Our take
Pick Excalidraw if engineers and PMs who will stay on the forever-free OSS editor at $0 (excalidraw.com; no account) while they open a first playground, then Plus at $7/user/month monthly ($6/user/month billed annually) when they need comments, cloud scenes, and presentations — not a $20 chat seat. Pick Whimsical if pMs and designers who will stay on Free at $0/editor/month (50 board objects / 50 doc blocks /
Best for
Excalidraw A whiteboard you start at a public $
Whimsical A board you start at a public $
Free plan
Excalidraw $0 · , Free forever (priceMonthly / priceAnnually: “Free forever”). Infinite canvas. Full editor. Invite collaborators by link. PNG / SVG / JSON save-to-file. Personal library stored in the browser. Image uploads: compressed. AI requests: 10 a day. Mermaid to Excalidraw: unlimited. No account on excalidraw.com
Whimsical $0 · / month / editor. “For evaluating Whimsical.” Up to 50 board objects per month. Up to 50 doc blocks per month. Watermark on exports. 7-day version history
Lowest paid
Excalidraw Plus $7/user/mo
Whimsical Pro $10
Next step up
Excalidraw
Whimsical Business $20
Runs where
Excalidraw
Whimsical Hosted
Watch out
Excalidraw Comments, cloud scenes, and presentations print on Plus
Whimsical Free is 50 objects / 50 blocks / watermark / 7-day history
Last checked
Excalidraw 2026-10-23 · plus.excalidraw.com/pricing
Whimsical 2026-10-23 · whimsical.com/pricing
engineers and PMs who will stay on the forever-free OSS editor at $0 (excalidraw.com; no account) while they open a first playground, then Plus at $7/user/month monthly ($6/user/month billed annually) when they need comments, cloud scenes, and presentations — not a $20 chat seat.
Read the Excalidraw pagepMs and designers who will stay on Free at $0/editor/month (50 board objects / 50 doc blocks / watermark / 7-day history) while they open a first Sign up flow, then Pro at $10/editor/month when they need unlimited objects — not Business $20 unless they need SAML / private teams.
Read the Whimsical page
