Excalidraw vs Drawio Desktop Server
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 Excalidraw with
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Compare Drawio Desktop Server with
choose an app… lazygit Hoppscotch json-server Strapi AFFiNE NocoDB Penpot dive Windows lazydocker Cryptee Sheets drawDB draw.io WBO Mindwendel Excalidraw Whiteboard Office
Feature Excalidraw Drawio Desktop Server Category Developer Tools & Git Developer Tools & Git License MIT MIT Language TypeScript TypeScript Setup difficulty Easy Easy Min. RAM 256 MB 256 MB Deployment docker docker, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 129,145 ★ 528 First released 2020 2020 Replaces Miro Miro, Lucidchart
Why pick each one
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 Excalidraw or Drawio Desktop Server 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 Excalidraw and Drawio Desktop Server free and open-source? Yes. Excalidraw is licensed under MIT and Drawio Desktop Server under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Excalidraw and Drawio Desktop Server with Docker? Excalidraw: yes. Drawio Desktop Server: yes.