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Excalidraw vs Soketi

Excalidraw logo

Excalidraw

Technology

Virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Soketi logo

Soketi

Developer Tools

Self-hosted, Pusher-compatible WebSockets server with a stalled maintenance record

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Excalidraw advanced features (unlimited private scenes/folders, cloud storage, access management, presentations, extended AI, team management) are gated behind Excalidraw+; Soketi maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • They diverge on capability: Excalidraw covers Hand-drawn style diagrams, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Excalidraw and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Excalidraw and Soketi differ
AttributeExcalidrawSoketi
Pricing modelUnknownOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWebLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryTechnologyDeveloper Tools
Founded2020Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Excalidraw

  • Hand-drawn style diagrams
  • Real-time collaboration
  • Infinite canvas
  • Shape libraries
  • Text support
  • Image import
  • Export options
  • Keyboard shortcuts

Only in Soketi

  • Pusher protocol compatibility
  • Presence and private channels
  • Horizontal scaling
  • App management backends
  • Webhooks
  • Prometheus metrics

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Excalidraw

  • Wireframing and diagrammingnot Soketi
  • Real-time collaborative whiteboardingnot Soketi
  • Hand-drawn-style illustrations for docs and decksnot Soketi
  • Embedding a whiteboard into third-party apps via the npm packagenot Soketi
  • Visual planning and note-takingnot Soketi

Soketi

  • A Laravel application that already uses Echo and wants to stop paying a hosted realtime providernot Excalidraw
  • Realtime notifications or presence indicators where data must not leave your own infrastructure for compliance reasonsnot Excalidraw
  • A local or CI environment that needs a Pusher-compatible server without hitting a paid accountnot Excalidraw
  • A high-connection-count application where hosted per-connection pricing has become the largest line in the infrastructure billnot Excalidraw

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Excalidraw

  • Advanced features (unlimited private scenes/folders, cloud storage, access management, presentations, extended AI, team management) are gated behind Excalidraw+
  • Free hosted version persists via scene links/local storage rather than a managed multi-scene workspace
  • Self-hosting the full collaborative stack requires standing up a websocket server and storage beyond the npm editor package
  • No official native desktop or app-store mobile apps - web/PWA only

Soketi

  • Maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • Dependency drift on Node and uWebSockets.js will eventually force you to fork or migrate, and that cost is unbudgeted at the point you adopt it.
  • There is no commercial support to buy, so a production incident at three in the morning is entirely your problem with no escalation path.
  • Scaling beyond a single node needs Redis and careful configuration, and getting presence channels correct across nodes is a genuine source of subtle bugs.
  • It implements the Pusher protocol rather than tracking it, so any protocol feature Pusher adds later will not appear, and the compatibility guarantee slowly decays.

Pricing, plan by plan

Excalidraw

Free
  • Excalidraw+$6/month
    • Unlimited private scenes and folders
    • Cloud storage
    • Access management

Soketi

Free
  • SoketiFree
    • MIT licensed
    • Unlimited connections subject to your own hardware
    • No vendor billing

Which should you pick?

Choose Excalidraw if

  • You need hand-drawn style diagrams.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want real-time collaboration.
Excalidraw review

Choose Soketi if

  • You need pusher protocol compatibility.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want presence and private channels.
Soketi review

Questions people ask

Is Excalidraw or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Excalidraw starts at Free and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Excalidraw or Soketi?
Excalidraw starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does Excalidraw or Soketi run on more platforms?
Excalidraw runs on Web. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Excalidraw for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Excalidraw best used for?
Excalidraw is most often used for wireframing and diagramming, real-time collaborative whiteboarding, hand-drawn-style illustrations for docs and decks, embedding a whiteboard into third-party apps via the npm package. Of those, wireframing and diagramming and real-time collaborative whiteboarding are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Excalidraw do that Soketi cannot?
Excalidraw covers Hand-drawn style diagrams, Real-time collaboration, Infinite canvas, Shape libraries. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Excalidraw: Is Excalidraw free?

Excalidraw appears to be a free drawing application available at no cost to users. The website does not display information about pricing tiers or premium features, suggesting it is offered as a free service.

Source
Soketi: Is Soketi still maintained?

Barely. The maintainer has stated that available time is very limited and releases have been sparse; treat it as community-maintained.

Excalidraw: Does Excalidraw offer paid plans?

No pricing tiers or paid upgrade options are mentioned on the Excalidraw website, which indicates the service is available entirely free without commercial pricing models.

Source
Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

No. Pusher client SDKs and Laravel Echo work by changing the host, port and credentials.

Soketi: What does it cost?

Nothing in licence fees. It is MIT licensed; you pay for the server it runs on.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

Laravel Reverb for Laravel applications, and Sockudo, a Rust reimplementation, for others.

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