mixing native credentials with OIDC for gradual enterprise adoption, and enforced OIDC-only for organizations requiring SSO through providers like Authentik or Keycloak. Scoped sharing controls determine whether drawings stay private, shared internally with team members, or accessible via external links without authentication. Collections organize drawings through drag-and-drop grouping, full-text search locates any diagram instantly, and exports use the non-proprietary .excalidraw format ensuring complete data portability. 1,350+ stars since November 2025. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. AGPL-3.0 licensed.

Half the architecture sketches on the internet trace back to Excalidraw - the MIT-licensed virtual whiteboard whose hand-drawn aesthetic made technical diagramming feel approachable, at roughly 85,000 GitHub stars. The infinite canvas offers rectangles, ellipses, diamonds, arrows with smart binding and labels, free-draw, text, images, and an eraser, with full undo/redo, zoom, dark mode, and keyboard-first ergonomics. Community shape libraries add thousands of pre-built elements - AWS architecture icons, flowchart stencils, UI wireframe kits - and everything exports to PNG, SVG, the clipboard, or the open .excalidraw JSON format that keeps drawings diffable and portable. Live collaboration works on a share-a-link model with live cursors and a laser pointer for presenting, and it is end-to-end encrypted by design: the room key travels in the URL hash, which never reaches the server, so the WebSocket relay only ever sees ciphertext. The architecture is remarkably light - the app is a static bundle served by Nginx, drawings persist locally in the browser, and the stateless excalidraw-room relay handles multiplayer - so a self-hosted deployment gives unlimited boards and collaborators with near-zero resource cost, replacing per-editor whiteboard subscriptions.

The drawing surface inside WebRTC conference tools like Meetzi and the LAMS online-learning platform is Whiteboard (by cracker0dks) - a lightweight Node.js collaborative sketchboard built to be embedded and customized, which also slots into Nextcloud via the External Sites app. Everyone opening the same whiteboardid URL parameter draws on the same board, with remote user cursors visible live, per-user undo/redo, and an indicator showing the smallest participating screen so nobody draws outside a colleague's view. Content handling goes beyond pen strokes: drag-and-drop or paste images and PDFs from any PC or browser, then resize, rotate, and draw over them on canvas or background; add text and sticky notes; hold Shift for angle-snapped lines and perfect squares. Every function has a keybinding - deliberately friendly to pen displays like Wacom and XP-Pen whose hardware buttons map to shortcuts. Boards save to image or JSON (with reload), export directly to Nextcloud via WebDAV, and persist across restarts with the file-database option. A REST API with bundled interactive docs allows full programmatic control, an optional access token locks down uploads, and YAML configuration tunes behavior and performance. MIT-licensed and reverse-proxy friendly.

A Node.js server, a large shared canvas, and a URL - WBO (Whiteboard Ophir) is collaborative whiteboarding reduced to its essence. There are no accounts and no setup - to collaborate, you send someone the board's link, and every stroke appears for all connected users in real time over WebSockets, with cursor positions shared so you can see where collaborators are working. Board state persists automatically and continuously, so a diagram drawn in today's lesson is still there next week at the same URL. Boards come in three flavors: a public free-for-all, private boards with random unguessable names, and named boards with custom URLs shared by anyone who knows the name. The tools cover teaching and brainstorming needs - pencil, straight lines, rectangles, ellipses, text annotations, eraser, a full color palette with brush sizes - and boards export as SVG or PNG. Despite the simplicity, the server is production-minded: JWT authentication gates board access with granular capabilities (open, edit, and clear as separate permissions), rate limiting caps per-client message volume, reverse-proxy and subpath deployment are supported, and OpenTelemetry provides metrics, logs, and traces. It works on tablets and touch devices, speaks multiple languages, and consumes minimal resources. AGPL-licensed.

Scattered browser tabs, buried wiki folders, and disconnected issue trackers fragment engineering context across too many tools, which is why Ideon unifies your repositories, notes, and tasks on a shared infinite canvas. Rather than forcing projects into rigid folder hierarchies, you arrange interactive blocks spatially on a two-dimensional map where related documents, checklists, calendar schedules, and code references sit right beside one another. Teams can embed live repository cards and open issue streams directly from GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, and Forgejo onto the workspace, keeping code status visible alongside architecture documentation. Rich content blocks render Markdown notes with threaded comments, Mermaid flowcharts, uploaded files, images, and bookmarked links on the same board. Real-time multiplayer collaboration lets teammates edit blocks simultaneously, follow live cursors across the canvas, and map system designs together without edit conflicts. Built-in Time Travel snapshots capture historical states of the workspace so you can scrub backward to review how a project evolved or trace past design decisions. You can even synchronize an entire project canvas directly to a Git repository, storing notes and spatial block layouts as versioned files. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. AGPL-3.0 licensed.

Type a sentence like 'draw a seaside lighthouse under moonlight, with a small sailboat and stars' and Draw Agent Studio sketches it on a live canvas you can then keep editing by chat. Follow-up messages move objects, change colors, delete elements, and undo or redo steps, so refining a diagram becomes a conversation instead of a wrestling match with shape handles. The same canvas accepts direct manual work: select and drag shapes, draw freehand with the pen, or drop text onto the page to finish details the model missed. Researchers and writers use it to build flowcharts from a paragraph of method notes, grouping stages, adding quality checks and feedback loops, and restructuring sections on request. Canvases save automatically as you work, and finished pieces export as PNG, JPG, WebP, or SVG images, or as editable Excalidraw files for further hand editing elsewhere. You bring your own model connection, choosing OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Azure OpenAI, Ark, DeepSeek, Kimi, Groq, OpenRouter, Bedrock, Vertex AI, or a local Ollama or OpenAI-compatible endpoint. A built-in connection test sends a real image and verifies recognition and tool calling before you save, and your API keys stay encrypted on the server rather than in the browser. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. MIT licensed.

Turning chaotic group brainstorming sessions into structured visual diagrams, TeamMapper provides a real-time collaborative mind mapping workspace that teams and classrooms can join instantly without creating user accounts. Workshop facilitators, teachers, and product squads start from a central root topic and branch outward into hierarchical radial trees, using keyboard shortcuts and full undo-redo history to capture ideas at the speed of conversation. Every node can be styled with custom branch and background colors, adjustable font weights and sizes, external reference links, uploaded raster images, and visual pictograms from the ARASAAC library to reinforce memory and visual association. Sharing a live session takes a single click: hosts distribute either a view-only link, a full modification invite URL, or a scannable QR code so remote colleagues and students in the same room can edit branches simultaneously. When enabled by the administrator, an integrated AI assistant can automatically generate initial mind map branches and subtopics from a text prompt to jump-start planning sessions. Completed maps export cleanly to JSON, Mermaid diagram syntax, scalable SVG vectors, high-resolution PNG images, or printable PDF documents, and existing JSON maps can be re-imported at any time for follow-up workshops. Built-in privacy controls automatically purge inactive mind maps and orphaned image attachments after a configurable retention window, simplifying GDPR compliance for schools and enterprises. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. MIT licensed.

HyCanvas folds graphics, presentations, videos, whiteboards, documents, and spreadsheets into one self-hosted browser editor, covering work that usually takes several separate design subscriptions. Start from one of 140 templates across social, print, events, business, and presentations, or import a PowerPoint file and keep editing it. The canvas carries shapes, frames, tables, nine chart types, QR codes, image filters, crop and masks, background removal, and Magic Resize for one-click reformatting. Video projects get a multi-track timeline with trims, transitions, keyframes, styled captions, green-screen keying, and screen or webcam recording. Whiteboards add sticky notes, connectors, a shared timer, and dot voting, and a finished board converts straight into a slide deck. Teammates co-edit in realtime with presence cursors, comments with mentions, version history, and approvals, while share links open view-only, comment, or edit access. Brand kits hold your colors, fonts, and logos, and a brand lock warns or blocks off-brand edits before they ship. Connect your own AI provider key to generate decks, documents, images, and charts from a prompt, then export PNG, JPG, PDF, SVG, PPTX, MP4, or GIF with no watermark. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. AGPL-3.0 licensed.

Draw it, write it as code, or hand it to your AI agent: OpenFlowKit is an open-source diagram canvas where the picture and the text behind it are always the same diagram. Drag shapes on the canvas or type a few forgiving lines, and each side regenerates the other as a single undo step. Ten diagram types share that one language: architecture with C4 views and cloud icons, sequence, flowchart, entity-relationship, state, class, mind maps, git graphs, charts, and wireframes. Paste Mermaid, Structurizr, or D2 and it converts into editable shapes, and Copy as Mermaid sends a flowchart or sequence back out for your README. Paste a GitHub repository instead and Map mode draws its architecture for you, with every arrow citing the exact file and line behind it, and a CLI that maps a local checkout for private repos. Connect Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP client and the agent draws on your live canvas, restyles what is there, and screenshots its own work to check it. A built-in assistant works with your own key from Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, Mistral, OpenRouter, or a local Ollama, and exports cover PNG, SVG, PDF, JSON, and animated SVG, GIF, MP4, or WebM you can drop into documentation. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. MIT licensed.

draw.io is a free, browser-based diagramming editor for flowcharts, network maps, UML models, and org charts, with nothing to install. An infinite canvas takes shapes from extensive libraries, connectors reroute automatically as shapes move, and ready-made templates replace the blank page. Tables, swimlanes, layers, and tags keep large diagrams tidy, and shape metadata and placeholders attach tooltips, links, and translations. Auto-layout straightens flowcharts and trees. Math typesetting, a simple whiteboard layout, and adaptive dark mode are built in, and custom shape libraries carry your own in-house icon sets. Export to PNG, JPEG, WebP, SVG, HTML, or PDF, embed the diagram data inside PNG and SVG files so they stay editable, or save the full diagram as a .drawio file. Your server stores no diagrams: files go to the user's device, the browser, or Google Drive, OneDrive, and GitLab once you register your own OAuth app. Optional AI diagram generation uses your own provider key, and environment variables set the interface language, fonts, and security policy. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. Apache-2.0 licensed.

Gaining over 71,000 GitHub stars as one of the fastest-rising knowledge management platforms, AFFiNE merges the document editing capabilities of Notion, the infinite canvas of Miro, and the structured data of Airtable into a single cohesive workspace. The block-based editor built on the custom BlockSuite framework supports rich text, code blocks, embeds, tables, kanban boards, and database views with drag-and-drop composition. The whiteboard mode provides an infinite canvas where users can freely mix documents, sticky notes, shapes, connectors, and hand-drawn elements, enabling visual thinking alongside structured note-taking. Real-time collaboration allows multiple users to edit documents and whiteboards simultaneously with cursor presence, comment threads, and version history. The local-first architecture stores all data on your device by default using CRDT-based synchronization, ensuring offline access and data sovereignty, with optional cloud sync for cross-device availability. Workspaces organize content into hierarchical page trees with full-text search, favorites, tags, and trash management. The platform supports Markdown import and export, PDF export, and HTML export for interoperability. AI features powered by configurable LLM providers enable writing assistance, summarization, translation, and content generation directly within documents. The theming system supports light and dark modes with customizable accent colors. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. Licensed under MIT with an open-source self-hosted edition.

Real-time collaborative Markdown behind your own firewall: HedgeDoc (formerly CodiMD, descended from HackMD's open-source edition) keeps team notes on team infrastructure. Share a note's URL and collaborators are editing together instantly - live cursors, changes appearing keystroke by keystroke - in a three-mode interface that toggles between raw Markdown, rendered preview, and side-by-side split. The Markdown dialect is extended where engineers need it: Mermaid, Graphviz, and Vega-Lite diagrams, MathJax for equations, syntax-highlighted code blocks, embedded content, and a presentation mode that turns a note into reveal.js slides with a single YAML header. A dropdown permission system controls each note - freely editable, limited to signed-in users, or locked read-only - and published notes become clean read-only pages for wider distribution. Revisions track every change with the ability to revert to any earlier version. The AGPL-3.0 codebase is light enough to run on a Raspberry Pi and deploys via Docker with PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite. Authentication covers LDAP, SAML, OAuth2, and email. It deliberately stays a focused document editor - no page trees or kanban - and does that one job with excellent keyboard-first ergonomics for meeting notes, RFCs, runbooks, and shared scratchpads.

Sketch a wireframe, get working code: Draw a UI turns hand-drawn layouts into web interfaces. It pairs the open-source tldraw canvas with an OpenAI vision model: you sketch a layout - boxes, labels, buttons, arrows, whatever communicates the idea - select the drawing, and click Make Real. The app snapshots your selection as a PNG, sends it to the vision API with instructions to return a single HTML file styled with Tailwind CSS, and renders the result in an iframe directly on the canvas next to your sketch. The loop is iterative: annotate the generated prototype or redraw parts of it, select both the sketch and the previous result, and generate again - the model receives the earlier HTML as context and produces an updated version. Built by Figma engineer Sawyer Hood as one of the first viral GPT-4 Vision demos and the basis for tldraw's "Make Real", it is a Next.js app that runs against your own OpenAI API key. Self-hosting matters here: the upstream demo ships without authentication, so a private deployment keeps your API key from being drained by strangers. MIT-licensed.

Apache OpenMeetings puts the whole meeting in the browser: cameras, a shared whiteboard, the agenda document, and recording controls, all running on your own server. Participants join rooms with audio and video, audio only, or video only, choose camera resolutions and devices, and present by sharing a screen or a single window at selectable quality. Moderators control the floor person by person: who may draw on the whiteboard, present, share or record the screen, mute others, or speak while everyone else stays muted. Multiple whiteboards hold drawings, text, clip art, and imported documents in PDF, office, and image formats, rescaling to fit every participant's screen, and boards can be saved into the drag-and-drop file explorer for the next session. Every meeting can be recorded with all audio streams exactly as heard, then downloaded as MP4 or played back in the integrated player, and the built-in calendar schedules rooms and sends invitations. Breakout rooms split classes and workshops into groups, polls gather decisions live, private and group chat runs beside the video, and telephone users can dial into rooms through the Asterisk SIP integration. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. Apache-2.0 licensed.