Excalidraw

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Excalidraw draws in a deliberately hand-drawn style, and that is a feature rather than a limitation. A diagram that looks unfinished gets structural feedback; a polished one gets feedback about the font.

It is the right tool for workshops, RFCs and anything you want people to argue with.

#What it is good at

  • Workshops and whiteboarding, including remote ones.

  • Early architecture sketches, where the design is not settled.

  • Wireframes at the stage where the layout is the question.

#A few things that catch people out

  • Excalidraw renders in the browser, so anonymous readers see the stored image.

  • Its shape libraries are its own format and cannot be shared with draw.io.

  • It will not make a formal diagram look formal. That is the point, but it surprises people.

Learn one properly. Borrow the rest when you need them.