Hydrawn

Many heads.One drawing.

A free whiteboard that runs in your browser. Share a link and draw together, end-to-end encrypted. No account, nothing to install.

Start drawingSource on GitHub

a real recording, not a mockup

Draw together.
Nobody in between can read it.

When you share a drawing, your browser makes a key and puts it in the link. Everything you draw is locked with that key before it leaves your computer, so the relay that passes it along and the copy kept online only ever hold scrambled bytes.

Two browsers on one drawing, recorded as it happened. Underneath, this is what travels:
Your browserhas the key
The relay
9f 2c 71 e4 0b a8
3d 5e c1 77 02 bb
6a f0 18 9c 4d e2
sees only sealed bytes
Ada's browserAdahas the key
app.hydrawn.eu.org/boards/k7vq2m9xh3tqbw4ne8rj5c6dpa#room=Qm9yZGVyc2VhbF9rZXlfZXhhbXBsZV8zMmJ5dGVz
The key travels in the link
Anyone you send the link to can open the drawing. Nobody else can, the server included.
Locked before it leaves
Each stroke is sealed with AES-256-GCM in your browser. The relay forwards bytes it cannot open.
Still there after you leave
An encrypted copy stays online, so the link keeps working when you close the tab. It is deleted after a year without edits.

Your drawings stay in your browser.

There is no account to make. Open the address and you are on a drawing. Every stroke is saved as you go, in this browser's own storage, so closing the tab loses nothing.

  • Nothing leaves until you press Share. A drawing you keep to yourself makes no request to any server.
  • My drawings, in the menu, lists everything this browser holds, with a picture of each.
  • Save to disk writes a file you can keep, move to another computer and open again.
My drawingsNew drawing
  • Drawing — 20 Octedited just now
  • Sprint retroedited yesterday
  • Sign-up flowedited 3 days ago
all of this lives on your computer

Everything you reach for on a whiteboard.

The drawing engine is written in Rust and runs in your browser as WebAssembly, so a busy board stays quick. These are real recordings of the app.

  • Arrows that stay attached

    Draw an arrow from one shape to another and it holds on. Move either shape and the arrow follows.

  • Sticky notes

    Drop a note, type on it, and it grows to fit what you wrote.

  • Mermaid to diagram

    Paste a Mermaid flowchart and it lands on the board as shapes and arrows you can edit.

  • Trace a picture

    Right-click an image and turn it into editable shapes.

  • Present with a laser

    Walk through the board frame by frame, pointing as you go.

  • Start from a template

    A retro, a mind map, a pitch, an architecture sketch or a checkout flow.

Export
PNG files, or a picture straight to the clipboard.
Command palette
Every action, searchable, with its shortcut beside it.
Frames and groups
Keep parts of a big board together and move them as one.

Questions people ask

Is it really free?

Yes. There is no account, no paid plan and no advertising. It runs on free hosting, and the drawing itself happens on your computer.

Where are my drawings kept?

In this browser's own storage, on this computer. Clearing the site's data from the browser deletes them, so use Save to disk for anything you want to keep for good.

Can the people who run Hydrawn see what I draw?

No. A drawing you never share never leaves your browser. A shared one is encrypted in your browser with a key that only exists in the link, so the relay and the stored copy hold nothing they can read.

Can I take back a link I sent?

Not yet. Anyone with the link can open and edit the drawing until its online copy expires, a year after the last edit. Deleting the drawing from My drawings removes only your own copy.

Can I run it on my own computer?

Yes. The source is on GitHub, and one command starts the whole thing in Docker, with its own database and its own relay, for a team that wants to keep everything in-house.

What is it made with?

It is a JavaScript app: TypeScript and Svelte in the browser, with a drawing engine written in Rust and compiled to WebAssembly, so the drawing itself runs on your computer.

Grab a pen.

Start drawing

it opens straight onto a blank drawing