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Excalidraw: free alternative to Miro — online
Want a hand-drawn-style whiteboard like Miro without signup or subscription? Pick this one: free open source, Chinese UI, data stays in your browser.
| Replaces | Miro / Visio |
|---|---|
| License | MIT (commercial use OK) |
| Runs on | online |
| Chinese UI | yes |
| Where files go | On your device (not uploaded) |
| Cost | Fully free and open source; collaboration requires self-hosting or the official cloud |
| Hands-on test | 2026-11-04 · 0.18.1 |
Hands-on test (2026-11-04, 0.18.1)
- License and version: Excalidraw is an MIT-licensed hand-drawn-style whiteboard (GitHub excalidraw/excalidraw); this self-hosted build is based on @excalidraw/excalidraw 0.18.1
- Chinese UI: the self-hosted build loads Simplified Chinese via langCode=zh-CN; toolbar, properties panel and context menu are all in Chinese (tested 2026-11-04)
- Local storage: canvas data lives in the browser IndexedDB and is never uploaded to a server; export to PNG, SVG or .excalidraw source files
- Hand-drawn shape set: rectangle, diamond, ellipse, arrow, line, freehand, text and image, with infinite canvas and a library
Self-hosted hands-on test 2026-11-04: tools.cosmocat.dev/excalidraw/ is live; all dependencies are vendored (33 bare specifiers served from deps/, no esm.sh at runtime); renders at 1440px and 390px and can drag out a rectangle
Best for
- Hand-drawn-style flowcharts and architecture sketches
- Meeting whiteboards, sketches and brainstorming
- A lightweight online whiteboard instead of Miro/Visio
Not for
- Precise engineering drawing or CAD
- Bitmap compression and format conversion (use Squoosh)
Similar alternatives
draw.iotldrawFigma
How to get started
- Click "Use online" above — it runs in your browser, no signup required.
- Run the full workflow (open → edit → export) on a throwaway file first, to confirm format compatibility.
- Once you accept its limits, migrate your daily workflow; keep the original software as a fallback for critical deliverables.