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Whiteboarding 2 alternatives tracked

Open-source alternatives to Figma FigJam

Figma FigJam is Figma's collaborative whiteboarding tool for teams to run workshops, brainstorming sessions, and planning exercises with sticky notes, shapes, and embedded widgets. It integrates with Figma design files, allowing teams to go from ideation in FigJam to production design in Figma without context switching. It targets product teams and facilitators running async or live collaborative sessions.

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The alternatives

excalidraw

★ 122,566 TypeScript MIT

Virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams

excalidraw/excalidraw Updated 2026-05-05

tldraw

★ 46,829 TypeScript NOASSERTION

very good whiteboard infinite canvas SDK

tldraw/tldraw Updated 2026-05-05

Comparison notes

Excalidraw is an OSS whiteboard with infinite canvas, sketchy hand-drawn aesthetics, and real-time collaboration. Tldraw provides a cleaner infinite canvas for structured diagramming. The main gaps vs. FigJam: FigJam's workshop templates, voting widgets, and timer tools for structured facilitation are not available in Excalidraw or tldraw. FigJam's integration with Figma design files for seamless design workflow is unique. Self-hosted Excalidraw covers basic collaborative whiteboarding well but lacks the workshop facilitation affordances.

Migration tips

  • Export FigJam boards as PNG or PDF for archival — there is no structured data export
  • Self-hosted Excalidraw.com (excalidraw/excalidraw) requires a backend for room persistence if you want saved sessions
  • Workshop templates from FigJam must be recreated manually in the target tool
  • Update any Figma file links embedded in FigJam boards — these references do not transfer
  • Consider whether your team's facilitators need FigJam-specific features (voting, timers) before committing to an OSS alternative

FAQ

Can I fully replace Figma FigJam with an OSS tool?

Feature parity varies. Most OSS alternatives cover 70-90% of core workflows, but may lack polish, integrations, or specialized features. Pilot the alternative with a subset of your team before fully committing.

What's the cost of self-hosting?

Plan for ~$5-50/month in VPS costs (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, etc.) plus 2-8 hours/month in maintenance. For a team of 20+, self-hosting usually breaks even against SaaS pricing within 6-12 months.

Which alternative should I pick?

Sort by GitHub stars (a proxy for community health), check the last-pushed date (avoid unmaintained projects), and read recent issues to gauge responsiveness.