# Excalidraw 56 Hacker News commenters recommended Excalidraw and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** People recommend it for quick, low-friction hand-drawn diagrams and sketches, with fast keyboard shortcuts. Critics often find its hand-drawn default style and font unprofessional. ## Why people recommend it - Keyboard shortcuts make work faster (2 comments): "Coming from excalidraw, I can't live without the numbered 1-5 shortcuts to select the tool" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47004472)) "My favorite aspect of it is the keyboard shortcuts. It makes things so much faster." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47575342)) - Simple and low-friction for sketches (2 comments): "does what it needs to do and doesn't get in your way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47573924)) "Excalidraw is excellent for low-friction sketches." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47574093)) - Works inside notes and other tools (5 comments): "Claude code can output Excalidraw format files which can be imported directly into the webapp." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46995149)) "You can also bootstrap your initial schema with LLMs with the excalidraw MCP "app"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47571678)) "You can copy past the mermaid to excalidraw to visualize it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47831050)) - Hand-drawn style feels approachable (3 comments): "Excalidraw is my favourite thinking tool, and the style it produces is just the right level of limiting, disarming, and professional at the same time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47573177)) "people are still more willing to engage with your content because they think that its made by hand" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49860122)) "It's a great tool if you're looking for that hand-drawn aesthetic" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46445549)) ## What people warn about - Looks unprofessional or wonky (4 comments): "It also looks very unprofessional so if you ever have to write customer-facing diagrams, you have tool fragmentation." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47577014)) "I genuinely don't understand how people can use these wonky looking tools." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47572323)) "I don't like how it looks, it's a personal preference." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47576170)) - Default font hard to read (2 comments): "I just cannot read the default hand-scrawl font on Excalidraw diagrams" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48093563)) "the default font is ugly, childish and inaccessible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47572014)) - Frustrating and sometimes unusable for presentations (4 comments): "It's not perfect, some things make me crazy but overall it is better than draw.io that I used to use before." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47571644)) "The presentation software itself (Excalidraw) makes this nearly unusable for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45934272)) "it can be really frustratingly mediocre a lot of the time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47580359)) - Barebones, lacks multiple scenes and symbols (3 comments): "It would have been great if Excalidraw made it easier to do manage multiple scenes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47576890)) "a little barebone indeed but seems like something I've sometimes wanted to do too" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46671735)) "Primarily the styling and a lack of symbols" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48567946)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Monodraw](https://hackerapproved.com/p/monodraw.md): 17 recommend - [draw.io](https://hackerapproved.com/p/draw-io.md): 16 recommend - [Microsoft Visio](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-visio.md): 10 recommend - [OmniGraffle](https://hackerapproved.com/p/omnigraffle.md): 7 recommend - [LibreOffice Draw](https://hackerapproved.com/p/libreoffice-draw.md): 5 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Excalidraw", https://hackerapproved.com/p/excalidraw/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).