Free Whiteboard Apps (2026): 9 Free Plans and Their Limits

The usual mistake with a free whiteboard is choosing it for the templates and the sticky notes, then finding out a few weeks in that an older board has frozen. Every app here has a free tier as of Nov 2026, and every free tier draws a line somewhere. The useful question isn't which board looks nicest. It's where the line sits, and whether your work will cross it.

I've grouped nine apps by what their free plan limits, using each vendor's own plan page. They're listed in no particular order, with no crowned pick, because a solo sketcher and a team running weekly client workshops hit completely different walls. Where a feature is the vendor's own description, I've said so. If you'd rather compare whiteboards on features alone, there's a wider comparison of online whiteboard tools for teams.

Why the third board is where many free plans stop

Here's the pattern that surprises people. Free whiteboard plans rarely put a timer on you, and they rarely limit who can join. What they ration is editable space. Two of the biggest names keep just three boards editable at once, and another allows three active boards with a hundred objects on each. Run a workshop a week and you'll be working on view-only boards by the end of the month.

That's fine if a board is a one-off. It's a problem if your boards are living documents you return to, such as a product roadmap, a content plan or a client retrospective. Archive or export the old board before you start the fourth, otherwise you'll be choosing which project to freeze.

The other limits are quieter. One app counts objects per month rather than boards, and watermarks free exports. The open source options have no board limit at all, but they keep your work in the browser, so there's no shared team library unless you build one yourself.

Free plans that ration editable boards

Miro keeps only three boards editable at a time, the three most recent, and older ones go view-only, as of Nov 2026. Private board sharing isn't on the free tier, and letting visitors edit a public board without signing in starts on a higher plan.

Mural lets you create unlimited murals, but only three can be edited at once, and visitors get view-only rights on free. That makes it workable for a facilitator who archives each session, and awkward for anyone who keeps a dozen workshops open.

Conceptboard allows three active boards in parallel on its free plan, each limited to a hundred objects, with 250 MB of storage and a 10 MB limit per upload. A hundred objects disappears quickly on a busy brainstorm, so keep boards tidy and split big sessions.

Free plans that limit what goes on a board, or out of it

Whimsical is the odd one. Its FAQ says the free plan allows unlimited boards, while its free plan card caps editors at 50 board objects a month, puts a watermark on exports and keeps version history for 7 days. Both statements sit on the vendor's page as of Nov 2026, so treat the object limit as the one that shapes your work.

AFFiNE gives you unlimited local workspaces under its MIT-licensed editor, plus a free cloud tier limited to 10 GB of storage and 10 MB per file. Local-first means your canvas lives on your own device unless you choose the cloud.

Limnu's plan page lists its free plan as 14 day access to whiteboards, alongside a 30 minute limit on video conference time and limited admin and security controls. That wording is unusual, so check what happens to a board after a fortnight before you put client work on it.

Stormboard calls its Personal plan completely free, per the vendor. The plans table lists 5 members per Storm on the Personal plan, so it works for a small group rather than a whole department.

Open source and browser boards with no board limit

Excalidraw is free and open source under the MIT licence, per its readme, which also describes the hosted app as a minimal showcase of the editor. Work autosaves to your browser, so there's no team board library, and the team version is sold as a separate product.

tldraw is free to use in the browser. The only limit worth knowing is for developers: building its SDK into your own product for production use needs a licence key, according to its GitHub readme. For whiteboarding during video calls, you may not need a separate app at all: here's how to use the whiteboard built into Zoom.

All nine side by side

The table and the entries below run alphabetically. That's for easy scanning, not a judgement.

Tool	Kind of board	Good for
AFFiNE	Docs plus canvas, local-first	Notes and an infinite canvas in one workspace
Conceptboard	Whiteboard, object and board caps	Team boards from a vendor with German data centres
Excalidraw	Open source sketch board, no accounts	Quick hand-drawn diagrams and wireframes
Limnu	Simple whiteboard, time-limited access	Sketching and brainstorming with clients
Miro	Team whiteboard, board-count cap	Templates and AI features on shared boards
Mural	Workshop whiteboard, editable-board cap	Running workshops and group problem solving
Stormboard	Sticky-note brainstorming, member cap	Sticky-note brainstorms and planning sessions
tldraw	Browser whiteboard, licence note for developers	Instant boards in the browser, no setup
Whimsical	Diagrams and whiteboards, monthly object cap	Flowcharts, mind maps and wireframes together

Each app in a line

AFFiNE

Best for: Writing docs and sketching on an infinite Edgeless canvas side by side, with an MIT-licensed, local-first editor and a self-hosting option, per the vendor.

Conceptboard

Best for: Teams that want a collaboration whiteboard from a vendor that says its data centres are in Germany.

Excalidraw

Best for: Hand-drawn style sketches, diagrams and wireframes, with end-to-end encrypted real-time collaboration and offline support, according to the project's own description.

Limnu

Best for: Brainstorming and sketching with a team or with clients, on boards the vendor says you can share with anyone, whatever account they hold.

Miro

Best for: Teams collaborating on boards built from templates, with AI features the vendor says you can try on the free plan.

Mural

Best for: Facilitators running workshops and team problem-solving sessions, on a free plan the vendor says covers unlimited members and all its visual collaboration tools.

Stormboard

Best for: Groups planning or brainstorming with sticky notes on a shared board, on a Personal plan the vendor says needs no credit card to start.

tldraw

Best for: Opening a collaborative board straight away in the browser, which its own page title describes as free and instant.

Whimsical

Best for: Flowcharts, mind maps, wireframes and docs in one workspace, with a free plan the vendor says allows unlimited boards, members and guests.

My advice for workshops on a free board

Decide whether your boards are disposable or permanent before you sign up. If each session is a one-off, a board-capped plan works well: run it, export it, archive it. If boards are living documents your team returns to every week, you'll outgrow a three-board limit fast, and you're better off with an object-capped or open source tool where old work stays editable. Either way, export anything a client has signed off, because a free tier can change and your record shouldn't depend on it.

Habits that keep a free whiteboard usable

• Name boards by project and date, so you know which one to archive first.
• Export a finished board before you open the next one.
• Keep one board as a reusable template rather than rebuilding it each time.
• Check visitor rights before a client session, because some free tiers give guests view-only access.
• If your work lives in the browser, back it up somewhere else on a regular schedule.

Do you make whiteboard or visual collaboration software? Tool makers can ask to be considered for a featured place on this list.

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Frequently asked questions

Is there a whiteboard app that's free with no limits?

Not as a hosted app with unlimited everything. The open source options have no board limit, but they keep work in your browser or on your own setup, so you trade a cap for the job of looking after your own files. Hosted free plans all limit something, whether that's editable boards, objects or exports, as of Nov 2026.

What happens when I hit an editable board limit?

On the plans that ration boards, older boards become view-only rather than being deleted. You can still see them, but you'll need to archive one or upgrade to edit it again. Each vendor words the rule differently, so check its own plan page.

Can clients join my free board without an account?

Often they can look but not edit. Several free tiers give visitors view-only rights, and editing by visitors without signing in tends to sit on higher plans. Test it with a colleague before a client session.

Are open source whiteboards harder to use?

Not to draw on. The browser versions open straight away and need no account. The extra work comes if you want a shared team library or your own hosted copy, because that's something you'll set up and maintain yourself.

Can I run client workshops on a free whiteboard?

Yes, for occasional sessions. The limits bite when you run them weekly and want every board to stay editable. Export each finished board and you'll get far more out of a free tier.

Should I worry about watermarks on exports?

Only if the export goes in front of a client or into a report. One app here watermarks free exports. If you only share boards with your own team, it rarely matters.