tldraw
Ranked 2 of 3 whiteboard apps by recommenders
Recommended as a quick, easy whiteboard for diagrams and sketches, also on mobile; the most common caveat is its closed contributions and test suite over AI slop concerns.
Recommended as a quick, easy whiteboard for diagrams and sketches, also on mobile; the most common caveat is its closed contributions and test suite over AI slop concerns.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, 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
Enjoyable, long-running whiteboard use
“I love tldraw and am excited to see the many ways the project goes”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Together, multiplayer drawing chat room” “I've been a happy user of tldraw as a whiteboard for ages.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Tldraw Offline” “it's been delightful so far”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2026)” - Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Hubbele: Open-source notetaking app for you and your agents”
Quick, easy diagrams and sketches
“tldraw.com is fantastic for quick+easy diagrams and works great on mobile”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Inkwash, a watercolor sketching app and explanation” “Tldraw seems to be a better medium for this that mermaid.”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Agent Draw: An agent draws while you talk, built on TLDraw”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Closed contributions and test suite
“Nothing says "closed for contributions" quite like not even having access to a test suite or CI to work with”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Agents are ushering in the Antisocial Coding era” “The performative closing of public contributions citing the slop scare felt disingenuous from the start.”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Tldraw making its test suite closed source to avoid "slop-fork"” “you're a freeloader. You not only accept contributions, but you keep them as proprietary code”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Stay Away from My Trash” Distrust of AI-slop reasoning
“The performative closing of public contributions citing the slop scare felt disingenuous from the start.”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Tldraw making its test suite closed source to avoid "slop-fork"” “it's frustrating when they can't own these decisions and try to hide behind it being a "joke"”
Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Tldraw making its test suite closed source to avoid "slop-fork"” “it sounds like my suspicion was accurate”
Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “Stay Away from My Trash” License changed, contributions kept proprietary
“you're a freeloader. You not only accept contributions, but you keep them as proprietary code”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Stay Away from My Trash” “they changed the license in 2023”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “Stay Away from My Trash” Missing features out of the box
“still couldn't find what i was looking for out of the box”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Drawgent: Coding agent on a live Excalidraw canvas” “Primarily the styling and a lack of symbols”
Comment from 17 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)”
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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miro | 18 | 16 | 53% | 7 | — | — |
| tldrawThis page | 10 | 10 | 50% | 8 | — | — |
| Apple Freeform | 7 | 6 | 54% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
21 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“still couldn't find what i was looking for out of the box”
“I'm having fun with tldraw.”
“I've been a happy user of tldraw as a whiteboard for ages.”
“Tldraw seems to be a better medium for this that mermaid.”
“Primarily the styling and a lack of symbols”
“tldraw.com is fantastic for quick+easy diagrams and works great on mobile”
“tldraw doing this much earlier”
“It has a nice nearly-hand-drawn feel that's casual and approachable for these kinds of sketches.”
“Nothing says "closed for contributions" quite like not even having access to a test suite or CI to work with”
“it's frustrating when they can't own these decisions and try to hide behind it being a "joke"”
“The performative closing of public contributions citing the slop scare felt disingenuous from the start.”
“This is concerning, it feels a bit tragedy-of-the-commons”
“I love tldraw and am excited to see the many ways the project goes”
“you're a freeloader. You not only accept contributions, but you keep them as proprietary code”
“it sounds like my suspicion was accurate”
“tldraw is actually very good for trying to get the best out of models”
“they changed the license in 2023”
“it's been delightful so far”
“before it required a sign in to create multiple pages, man that feature was so great for anonymous users”
“They invited AI in by creating a comprehensive list of instructions for AI agents”
“Excalidraw/tldraw are nice for stuff that should go into static documents.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.