Why would I switch from tldraw.com to cnvs.app?

If you need collaborators to join without signing in. tldraw.com is described by its makers as a demo of the tldraw SDK — every participant has to sign in before they can join a shared room. cnvs.app shares a public URL with no auth at all.

What is tldraw actually selling?

The tldraw SDK commercial licence — required if you embed tldraw inside your own commercial app. tldraw.com itself is free for end users.

Can I embed cnvs.app like the tldraw SDK?

No. cnvs.app is hosted-only and not licensable as an embeddable SDK. If you want to ship a whiteboard inside your own product, the tldraw SDK is the right pick.

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A tldraw alternative where collaborators don't have to sign in

tldraw.com is a beautiful whiteboard, but it's first and foremost a demo of the tldraw SDK — every participant must sign in to join a shared room. cnvs.app shares a public URL with no auth at all. If you want a hosted whiteboard you can hand to anyone (including AI agents via MCP), pick cnvs.app. If you want to embed a whiteboard inside your own product, pick the tldraw SDK.

Open a free board now → See the comparison

TL;DR

tldraw.com = demo of the tldraw SDK. Free for end users, but every collaborator has to sign in to join a shared room. The product they're selling is the SDK commercial licence.
cnvs.app = hosted whiteboard with no signup for anyone. Best when you want to hand a URL to a candidate, a client, a student, or an AI agent and have them be on the canvas in < 5 seconds.

tldraw.com vs cnvs.app at a glance

Capability	tldraw.com	cnvs.app
Signup to join a shared room	Required	Not required
Real-time multi-user sync	Yes	Yes
Hand-drawn / artistic aesthetic	Polished vector	Clean vector
Mermaid diagrams	Via AI	Built in
Embeddable SDK	Yes (commercial licence)	No
Public MCP endpoint for AI	No	Yes
Print / PDF export	Yes	Yes

When to pick which

Pick tldraw when

You're building a product and want to embed a polished whiteboard. The tldraw SDK is the best-in-class option — pay the commercial licence and ship.

Pick cnvs.app when

You want a hosted whiteboard you can share with anyone via a public URL — no sign-in, no install, no SDK. Just a link.

FAQ

Is cnvs.app open source?

No. cnvs.app is hosted-only. tldraw publishes most of its core under MIT but charges for commercial SDK embedding.

Can I self-host cnvs.app?

No. We run it ourselves on Cloudflare so the privacy guarantees can be enforced.