A shared canvas is easy to open and hard to budget.
This guide ranks fourteen online whiteboards on what a team meets after the first workshop: how the free plan is capped, whether outside participants can edit without an account, who counts as a billable editor, which formats a board exports to, and whether it can run on your own servers.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry
says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a
vendor. How that works.
In short
What online whiteboards software does
Online whiteboard software gives several people one unbounded browser canvas to place sticky notes, shapes, drawings and diagrams on simultaneously, then share or export the result.
In this order: setup effort, what it really costs, how your data comes back out, whether
you can leave, and who each online whiteboards tool is built for. Why those five, and why there is no
score out of ten, is on the how we work page.
Free plan with three boards; Plus per user per month, published
Yes
Organisations already on Zoom Workplace that want a board inside their meetings
Teams that hold their meetings in another product
Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Drawings save as .excalidraw JSON, an open format, so leaving is a file copy. The free tier keeps a single scene in the browser; Plus moves work to a cloud workspace with access management, presentations, voice and screen sharing, and a 14-day trial.
There is one paid plan and it is charged per user, with roughly 14 per cent off for annual billing. The weak point is self-hosting: the Docker image runs the editor, but the docs say sharing and collaboration are absent from it.
What stands out
Open source
Free plan
Per user
Where it costs you
The vendor's docs state that a self-hosted instance does not support sharing or collaboration
The free tier holds one scene, stored in the browser instead of the cloud
PDF and PPTX export, comments and read-only links are reserved for Plus
Payment is by credit card only; bank transfer is not supported
Right for
Teams that sketch diagrams together and want an open file format underneath
Wrong for
Organisations that must run live collaboration on their own servers
CzechiaFree plan; one paid plan per user per month, published
German-hosted whiteboard with per-user plans and an on-premises option
Ranked #2 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierSelf-hostablePublished pricingEurope
Conceptboard Cloud Service GmbH in Halle (Saale) sells four published tiers plus special plans. Starter has unlimited boards and 5 GB, with a 30-day trial. The standard region is Germany on AWS; IONOS and StackIT are offered at extra cost, and dedicated servers and on-premises installs are arranged on request.
The vendor lists ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018 certification. Contract terms tighten as you climb: the two upper tiers carry user minimums and multi-month commitments, which suits procurement departments more than a ten-person studio.
What stands out
Free plan
Hosted in Germany
On-premises option
Where it costs you
The free plan caps each board at 100 objects and the account at 3 active boards and 250 MB
Advanced needs at least ten users on a twelve-month contract; Corporate needs 100 users and 24 months
German hosting outside AWS (IONOS, StackIT) costs an additional fee
Right for
Public bodies and companies that need boards kept in German data centres
Wrong for
Casual teams hoping to live on the free plan for long
GermanyFree plan; per user per month, published; on-premises quoted
Swiss-made whiteboard with a choice of hosting country or self-hosting
Ranked #3 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierSelf-hostablePublished pricingEurope
Collaboard is the rare board where the deployment question has several answers: the vendor's cloud in one of three countries, your own Azure or AWS tenant, or an on-premises install on Kubernetes or a pre-configured virtual appliance.
The vendor cites a self-hosted installation for an academic cloud serving 120,000 users. Boards export as PDF, images or CSV. The cost of that flexibility is tiering: the published plans are cloud only, and anything involving your own infrastructure becomes a sales conversation.
What stands out
Free plan
Self-hosting
Login-free guests
Where it costs you
Self-hosting and single sign-on are only in the custom-priced Enterprise plan
Free and Basic accounts are hosted in the Netherlands; choosing Switzerland or Germany starts at Advanced
The free plan allows three whiteboards with at most five participants per board
Right for
Organisations that want to pick the hosting country or run the server themselves
Wrong for
Small teams needing single sign-on on a published price
SwitzerlandFree plan; per user per month, published; Enterprise quoted
French workshop canvas where guests edit by link without an account
Ranked #4 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
The pricing logic is unusual for this market. Drafts and participants are unlimited everywhere, and the free plan is fenced by a single number, 500 objects in total; paying removes that ceiling. Pro is aimed at consultants, Team adds member and group management, Business adds SAML.
Voting sessions, a polling-booth mode for anonymous input and a Jira integration are built in. The drawback is the exit: the vendor lists PNG and CSV as the export formats, so a board leaves as a picture or a table.
What stands out
Free plan
Login-free guests
Hosted in France
Where it costs you
Export is limited to PNG and CSV according to the pricing page
The free plan ends at 500 objects across all drafts combined
SAML single sign-on is only in the Business plan
Right for
Facilitators who invite outside participants to workshops without making them register
Wrong for
Teams that need PDF or vector export of boards
FranceFree plan; paid plans monthly or yearly, published
Sketch-style diagram board sold in bundles of editor seats
Ranked #5 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Pricing is by bundle, which is cheaper than per-seat billing as long as your editors fit the box. Team covers five editor seats and adds Slack integration and board password sharing; Business covers ten and adds single sign-on and team-level access rights.
Yearly billing costs ten months. Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, Webex and Google Drive. The free plan allows three editable boards for up to five users, but with uploads and vector export switched off it shows the drawing style and little else.
What stands out
Free plan
Editor-seat bundles
Diagramming
Where it costs you
Free accounts cannot upload images or export PDF and SVG, and image exports carry a watermark
Single sign-on is only in the Business bundle
Unlimited free viewers start at the Team plan, not at Starter
Right for
Software teams drawing architecture and UML sketches with a handful of editors
Wrong for
Large workshops where dozens of people must edit at once
FinlandFree plan; flat monthly bundles of editor seats, published
Boards, flowcharts and docs billed per editor, viewers and guests unmetered
Ranked #6 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Billing by editor is the fairest model in this list for a team where three people draw and thirty read, because the readers and outside guests cost nothing.
Flowcharts and sequence diagrams export as Mermaid text, which is unusual and useful for engineers, alongside PNG, PDF and SVG; docs export as Markdown or PDF. Annual billing takes 17 per cent off. The free plan is the catch. It limits what you create each month instead of how many boards you keep.
What stands out
Free plan
Per editor
Unlimited guests
Where it costs you
The free plan allows 50 new board objects and 50 doc blocks per month
Free exports carry a 'Made with Whimsical' watermark
Version history on the free plan is seven days
Right for
Product teams with few authors and many readers of flowcharts and boards
Wrong for
Groups wanting a usable free plan for regular workshops
United StatesFree plan; per editor per month, published
Sticky-note workspace that turns workshop output into reports and data files
Ranked #7 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPricing on requestNorth America
Most whiteboards export pictures. Stormboard lists raw data exports in four formats plus generated reports for Microsoft Office and Google Docs, and word cloud, vote and task exports on every plan, which matters when a session has to feed a backlog or a minutes document.
The vendor says it is Canadian-made, with data hosting options in Canada and elsewhere, and annual plans exist for Business and Enterprise. Against that, custom branded reports and fully customised templates are marked as costing extra, and unlimited guests need Enterprise.
What stands out
Free plan
Data exports
Per member
Where it costs you
The pricing page lists plans and features but no per-member amounts
The Business trial requires a credit card
Guests are absent from the Personal plan and capped at ten on Business
Right for
Teams whose workshops must end as a spreadsheet, document or structured data file
Wrong for
Buyers who want to compare prices before talking to anyone
CanadaQuoted per member for Business; Personal plan at zero cost
Lightweight browser whiteboard with maths tools and a one-week pass
Ranked #8 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingElsewhere
The one-week pass is the reason to look here: a single payment buys Pro for a workshop week with no subscription to cancel. Team subscriptions are discounted per user by size and commitment. Audio and video chat, shape recognition and maths tools show a tutoring heritage.
The enterprise plan, quoted by email, offers a white-label licence and a dedicated server. What is missing is accountability on paper. Two legal pages were read and neither says which company, in which country, holds your boards.
What stands out
Free plan
One-week pass
Maths tools
Where it costs you
Terms and privacy policy identify the operator only as 'Ziteboard', with no address or country
Anonymous participation is a separate add-on that requires an active Pro account
Free boards have limited data traffic unless a Pro user joins
Backup export is reserved for Pro plans
Right for
Tutors and small groups who need a board for one week or month
Wrong for
Procurement teams that must know who the contracting party is
Not stated by the vendorFree plan; weekly, monthly and annual Pro plans, published
The Business plan is the interesting one: a single monthly price for unlimited users, with 100 folders, 30 GB and a year of version history, and a seven-day trial. For a department of fifty that arithmetic beats any per-member list here.
Exports cover JPEG, PNG, SVG and PDF. The on-premises edition can run in a private cloud or data centre and supports SAML, LDAP and OpenID Connect, priced by sales. The constraint to check is the item cap per canvas, which applies on every published tier.
What stands out
Free plan
Flat-fee tier
On-premises option
Where it costs you
The free plan limits each canvas to 45 items, one folder and two imports
Guest access starts at the Business plan
Every paid tier still has an item ceiling per canvas, up to 3,000 on Business
Right for
Larger departments that prefer one flat fee over counting seats
Wrong for
Teams that build very large single canvases
AustraliaFree plan; per-user and flat monthly plans, published; on-premises quoted
Large template-rich canvas billed per member, with visitor editing on paid plans
Ranked #10 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Miro's pricing page advertises more than 7,000 templates and over 250 integrations, and docs, tables, slides and kanban formats sit alongside the canvas. The free plan keeps only the three most recent boards editable and has no private boards, so anything sensitive forces the upgrade.
Starter is priced per member with a discount for yearly billing; Business has a 14-day trial. The practical risk is sprawl: a product this broad is easy to adopt and, at per-member prices, expensive to roll out to everyone.
What stands out
Free plan
Per member
Visitor editing
Where it costs you
Private boards, visitor editing and high-resolution export all start at the paid Starter plan
The guest role with unlimited guests belongs to the Business plan
Enterprise requires at least 30 members and a quote
Right for
Companies that want the largest template library and many integrations in one board
Wrong for
Small teams trying to keep private boards without paying
United StatesFree plan; per member per month, published; Enterprise quoted
Workshop canvas that separates one-time visitors from ongoing guests
Ranked #11 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Mural is sold per member on Team+ and Business, with a lower rate for annual billing, and Enterprise by quote. The visitor concept is the useful part for workshop leaders: a one-time participant costs nothing on any plan, and on Team+ can edit.
Standing access for a client or partner is a different role and a more expensive plan. The company also owns LUMA Institute, a subsidiary. We could not confirm export formats from the pricing page, so ask for them before signing.
What stands out
Free plan
Per member
Visitors included
Where it costs you
Ongoing external guests require the Business plan or higher
The pricing page shows no trial of the paid plans
Only three murals are editable at a time on the free plan
Right for
Facilitators running client workshops where participants join once and leave
Wrong for
Agencies needing standing client access on the cheapest tier
United StatesFree plan; per member per month, published; Enterprise quoted
Figma's whiteboard, included with every seat on every Figma plan
Ranked #12 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
The collab seat is priced well below a full seat and includes FigJam, Figma Slides and Figma Buzz, so a company can seat its non-designers cheaply. On paid plans, people can view and comment on files with no extra seat.
Integrations listed include Asana, Jira and GitHub, and AI features sort sticky notes and generate templates, metered by credits on the Starter plan. The dependency is the point and the problem: whiteboard pricing, administration and contracts are all Figma's, from San Francisco.
What stands out
Bundled with Figma
Per seat
Open sessions
Where it costs you
Pricing depends on Figma's seat types, which cost more on the Organization and Enterprise plans
External contributors in an open session have access for 24 hours only
The pricing page does not say how many FigJam files the Starter plan allows
Right for
Product teams already paying for Figma who want boards beside their designs
Wrong for
Organisations with no designers and no other use for Figma
United StatesFree Starter plan; per seat per month, published
Workshop board and meeting activities, now sold as Klaxoon by Wrike
Ranked #13 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Klaxoon's model differs from the co-editing boards above it. A paying host, called a Pro, runs activities; participants and audience members send ideas, answer questions and comment with limited rights, up to fifty audience members on the free tier.
Activities and data can be imported and exported on paid plans, and boards export as PDF. The vendor's legal link now serves Wrike's privacy policy, which tells you where the contract sits. Teams larger than four hosts cannot see a price without a call.
What stands out
Owned by Wrike
Per host
Free plan
Where it costs you
The free tier allows a single open activity and five participants with editing rights
Published pricing ends at four Pro users; five or more means a quote
Starter is billed annually
Right for
Trainers and meeting hosts who run sessions for an audience, not co-editors
Wrong for
Mid-sized teams wanting published prices for every member
United StatesFree plan; Starter per host per month, published; Enterprise quoted
Whiteboard bundled with Zoom Workplace, with a paid per-user upgrade
Ranked #14 of 14 in Best Online Whiteboards in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
For a company with Zoom Workplace Business or higher, Whiteboard Plus is already included, which makes this the cheapest board on the list in the one situation where it applies. Basic comes with the Workplace Basic and Pro plans and offers templates, diagramming, frames and embedded documents.
Plus can also be bought separately per user on annual billing and adds co-owners, board locking and custom templates. The limits are strategic, not technical: your boards live with your video vendor, headquartered in San Jose.
What stands out
Bundled with Zoom
Free plan
Per user
Where it costs you
The free Basic tier is limited to three concurrently editable whiteboards
PowerPoint export, version history and task integrations need Whiteboard Plus
It is sold as part of the Zoom Workplace line, tying the board to the meeting vendor
Right for
Organisations already on Zoom Workplace that want a board inside their meetings
Wrong for
Teams that hold their meetings in another product
United StatesFree plan with three boards; Plus per user per month, published
Online whiteboard software gives several people one unbounded browser canvas to place sticky notes, shapes, drawings and diagrams on simultaneously, then share or export the result. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
13 of the 14 tools here publish what they cost; the other 1 quote per organisation. The ones you can compare without a sales call: Excalidraw, Conceptboard, Collaboard, Draft.io, Sketchboard, Whimsical, Ziteboard, Creately, Miro, Mural, FigJam, Klaxoon, Zoom Whiteboard.
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 14 vendors are established in 9 countries across 4 regions (North America 7, Europe 5, Asia-Pacific 1, Elsewhere 1). That decides whose disclosure law applies to what the vendor holds, wherever the servers are.
03
Consider whether you want the source
1 of these are open source: Excalidraw. Hosting one yourself trades a subscription for maintenance.
Online whiteboard free plans are capped in three different ways
Most vendors here give away a board count. Miro, Conceptboard, Collaboard, Sketchboard and Zoom Whiteboard each stop at three boards, and Mural at three editable murals at a time. A second group counts what is on the canvas: Creately allows 45 items per canvas, Conceptboard 100 objects per board on top of its board limit, and Draft.io 500 objects across the whole account with boards unlimited.
Whimsical meters neither; it limits creation to fifty board objects per month. Excalidraw offers a single infinite scene, and Klaxoon one open activity. These are not comparable numbers. A team that runs one enormous planning board fits a board-count plan and breaks an object cap in an afternoon, while a team that opens a fresh board per meeting has the opposite problem.
Count the objects on your largest existing board before trusting an object or item limit.
Ask what happens to a fourth board: locked, read-only or deleted.
Check whether free boards can be private; on Miro that starts at the Starter plan.
Visitors, guests and editors: who an online whiteboard bills for
Workshop tools fail at the door if the client has to register. Draft.io lets guest editors join by URL with no account on every plan, including the free one. Miro allows visitor editing without sign-in from Starter and reserves the guest role for Business. Mural includes one-time visitors everywhere but keeps ongoing guests for Business and Enterprise.
Collaboard sets a number, twenty login-free guests on Basic and unlimited on Advanced, and Stormboard allows ten on Business and none on its free tier. Ziteboard sells anonymous participation as an add-on to Pro. On the billing side, Whimsical charges only editors, Sketchboard sells bundles of editor seats with free viewers from Team, and Creately's Business plan is one fee for unlimited users.
List your outside participants and whether they return weekly or appear once.
Confirm whether an unregistered participant can edit or only view.
Price your real mix of authors and readers, not total headcount.
What leaves an online whiteboard: pictures, vectors or data
An exported PNG is a photograph of your work, not the work. Excalidraw saves an open .excalidraw JSON file and exports PNG and SVG free, with PDF and PPTX on Plus. Whimsical exports PNG, PDF, SVG and, for flowcharts and sequence diagrams, Mermaid text, though free exports are watermarked. Stormboard goes furthest on content, with CSV, JSON, XML and OPML data exports and Office or Google Docs reports.
Collaboard offers PDF, images and CSV. Draft.io lists only PNG and CSV. Tiering matters as much as format: Sketchboard withholds PDF and SVG from free accounts, Miro keeps high-resolution JPG and PDF for paid plans, Ziteboard limits backup export to Pro, and Zoom Whiteboard puts PowerPoint export in Plus.
Export your most complex board in every offered format during the trial and reopen it elsewhere.
Check whether exports on your plan are watermarked or low resolution.
If sticky notes feed a backlog, require a CSV or structured export.
Self-hosting an online whiteboard: what Excalidraw and Collaboard actually offer
Few products in this market can run on your own infrastructure, and the ones that can come with conditions. Excalidraw is MIT-licensed and ships a Docker image, but its documentation says a self-hosted instance does not support sharing or collaboration, which is the reason most teams buy a whiteboard. Collaboard supports on-premises installs, your own Azure or AWS tenant, Kubernetes or a virtual appliance, all inside its custom-priced Enterprise plan.
Conceptboard hosts in German data centres by default and arranges dedicated servers and on-premises installs as special plans on request. Creately sells an on-premises edition with SAML, LDAP and OpenID Connect through its sales team. None of these routes has a published price, so self-hosting here means a negotiation.
Ask whether live multi-user editing works in the self-hosted build, not just the editor.
Get the self-hosted price and minimum user count in writing before the pilot.
Ask who applies updates: your operations team or the vendor.
What goes wrong most often when buying online whiteboards software
Piloting on a free plan with three people, then finding that private boards, visitor editing and full-resolution export all sit in the first paid tier.
Assuming workshop participants can edit without an account. On several boards that is a paid feature, a capped number or a separate add-on.
Reading 'open source' as 'we can host it ourselves with collaboration'. Excalidraw's own docs say the self-hosted instance lacks sharing.
Buying a seat for everyone who might look at a board, when Whimsical bills editors only and Creately has a flat fee for unlimited users.
07
Frequently asked questions
8 answers
What is the best online whiteboards in 2026?
Excalidraw leads our ranking of 14. The editor is MIT-licensed, and the hosted free tier gives one infinite scene with unlimited collaborators, in-browser end-to-end encryption and PNG, SVG and JSON export.
Plus, billed per user, adds unlimited scenes, cloud storage, read-only links, comments and PDF and PPTX export. Excalidraw s.r.o. in Brno sells a single paid plan by card only, and its own docs say a self-hosted instance omits sharing and collaboration.
Which online whiteboards tools publish their pricing?
13 of the 14, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Excalidraw: Free plan; one paid plan per user per month, published.
Conceptboard: Free plan; per user per month, published; on-premises quoted.
Collaboard: Free plan; per user per month, published; Enterprise quoted.
Draft.io: Free plan; paid plans monthly or yearly, published.
Sketchboard: Free plan; flat monthly bundles of editor seats, published.
Whimsical: Free plan; per editor per month, published.
Ziteboard: Free plan; weekly, monthly and annual Pro plans, published.
Miro: Free plan; per member per month, published; Enterprise quoted.
Mural: Free plan; per member per month, published; Enterprise quoted.
FigJam: Free Starter plan; per seat per month, published.
Klaxoon: Free plan; Starter per host per month, published; Enterprise quoted.
Zoom Whiteboard: Free plan with three boards; Plus per user per month, published.
The other 1 quote per organisation.
Is there a free online whiteboards tool?
Excalidraw, Conceptboard, Collaboard, Draft.io, Sketchboard, Whimsical, Stormboard, Ziteboard, Creately, Miro, Mural, FigJam, Klaxoon, Zoom Whiteboard offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition.
Where are these online whiteboards vendors established?
In 9 countries across 4 regions: North America 7, Europe 5, Asia-Pacific 1, Elsewhere 1.
Excalidraw: Czechia.
Conceptboard: Germany.
Collaboard: Switzerland.
Draft.io: France.
Sketchboard: Finland.
Whimsical: United States.
Stormboard: Canada.
Ziteboard: Not stated by the vendor.
Creately: Australia.
Miro: United States.
Mural: United States.
FigJam: United States.
Klaxoon: United States.
Zoom Whiteboard: United States.
Which online whiteboards tools are open source?
Excalidraw.
Which online whiteboards tools can you host yourself?
Excalidraw, Conceptboard, Collaboard, Creately. The other 10 are hosted by the vendor only.
What should you use instead of Excalidraw?
Conceptboard and Collaboard are the next two on this page. Conceptboard is for Public bodies and companies that need boards kept in German data centres; Collaboard is for Organisations that want to pick the hosting country or run the server themselves.
Who should not buy Excalidraw?
Organisations that must run live collaboration on their own servers. The vendor's docs state that a self-hosted instance does not support sharing or collaboration.
If your online whiteboards product belongs among these 14, tell us what it does and who it is for. Inclusion is an editorial call; what a listing is and is not is set out under software advice.
