Distribution vs Excalidraw
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted developer tools & git options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Distribution with
choose an app… lazygit Hoppscotch json-server Strapi NocoDB Penpot dive Windows lazydocker Harbor Distribution Registry UI Quay zot
Compare Excalidraw with
choose an app… lazygit Hoppscotch json-server Strapi AFFiNE NocoDB Penpot dive Windows lazydocker Cryptee Sheets Bruno Streamlit Sentry Self-Hosted Gradio IT-Tools MindsDB Trivy CyberChef Refine just K9s mise Hasura SigNoz Delta Atuin Jujutsu OpenTofu Composio Harbor Swagger UI Reflex Gitleaks MongoDB Hoarder TruffleHog Huly Redoc Difftastic Pulumi asdf semantic-release ChartDB marimo Renovate Opik OpenObserve kubectx Hurl Yaak Wasp Motia Keploy Verdaccio ctop Semgrep NiceGUI Amplication GoReleaser Task Skaffold Scalar AWX pre-commit Gel Semaphore UI Grype Infracost Convex Phabricator Devbox Posting Encore Netboot.xyz Kubeshark Komodo Kubescape Datasette Skopeo SonarQube OSV-Scanner InstantDB Sourcegraph usql Tilt Omni Tools Terragrunt reviewdog Sentry pgweb Swagger Editor Self-Hosted Syft Atlantis Buildah Checkov Atlas Lefthook Mockoon Flux CD kube-bench Evidently Adminer Manifest draw.io HedgeDoc WireMock Telepresence devenv Watchexec Headlamp Lura Popeye Rundeck Lightdash Redmine Weblate Mongo Express SQLPad DevSpace Mathesar CloudBeaver Prism Mock OpenGrok Flipt Stern Transmission (VPN) Judge0 CE LazySQL actionlint Dependency-Track Tolgee Chartbrew Overmind ATAC Garden Okteto Distribution Registry UI Schemathesis Kometa Git Town Svix SQLMesh DDNS Updater Spectral Baserow Lowdefy GitList Gitu Quay Restfox Gitnuro Plausible CE Process Compose WBO Nexus Repository OSS zot SQLPage Hoverfly Azimutt Traduora Fusio GO Feature Flag Saltcorn Microcks ggshield regclient Featbit Step CI Zoekt DreamFactory Review Board Kubevious RedwoodSDK Accent LiveCodes Databunker Email OAuth2 Proxy Skooner Whoami GlitchTip Smocker Koillection Devpi Kottster autokitteh Anvil App Server Bencher cgit RhodeCode tRPC Panel klaus Phorge Fossil Gitiles Para RSS Graphweaver Drawio Desktop Server WebHook Tester Smallweb Cloudflared SeedSync Coder Envbuilder UI Bakery Mind Traefik Certs Dumper Hello World Hammond Mindwendel Planning Poker Barrage Limbas Flightlog RapidForge Excalidraw Whiteboard Office qDirStat Moneroblock Postfix Mail Relay Hook0 MDNS Repeater BrowserStack Automate TurboScale Cluster Control Django Unofficial Example Dont-code Services Imposter Moon OpenSpeedTest RepoFlow
Feature Distribution Excalidraw Category Developer Tools & Git Developer Tools & Git License Apache-2.0 MIT Language Go TypeScript Setup difficulty Easy Easy Min. RAM 128 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, kubernetes, binary docker GitHub stars ★ 10,553 ★ 129,145 First released 2015 2020 Replaces Docker Hub Miro
Why pick each one
Choose Distribution if… Released under the Apache-2.0 license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly First-class Docker support for quick deployment Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available Distribution details Choose Excalidraw if… Released under the MIT license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 129.1k GitHub stars Excalidraw details
Frequently asked questions Is Distribution or Excalidraw better? Neither is universally better. Excalidraw has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Distribution and Excalidraw free and open-source? Yes. Distribution is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Excalidraw under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Distribution and Excalidraw with Docker? Distribution: yes. Excalidraw: yes.