Excalidraw vs ML Visuals
Which should you use? A side-by-side look at what each one does, who it suits, what it costs, how hard it is to set up, and where each falls short.
Open source · MIT
Open-source virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn style diagrams in your browser.
Open source · MIT
A shared collection of reusable science figures and slide templates for machine learning writing.
The short answer
Choose Excalidraw if you need…
- Teams sketching diagrams or wireframes together in a shared canvas
- People who want a casual, informal look for explanatory drawings
- Developers who want to embed a whiteboard editor in their own React app
- Users who care about end-to-end encryption for shared drawings
Choose ML Visuals if you need…
- Machine learning students preparing presentations or thesis figures
- Researchers who want clean, reusable diagrams for papers
- Blog writers explaining ML concepts with visuals
- Educators building teaching slides on neural network topics
Side-by-side
| Excalidraw | ML Visuals | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | App | Other |
| Price | Free and open source | Free and open source |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 135k | 17.4k |
| Setup difficulty | Beginner | Beginner |
| How you get it | Use it in the browser (or self-host) | Read it online |
| Main language | TypeScript | — |
| Last code update | 4 days ago | 4 years ago |
What each one is
Excalidraw
Excalidraw is an open-source whiteboard where you draw diagrams, wireframes and sketches in a deliberately hand-drawn style. The hosted app at excalidraw.com adds real-time collaboration, end-to-end encryption and autosave to the browser. The same editor is also published as an npm package that developers can embed in their own apps.
ML Visuals
ML Visuals is a community-made set of over 100 figures and templates, kept as Google Slides, that people can copy, edit, and reuse in machine learning presentations, blog posts, and papers. Its goal is to make technical diagrams clearer and more professional. Contributors add figures, and anyone can download them in common formats.
Best for
Excalidraw
- Teams sketching diagrams or wireframes together in a shared canvas
- People who want a casual, informal look for explanatory drawings
- Developers who want to embed a whiteboard editor in their own React app
- Users who care about end-to-end encryption for shared drawings
- Anyone who wants drawings saved in an open .excalidraw JSON format
ML Visuals
- Machine learning students preparing presentations or thesis figures
- Researchers who want clean, reusable diagrams for papers
- Blog writers explaining ML concepts with visuals
- Educators building teaching slides on neural network topics
Strengths
Excalidraw
- Free and open source under the MIT license
- Simple, approachable drawing tools with a distinctive hand-drawn look
- Open .excalidraw JSON format and export to PNG, SVG and clipboard
ML Visuals
- Free to use, with no permission needed according to the README; credit to the author is requested
- Figures are editable in Google Slides, so they can be customized
- Community-contributed, with a list of planned topics such as transformers, LSTMs, and ResNet
Not ideal for
Excalidraw
- Users who need precise, pixel-perfect vector design; the hand-drawn style is the default look and the README does not describe precision tools
- People wanting to self-host the collaboration service; the README only links to the hosted app for real-time collaboration and does not describe a self-hosting setup
- Non-developers who only want the hosted app and have no need for the code; the npm and development sections are aimed at developers
ML Visuals
- Anyone needing software or code, since the project is a set of slides rather than a program
- People who need figures for non-ML topics, because the collection is focused on machine learning
- Users who need a stable, versioned asset library, since the README mentions only Version 1.0 and the last push was in February 2023
Trade-offs
Excalidraw
- Collaboration and encryption are features of the hosted app; the README does not detail how to run them yourself
- Development setup is covered only by a linked guide, so the README alone gives limited build detail
- No downloadable binaries in the latest release; use the web app or the npm package
ML Visuals
- Relies on Google Slides, so editing requires Google access and requesting edit permission
- The README says updates are coming but the last push date is February 2023, so the collection may not be current
- Contributor attribution depends on notes in each slide, which is easy to miss
Getting started
ML Visuals
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/dair-ai/ml-visualsFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between Excalidraw and ML Visuals?
Excalidraw: Open-source virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn style diagrams in your browser. ML Visuals: A shared collection of reusable science figures and slide templates for machine learning writing. Excalidraw suits teams sketching diagrams or wireframes together in a shared canvas, while ML Visuals suits machine learning students preparing presentations or thesis figures.
Are Excalidraw and ML Visuals free?
Excalidraw: Free and open source. ML Visuals: Free and open source.
Is Excalidraw or ML Visuals more popular?
Excalidraw has more GitHub stars (135k) than ML Visuals (17.4k). Popularity isn't the same as fit — check which one matches your use case above.
What are other alternatives to Excalidraw and ML Visuals?
Other options people compare them with include Drawnix, Mermaid.
Keep comparing
Built from our catalogue entries for both products: open-source details come from each project's README (AI-assisted, refreshed weekly) and GitHub data; AI-tool details are editorial. Spotted something wrong? Let us know from either product's page.