Open-source design and whiteboard tools in 2026
30 open-source projects, ranked by GitHub stars and how recently each was worked on. Excalidraw leads with 135k stars, ahead of OpenDesign. 29 had code pushed in the last three months. Most common licenses: MIT (14), Apache-2.0 (6) and AGPL-3.0 (5). Commercial design and whiteboard tools are listed separately.
New this season
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1
M3E Canvas lnkiai
Sketch Material 3 Expressive screens in the browser and turn them into vibe-coding prompts.
Developer tool Experimental You prototype Android-style apps and hand the build to an AI coding assistant.
★ 10k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed yesterday -
2
Doop kgoedecke
The open-source alternative to Paper.design. A multiplayer design canvas where humans and AI agents design together, live. MCP built in.
Complete system Experimental You want humans and coding agents designing HTML screens together on one live canvas.
★ 1.6k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
3
Quickdraw quickdrawjs
The MIT-licensed infinite-canvas whiteboard SDK. An open-source tldraw alternative — no license fee, free for commercial use. React, React Native, and plain JS.
Building block Experimental You need an embeddable whiteboard in a commercial product and want to avoid tldraw's licence fee.
★ 589 MIT JavaScript Active, pushed today -
4
Kition KitionAI
Kition brings Markdown, DataTable, WhiteBoard, a tool-using AI agent, browser research, and visual workflows into one desktop workspace.
Complete system Experimental You want an AI-centred note and research workspace on your desktop and accept a very new app.
★ 578 Apache-2.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today
All open-source design and whiteboard tools, ranked
Complete systems you can adopt 21
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1
Excalidraw excalidraw
Virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams
Complete system Production-ready Teams want quick informal diagrams in meetings, docs or your own app without heavyweight diagram tools.
★ 135k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today -
2
OpenDesign nexu-io
The 1st Collaborative AI Design Agent Workspace. Local-first and open source. Create motion, prototypes, websites, apps, dashboards, presentations, images, and videos with your team and AI agents. Share work, exchange feedback, and iterate together in one workspace.
Complete system Experimental A product team wants an open alternative to Claude Design or Figma Make for AI-generated prototypes.
★ 106k Apache-2.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
3
Penpot penpot
Penpot: The open-source design platform for Product teams that need scalable collaboration.
Complete system Production-ready Your team wants a Figma alternative it can self-host or use without per-editor lock-in.
★ 62k MPL-2.0 Clojure Active, pushed today -
4
Graphite GraphiteEditor
Community-built comprehensive 2D content creation appplication for graphic design, digital art, and interactive real-time motion graphics powered by a node-based procedural graphics engine
Complete system Experimental You want to experiment with procedural, non-destructive 2D design in an open-source tool.
★ 28k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed today -
5
Drawnix plait-board
开源白板工具（SaaS），一体化白板，包含思维导图、流程图、自由画等。All in one open-source whiteboard tool with mind, flowchart, freehand and etc.
Complete system Usable You want a free whiteboard that does mind maps and flowcharts in one canvas.
★ 15k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 2 months ago -
6
OpenPencil open-pencil
AI-native design editor. Open-source Figma alternative.
Complete system Experimental You want an open-source Figma alternative that can read existing Figma files.
★ 9.6k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today -
7
Drawio jgraph
draw.io is a JavaScript, client-side editor for general diagramming.
Complete system Production-ready You need precise technical or business diagrams that save to your own storage at no cost.
★ 9.1k Apache-2.0 JavaScript Active, pushed 3 days ago -
8
Open CoDesign OpenCoworkAI
Open-source Claude Design alternative. One-click import your Claude Code / Codex API key. Prompt → prototype / slides / PDF. Multi-model (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Kimi, GLM, Ollama). BYOK, local-first, MIT.
Complete system Experimental You want Claude Design-style output on your laptop with the model you already pay for.
★ 8.2k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed yesterday -
9
Flat netless-io
Project flat is the Web, Windows and macOS client of Agora Flat open source classroom.
Complete system Usable An education provider wants an open-source virtual classroom and accepts Agora's paid real-time services underneath.
★ 6.4k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 3 days ago -
10
MiroTalk miroslavpejic85
🚀 Open-source, self-hosted P2P WebRTC video conferencing for fast, private real-time communication. Create browser-based meeting rooms with no downloads or time limits, plus screen sharing, chat, whiteboard, recording, and collaboration.
Complete system Usable You want quick private video rooms for small groups on your own server with minimal infrastructure.
★ 4.8k AGPL-3.0 JavaScript Active, pushed today -
11
Grida gridaco
Grida — Open Canvas
Complete system Experimental You want to try an open-source design canvas as a lighter alternative to Figma for graphics work.
★ 2.7k Apache-2.0 TypeScript Active, pushed 14 days ago -
12
Whitebophir lovasoa
Online collaborative Whiteboard that is simple, free, easy to use and to deploy
Complete system Production-ready Teachers or small groups want an anonymous, easy-to-host shared drawing board.
★ 2.7k AGPL-3.0 JavaScript Active, pushed today -
13
Paint-board LHRUN
🎨 A powerful multi-end drawing board that brings together a lot of creative brushes to experience a whole new range of drawing effects!
Complete system Usable You want a playful free drawing app in the browser or a fabric.js example to learn from.
★ 2.6k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 11 days ago -
14
Luban-h5 ly525
[WIP]en: web design tool || mobile page builder/editor || mini webflow for mobile page. zh: 类似易企秀的H5制作、建站工具、可视化搭建系统.
Complete system Experimental A Chinese marketing team wants to self-host a mobile landing page builder.
★ 6.2k GPL-3.0 JavaScript Slowing, pushed 10 months ago -
15
Doop kgoedecke
The open-source alternative to Paper.design. A multiplayer design canvas where humans and AI agents design together, live. MCP built in.
Complete system Experimental You want humans and coding agents designing HTML screens together on one live canvas.
★ 1.6k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
16
SoloMD zhitongblog
A markdown editor — and the bridge to your LLM. Local-first, MIT, ~15 MB. Bundled MCP server lets Claude Code / Codex / Cursor drive your vault directly. 14 AI providers BYOK.
Complete system Usable You keep Markdown notes and want AI tools such as Claude Code to work directly on them.
★ 1.5k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today -
17
Penpot Desktop author-more
A desktop application for Penpot, an open-source design tool.
Complete system Usable You use Penpot daily and prefer a desktop app over a browser tab.
★ 1.2k AGPL-3.0 JavaScript Active, pushed today -
18
Whiteboard cracker0dks
Lightweight collaborative Whiteboard / Sketchboard
Complete system Usable You want a simple self-hosted whiteboard to embed in a meeting or teaching platform.
★ 846 MIT JavaScript Active, pushed 8 days ago -
19
Ai-draw bugkeep
Create and edit drawings through conversation.
Complete system Experimental You want to generate flowcharts or sketches from descriptions and then refine them by hand.
★ 793 MIT Python Active, pushed 8 days ago -
20
Ideon 3xpyth0n
Your project is scattered across too many tools. Map the chaos on an infinite canvas where notes, files, TO-DOs (and more!) finally live together.
Complete system Experimental A small team thinks visually and wants one shared map of a project's material on its own server.
★ 670 AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
21
Kition KitionAI
Kition brings Markdown, DataTable, WhiteBoard, a tool-using AI agent, browser research, and visual workflows into one desktop workspace.
Complete system Experimental You want an AI-centred note and research workspace on your desktop and accept a very new app.
★ 578 Apache-2.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today
Frameworks and platforms to build on 1
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1
Plait worktile
A completely customizable framework for building all-in-one drawing whiteboard
Framework or platform Usable You are building a whiteboard product and want a framework rather than a finished app.
★ 699 MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 40 days ago
Building blocks for your own system 4
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1
React Konva konvajs
React components for the Konva 2d canvas library. Build interactive graphics, design editors, and whiteboards with JSX.
Building block Production-ready You are building an interactive canvas feature in a React web app.
★ 6.4k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 19 days ago -
2
DGM.js dgmjs
An infinite canvas with smart shapes
Building block Usable You are building a diagramming product and want smart shapes with constraints rather than plain drawing.
★ 1.7k GPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed 2 months ago -
3
VueKonva konvajs
Vue components for the Konva 2d canvas library. Build interactive graphics, design editors, and whiteboards in Vue.
Building block Production-ready Your web app is in Vue and needs an interactive canvas.
★ 1.4k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 2 months ago -
4
Quickdraw quickdrawjs
The MIT-licensed infinite-canvas whiteboard SDK. An open-source tldraw alternative — no license fee, free for commercial use. React, React Native, and plain JS.
Building block Experimental You need an embeddable whiteboard in a commercial product and want to avoid tldraw's licence fee.
★ 589 MIT JavaScript Active, pushed today
Developer tools 4
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1
Onlook onlook-dev
The Developer Tool for Visual Engineers • An Open-Source AI-First Design tool • Visually build, style, and edit your code with AI • World's best, top-most agent recommended #1 Developer tool for Designers and Visual Engineers to design with Real Code.
Developer tool Usable Designers and developers want to edit real React code visually rather than handing off Figma files.
★ 27k Apache-2.0 TypeScript Active, pushed 12 days ago -
2
M3E Canvas lnkiai
Sketch Material 3 Expressive screens in the browser and turn them into vibe-coding prompts.
Developer tool Experimental You prototype Android-style apps and hand the build to an AI coding assistant.
★ 10k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed yesterday -
3
Systemizer honzaap
A system design tool that allows you to simulate data flow of distributed systems.
Developer tool Usable You are learning or teaching system design and want to visualise request flow.
★ 1.5k GPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed 2 months ago -
4
Visual Center javierbyte
Tool to better align logos in the center of a container.
Developer tool Usable You place logos in buttons or tiles and they look off-centre.
★ 1.4k BSD-3-Clause JavaScript Active, pushed 3 days ago
Compared head to head
Looking for an alternative to
Open-source licenses
- Permissive: 21. Use it anywhere, including in closed products. You keep the copyright notice; Apache-2.0 also grants patent rights.
- Network copyleft: 5. Like GPL, and running a changed version as a web service counts as distributing it, so its users get the source too.
- Strong copyleft: 3. If you distribute the program or anything built on it, you must release the whole source under the same license.
- Weak copyleft: 1. Changes to the licensed files must be shared, but you can link them into a closed program.
Languages
TypeScript 19, JavaScript 8, Clojure 1, Rust 1 and Python 1.
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