The best free alternative to Miro depends on which part of Miro you actually use. For a shared whiteboard or kanban board that nobody has to sign up for, cnvs.app is free with unlimited boards; for hand-drawn diagrams, Excalidraw has a free-forever tier; for a whiteboard inside your own app, tldraw sells an SDK. If you rely on Miro's templates, its own Free plan (3 editable boards) includes them; for facilitated workshops (voting, timers) and team administration, a paid Miro plan is still the better fit.
Miro is a capable visual-collaboration suite, and its Free plan is a real plan — but it has two limits that push people to look elsewhere. First, only 3 boards stay editable on Free. Second, Miro's pricing page says that on Free "any board you create is accessible to all team members by default and there are no visitor or guest roles" — so sharing a board with someone outside your team means adding them as a member. The next step up, Starter, is $8 per member per month billed yearly; Business is $20 per member per month billed yearly.
If you only need one or two of the things Miro does — a blank canvas for a call, a diagram, a task board, a whiteboard an AI agent can draw on — a narrower free tool may do that job with less setup. If you need the whole suite, it probably won't.
| cnvs.app | Excalidraw (Free / Excalidraw+) | tldraw | Miro Free | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Hosted whiteboard + kanban board, open by URL | Hand-drawn-style whiteboard | Whiteboard SDK for developers | Visual-collaboration suite |
| Free tier | Everything, $0, no paid plan | Free forever: one infinite scene, unlimited collaborators | 100-day free trial of the SDK license | $0, 3 editable boards |
| Paid tier | None | Plus: $6 a month per user (annual billing saves 14%) | Commercial license, value-based pricing | Starter $8, Business $20 per member/month, billed yearly |
| Account to collaborate | No accounts at all — share the link | Sharing with guests is free on both tiers | n/a (you build the product) | No visitor or guest roles on Free |
| Number of boards | Unlimited | Free: one scene; Plus: unlimited scenes | n/a | 3 editable (more on Starter) |
| AI / MCP | Public MCP endpoint at https://cnvs.app/mcp, no API key | AI requests: 10/day Free, 100/day Plus; MCP in public beta on Plus | n/a | MCP server on all plans (Starter: 500 calls/day) |
| Templates | No | — | — | Yes — 7,000+ templates on all plans |
| Voting & timer | No | — | — | No — Starter and above |
| Built-in kanban board | Yes — /todo opens one | — | — | — |
| Storage | Boards nobody opens for 30 days are deleted | Free: one scene; Plus: cloud storage | n/a | — |
Competitor facts are taken only from each vendor's own pricing page: miro.com/pricing, plus.excalidraw.com/pricing, tldraw.dev/pricing. A dash means we didn't verify it, not that the feature is missing. Prices checked 8 October 2026; may change.
Open a new cnvs.app board and you get a fresh board with a shareable link; anyone who opens it edits the same board live. A board is either an infinite drawing canvas (freehand, text, sticky notes, pasted images, Mermaid diagrams) or a kanban board. There are no accounts, so there is nothing to invite people into; an optional PIN can lock editing or the whole board. AI agents can join the same board over a public MCP endpoint.
Weaker than Miro: no templates gallery, no voting or timers, no workspaces or admin controls, no integrations, and no enterprise security certifications. Boards nobody opens for 30 days are deleted, so it is not an archive.
Excalidraw's Free tier gives you one infinite scene with unlimited collaborators, and sharing with guests is free. Excalidraw+ is $6 a month per user (annual billing saves 14%) and adds unlimited scenes and cloud storage. AI requests are capped at 10 a day on Free and 100 a day on Plus; MCP is in public beta on Plus.
Better than cnvs.app at: the polished hand-drawn diagram look and a paid tier with persistent cloud storage. cnvs.app vs Excalidraw →
tldraw.dev sells a commercial license for its infinite-canvas SDK, with a 100-day free trial and value-based pricing. It's the right pick when you want a whiteboard inside your own product, not a hosted tool for your team.
Better than cnvs.app at: embedding and customising a canvas in your own app. cnvs.app vs tldraw →
Miro's Free plan is $0 with 3 editable boards, and Miro's MCP server is available on all plans. Its template library is on Free too, but the facilitation tools — timer, voting, private mode — start at Starter ($8 per member per month, billed yearly). If your team already lives in Miro, staying on Free or upgrading may be simpler than switching.
Better than every option here at: structured workshops, templates and team administration. Our one-to-one Miro vs cnvs.app comparison →
Also comparing whiteboards from other vendors? See FigJam, MURAL and Microsoft Whiteboard.
It depends on what you use Miro for. For a quick shared whiteboard or kanban board that nobody has to sign up for, cnvs.app is free with unlimited boards. For hand-drawn-style diagrams, Excalidraw has a free-forever tier. For embedding a whiteboard inside your own product, tldraw sells an SDK. If you need Miro's template library, its Free plan already has it; for workshop facilitation (voting, timers) and team administration, a paid Miro plan is still the better fit.
Miro's pricing page lists 3 editable boards on the Free plan ($0). Its Starter plan is $8 per member per month billed yearly and adds unlimited boards, including private boards. Prices were checked on 8 October 2026 and may change.
Yes. cnvs.app has no paid plan, no accounts and no per-seat pricing. Each board has fixed size limits (for example 500 text blocks, 2,000 strokes and 50 images on a drawing board), and a board that nobody opens for 30 days is deleted automatically.
On cnvs.app, no — anyone with the board link can join, and you can add an optional PIN lock. Excalidraw's pricing page says sharing with guests is free on both tiers. On Miro's Free plan there are no visitor or guest roles; people you invite become members.
cnvs.app exposes a public MCP endpoint at https://cnvs.app/mcp with no account or API key. Miro's pricing page lists MCP access on all plans, with a call allowance per plan. Excalidraw+ lists MCP as a public beta on its paid Plus plan.