Apple Freeform
Ranked 3 of 3 whiteboard apps by recommenders
Free Apple whiteboard app for rough sketches and brainstorming, good enough for many people. Critics say it is too limited for detailed mockups.
Free Apple whiteboard app for rough sketches and brainstorming, good enough for many people. Critics say it is too limited for detailed mockups.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 54%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Free and good enough
“Not available for one time purchase are the AI features and templates available for the free apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform).”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Apple Creator Studio” “mostly because they are free and they are good enough”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft Office renamed to "Microsoft 365 Copilot app"”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Too limited for detailed work
“Freeform is more of a whiteboarding/brainstorming app. It might be ok for rough wireframes but isn't suitable for high fidelity mockups”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Apple has decided to compete for creativity app users” “I tried it out when it was first announced and found it painfully limited”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Apple Creator Studio” “the one thing you cannot do with Freeform on a Mac? Draw free form.”
Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “I use excalidraw to manage my diagrams for my blog”
Other whiteboard apps people recommend
The two most recommended other whiteboard apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 3 whiteboard apps, rankedWhat people said
All 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the sandboxed applet + persistent storage + API key injection combo is what makes this more than just an AI Canva clone”
“I think the experience lacks in feedback from the llm”
“It's even actively advertised as a feature”
“Freeform is more of a whiteboarding/brainstorming app. It might be ok for rough wireframes but isn't suitable for high fidelity mockups”
“Flock's (YC S17) own marketing materials have been advertising their ability to find "missing people" given a description of an individual's clothing”
“Since 26 upgrade it is unusable with 100+ notes.”
“the one thing you cannot do with Freeform on a Mac? Draw free form.”
“The main thing about Freeform that has been useful is that it has been a”
“I use it regularly to do rough sketches of objects on my iPad to model in CAD later on the computer.”
“sorely lacking a major feature: highlight text to add a hyperlink”
“I tried it out when it was first announced and found it painfully limited”
“Not available for one time purchase are the AI features and templates available for the free apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform).”
“mostly because they are free and they are good enough”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.