Last updated: · Reading time: 5 minutes

Whiteboard with sticky notes used for project planning

Most whiteboard apps make you create an account, pick a workspace, and click through a setup flow before you can draw a single line. tldraw skips all of that — you open the site and you're immediately on an infinite canvas, ready to sketch, diagram, or brainstorm with a distinctive, clean hand-drawn style.

What You Can Do on the Canvas

  • Freehand drawing and shapes — draw lines, arrows, and objects directly on an infinite canvas that never runs out of space
  • Text and sticky notes — add notes for brainstorming sessions, retrospectives, or visual to-do lists
  • Media embedding — drop in images, videos, or GIFs directly onto the board
  • Real-time collaboration — share a link and multiple people can draw and edit simultaneously, with live cursors showing who's doing what
  • Read-only sharing — send a view-only link when you want to present finished work without anyone else editing it

No Account, No Setup Friction

The whole point of tldraw's design is removing friction. There's no login required to start drawing or to collaborate with someone else on a shared board — you just open the link. That makes it especially useful for quick, spontaneous use: sketching out an idea on a call, mapping a process during a meeting, or diagramming something on the fly without asking everyone in the room to make an account first.

Works on Everything

tldraw runs in the browser and works across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices, so you're not locked into a specific app or platform to use it. Whether you're sketching from a laptop at your desk or annotating something on a tablet, the same canvas and tools are available.

Open Source, With Room to Build On

tldraw is developed in the open, with an active GitHub project that's earned tens of thousands of stars from developers. Beyond the whiteboard app itself, tldraw also offers an SDK that developers can use to embed a fully functional canvas directly into their own products — so if you're building something that needs drawing or diagramming built in, the same engine powering the public site is available to build with.

Who This Is Useful For

tldraw fits naturally into remote team brainstorming, quick process or flow diagrams, teaching and tutoring sessions where a visual explanation beats a wall of text, and any moment where you need to sketch out an idea with someone else in real time without the overhead of a heavier design tool. It's less suited to precise technical diagrams with exact measurements — for that, a structured diagramming tool is a better fit — but for fast, freeform visual thinking, it's hard to beat the combination of zero setup and real-time collaboration.

Open tldraw Free →

No signup required · Works on any device

online whiteboard, collaboration tools, free design tools, remote work, brainstorming tools