Product
Kromdraw vs Excalidraw+
Kromdraw is built on Excalidraw's open-source engine — the same hand-drawn canvas, the same file format. What it adds on top is for working something out with other people. Here is where that helps, and where it doesn't.
Choose Kromdraw if
The board is something you are working out with other people, not a sketch you make alone. Everything Kromdraw adds is for that: notes that carry a name, a stamp instead of a sentence, comment threads a guest can join from a link. The boards are held in the EU too, not just the company.
Choose Excalidraw+ if
You need SOC 2 or their AI features, which Kromdraw has none of, or you need presentations and live presenting now rather than when they reach Kromdraw. Or you would rather your money went to the people who write the engine.
Start with the part nobody should have to ask about
Excalidraw is an open-source project under the MIT licence, and Kromdraw is built on it. The canvas, the hand-drawn look, the shape tools, the arrow binding and the file format are all theirs, and none of that is a coincidence or a resemblance.
What Kromdraw is, though, is that editor changed rather than that editor wrapped. Four tools sit in its toolbar that Excalidraw does not have — sticky notes, stamps, checklists and the connection hover. Making the notes behave took changing six things in the editor's own drawing code, which is why a sticky note here gets longer as you write on it instead of shrinking your words to fit a fixed square. Its own name is replaced with Kromdraw's throughout the interface. Then around all of that is the part Excalidraw does not do at all — accounts, folders, sharing, live links for people without one, comment threads, and a server keeping it in sync.
The colophon names everything Kromdraw is built out of. Excalidraw+ is the hosted product from the same people who write that engine, sold by Excalidraw s.r.o. in Brno. They are an EU company too, so the jurisdiction argument that carries the Miro and FigJam comparisons does not apply here.
| Kromdraw | Excalidraw+ | |
|---|---|---|
| Who makes the canvas | The Excalidraw project | The Excalidraw project |
| Guests who look, draw or comment | Free and with no account. Looking and commenting always; drawing when you set the link to edit | Guests free on both tiers, but view-only links and comments need Plus |
| Sticky notes signed by their author | Yes | Not a distinct feature |
| Checklists on the canvas | Yes, and made of ordinary elements, so an export comes out drawn as you left it anywhere | No |
| Stamps | 609, deployed with the app rather than fetched from Google | No |
| Point at a shape to see what it connects to | Yes | No |
| Presentations and live presenting | Not yet — on the roadmap | Yes, on Plus |
| Voice hangout and screensharing | No | Yes, on Plus |
| Company jurisdiction | Netherlands | Czech Republic — both in the EU |
| Where the boards are held | EU, and every subprocessor is European | No EU hosting or residency option published; its DPA acknowledges subprocessors outside the EEA, including the US |
| SOC 2 | No | Type 1 and Type 2, with yearly penetration testing |
| Price | €9 a month per member, or €90 a year | $6 a month per user billed annually |
What Excalidraw+ is better at
It is made by the people who write the engine, so a fix they want goes straight into the canvas. A fix Kromdraw wants waits for them, or gets worked around here — which means the same bug can take longer to disappear from Kromdraw than from Excalidraw+.
It also has features Kromdraw has not built: presentations and live presenting, voice hangout with screensharing, AI, and PDF and PPTX export. Presentations are on Kromdraw's roadmap; if you need them now, or any of the other features in this list, the comparison is over and the answer is Excalidraw+.
If somebody at your company has to approve the tool, Excalidraw+ is further along than Kromdraw is. Its data processing agreement is a web page, versioned, with annexes listing its subprocessors, its technical measures and its standard contractual clauses — so a legal review can start today without anyone emailing sales for a copy. It states it is SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 compliant, with a yearly penetration test.
Kromdraw has no certification and no penetration test, and its DPA page says it is the material an agreement gets built from rather than an agreement. If that approval is a step you have to clear, Excalidraw+ clears it and Kromdraw does not.
What Kromdraw adds
Three things.
Sticky notes that carry the name of whoever wrote them, in ten colours, so a board covered in half-finished thoughts still says who to ask about each one. Copy somebody else's note and it is signed with your name rather than theirs, so the board's attribution is worth trusting.
609 animated stamps, deployed with the application rather than fetched from Google when you place one, so nobody outside the machines on the subprocessor page learns which one you picked.
A hover that lights up what a shape connects to, and dims everything it does not. On a diagram with forty boxes on it, that is the difference between reading the diagram and tracing it with a finger.
Plus comment threads pinned to the canvas that a guest can join from a link with no account — which is the row above where the two differ, since comments on Excalidraw+ need Plus. The standalone canvas has the drawing tools in it, on a board you can draw on without signing up.
Price
Excalidraw+ is $6 a month per user billed annually, with a 14-day free trial, as of 30 August 2026. The free Excalidraw everybody knows stays free: full editor, one scene, unlimited collaborators, export to PNG, SVG and file.
Kromdraw is €9 a month per member, or €90 a year, after a 14-day trial that does not ask for a card. The pricing page has the commitments that come with the number.
Can I bring my drawings across?
Yes, and this is the one comparison on this page where sharing an engine is entirely to your
advantage. Kromdraw reads .excalidraw files, because it is the same format —
scenes made in Excalidraw or Excalidraw+ open here, and
what Kromdraw exports opens in either of them.
There is no lock-in in either direction.
What Kromdraw doesn't have
Presentations and live presenting are on the roadmap, but they are not in the product yet. There is no voice or screensharing, no PDF or PPTX export, and no AI at all. No mobile app, no SSO, no ISO 27001 certification and no third-party penetration test. It is one person.
Questions people ask
Why would I pay for Kromdraw instead of Excalidraw+? +
If the sticky notes, the stamps, the connection hover or guests who comment without an account are what you want, or if you need the boards held in the EU. Note that Excalidraw+ is itself an EU company — Excalidraw s.r.o., in Brno — so jurisdiction is not the difference here; where the data goes is. If none of that moves you, Excalidraw+ is made by the people who write the engine and your money supports the project this is built on.
Can I open my existing .excalidraw files? +
Yes. It is the same file format, so scenes move both ways without conversion and without anything being lost in between.
Is the free Excalidraw good enough? +
For a sketch you will not need tomorrow, yes. What free does not give you is the board still being there next week, in a folder, with the people you shared it with able to comment on it. That is the line where a sketchpad stops being enough, and it is the only line worth paying at.
Does Kromdraw contribute to Excalidraw? +
Not yet. Kromdraw changes the editor locally for what its own tools need, and none of those changes has been offered back. If that matters to you when choosing where your money goes, it is a fair reason to choose Excalidraw+.
Try it before you decide.
The standalone canvas lets you draw without an account and without giving anybody an email address.
Last verified: 30 August 2026. Everything stated here about Excalidraw+ comes from Excalidraw+'s own pricing, team, security, privacy and DPA pages, and is quoted rather than characterised wherever the wording matters. If any of it has gone out of date, tell me and I will correct it.