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maciekzygmunt/excaliself

A self-hosted Excalidraw whiteboard app with accounts, team space, folders, search and live collaboration, storing drawings in your own Postgres.

Open-source alternative to:MiroLucidchart

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4
Last commit
10 hours ago

What is it?

Excaliself wraps the Excalidraw canvas in a multi-user web app that runs on your own server. Each member gets a private space alongside a shared Team space, and drawings can be organized into nested folders, starred, searched by title or by text inside the drawing, and moved to a trash with a 30-day retention period. Shared drawings can be edited together in real time with live cursors and a follow mode, and the team can maintain a shared library of shapes and icons.

Access is invite-only: the first visitor creates the admin account, and sign-in can be handled by Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra ID, or any OIDC provider, with automatic joining for people on approved email domains. Admins can manage members and roles, issue password-reset links, and view instance stats. The app ships as a Docker Compose stack with Postgres, and also deploys on Coolify.

An MCP server lets AI clients such as Claude.ai, Claude Code and Claude Desktop find, read, create and trash drawings, using OAuth or a personal access token. The instance itself needs no LLM API key.

Key features

  • 01Full Excalidraw editor with auto-save and pasted images stored with the drawing
  • 02Real-time collaboration with live cursors and follow mode, shareable by link
  • 03Team space and team library shared across all members
  • 04Nested folders, stars, recents, and drag-and-drop import of .excalidraw files
  • 05Search by title and drawing text, plus a command palette (Ctrl K)
  • 06Single sign-on with Google, Microsoft Entra ID, or OIDC providers

Use cases

  • A small team wanting a self-hosted shared whiteboard for brainstorming and diagrams
  • Organizations that need drawings kept on their own infrastructure with SSO sign-in
  • Developers who want Claude or other MCP clients to create and organize drawings

Quick start

  1. 1

    Start a throwaway preview instance with Docker

    docker run --rm -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 -e PREVIEW_MODE=true ghcr.io/maciekzygmunt/excaliself
  2. 2

    Open the preview login page in your browser to sign in as admin

Things to know

  • Preview mode keeps all data in memory and loses it when the container stops.
  • Real use needs a Postgres database and a deployment setup, such as Docker Compose or Coolify.
  • Connecting Claude Desktop requires Node, because it uses the mcp-remote package.
  • Building the image from source needs about 4 GB of RAM.

In collections

MCP serversSelf-hosted apps

Topics

#whiteboard#excalidraw#self-hosted#collaboration#postgres#docker#mcp#selfhosted

FAQ

What is excaliself?
A self-hosted Excalidraw whiteboard app with accounts, team space, folders, search and live collaboration, storing drawings in your own Postgres. Excaliself wraps the Excalidraw canvas in a multi-user web app that runs on your own server. Each member gets a private space alongside a shared Team space, and drawings can be organized into nested folders, starred, searched by title or by text inside the drawing, and moved to a trash with a 30-day retention period. Shared drawings can be edited together in real time with live cursors and a follow mode, and the team can maintain a shared library of shapes and icons.
Is excaliself free to use? What license does it have?
excaliself is open source under the MIT license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is excaliself still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to excaliself was on Nov 7, 2026.
What can I use excaliself for?
A small team wanting a self-hosted shared whiteboard for brainstorming and diagrams Organizations that need drawings kept on their own infrastructure with SSO sign-in Developers who want Claude or other MCP clients to create and organize drawings
How do I install excaliself?
Start a throwaway preview instance with Docker: docker run --rm -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 -e PREVIEW_MODE=true ghcr.io/maciekzygmunt/excaliself Open the preview login page in your browser to sign in as admin
Where can I get excaliself?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/maciekzygmunt/excaliself

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