Excalidraw - Virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams

[Sam_uk]

Anecdotal but I just tried to collaborate on a self-hosted version and it didn't work

[timconsidine]

@marcusquinn said in Excalidraw - Virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams:

We now have tldraw,

Given that tldraw wants their ball back, it wold be worth looking at Excalidraw.

The lack of collaboration of features within self-host (unless they have changed that) is a shame but not a blocker to having this on Cloudron (imho).

[robi]

@timconsidine Cryptpad has a collab whiteboard built in btw

[timconsidine]

Yes, but it (meaning the whiteboard library) is from Russia - can't touch it.
Also bit simplistic, or that's their examples.
Excalidraw is best I have seen so far.

[robi]

@timconsidine Ah, perhaps you can let them know of the better option?

Looking at their docs https://docs.excalidraw.com/docs/@excalidraw/excalidraw/installation#dimensions-of-excalidraw
It's just an npm install, so should be easy to package for Cloudron and if need be swap out an integration that also uses an npm install by changing the target name in the code, like Cryptpad if they're not interested in a switch.

[chetbaker]

Just pointing out I would also be interested in seeing developments on Cloudron side to hopefully self-host this in case it's possible.

[samuk]

I'd use this

[josephcosta]

The library is also usable in nextcloud:
https://github.com/nextcloud/whiteboard/blob/main/README.md

I use it (not in cloudron) with a simple docker-compose:

services:
  whiteboard:
    image: ghcr.io/nextcloud-releases/whiteboard
    restart: always
#    ports:
#      - 3002:3002
    environment:
      - NEXTCLOUD_URL=https://your.nextcloud.url
      - JWT_SECRET_KEY=KEYsome-strong-one

[Grienauer]

I used the SAAS Version. And it is quite good and a nice tool!
lg Nico

[timconsidine]

I have packaged Excalidraw for Cloudron as a custom app.

My git : https://git.cloudron.io/timconsidine/cloudron-excalidraw
Built cloudron docker image : tcmbp132021/cloudron-excalidraw:v2

Available for convenience on CCAI (custom app installer) https://ccai.appx.uk

The GitHub release is v0.18.0 (2025-03-11) but this version number does not reflect the wide and stable deployment of Exclaidraw, so I feel it can be considered for official adoption, even though it has not reached the normal criterion of a v1.0 release.

I have been running Excalidraw on a plain VPS via docker-compose.yml, but can now remove it from there and deploy on my primary preferred production server (Cloudron).