AFFiNE vs tldraw
Both are alternatives to Miro. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as tldraw vs AFFiNE — same comparison, one verdict.
AFFiNE
Docs and canvas in one — write a page, flip it to a whiteboard.
AFFiNE merges the document and the canvas: the same content can be read as a written page or arranged as a whiteboard, switching between the two. That removes a real annoyance — the diagram in Miro and the decision record in Confluence drifting apart until nobody knows which is current. MPL-2.0, self-hostable, local-first, around 50k stars. It is ambitious and still maturing, and the honest caveat is that doing two things well is harder than doing one, which shows in places.
tldraw
The canvas as an SDK — embed it in your own product.
tldraw is an infinite canvas that is also a library: the drawing experience is excellent, and the SDK is designed to be embedded so your own application can have a canvas without building one. That dual nature is what distinguishes it — for most people it is a very good free whiteboard, and for a product team it is a component. Licensing is the thing to check: tldraw uses its own licence rather than a standard OSI one, free for many uses with terms for commercial embedding, so read it against your intended use rather than assuming.
Side by side
| AFFiNE | tldraw | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 91 | 74 |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first | Yes | Yes |
| License | MPL-2.0 | tldraw licence (custom — free for many uses; read the terms before commercial embedding) |
| Pricing | Free and open source to self-host. AFFiNE Cloud is a paid hosted option. | Free to use. Commercial embedding has its own licence terms. |
AFFiNE edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
AFFiNE
Strengths
- +Document and whiteboard modes over the same content
- +Local-first — works offline and syncs after
- +MPL-2.0, self-hostable, with no enterprise carve-out
- +Removes the drift between a diagram and its written decision
Trade-offs
- −Still maturing; rough edges in both modes
- −Neither mode is quite best-in-class alone
- −Smaller community than the focused tools
- −Self-hosting is more involved than Excalidraw's
tldraw
Strengths
- +Best drawing feel of anything in this comparison
- +SDK designed for embedding a canvas in your own product
- +Very actively developed with a strong design sensibility
- +Self-hostable
Trade-offs
- −Custom licence, not OSI open source — read it before commercial use
- −Fewer collaboration features than Miro
- −No workshop facilitation tooling
- −Smaller template ecosystem
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-08-04. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.