I'm trying to build a whiteboard for my GP , so should I use tldraw , excalidraw or building a new one from scratch ? which is better ?
Posted by New-Mud856@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 3 comments
I'm trying to build a whiteboard for my GP , so should I use tldraw , excalidraw or building a new one from scratch ? which is better ?
What i need is => adding new component , have the ability for control the look especially with arrows , also easy to get the x and y data
No-Guarantee-2242@reddit
I've used both for this kind of thing. For what you listed (custom components, arrow control, easy x/y), tldraw is going to save you the most time.
tldraw has a proper custom shape API, and the editor gives you editor.getShape(id) and editor.getShapePageBounds() so x/y/width/height come straight back, no poking into internal scene state. Its arrow tool also exposes bend, terminal style and shape-binding as real props you can read and set, not just visual flags.
Excalidraw is more closed off. You can do custom elements but you'll end up reaching into Scene state more than you want, and arrow styling mostly stops at the arrowhead.
From-scratch only makes sense if you need something neither can do (custom collision, multi-user CRDT). Otherwise it's months of work to land where tldraw already starts.
AdventurousLime309@reddit
If your goal is shipping fast and customizing behavior, I’d strongly lean toward tldraw over building from scratch. Building a whiteboard engine yourself sounds simple until you hit zooming, selection logic, transforms, hit detection, arrow routing, undo/redo, multiplayer sync, performance, etc. That rabbit hole gets deep very fast.
Between the two, tldraw is usually better if you want heavy customization and programmatic control. Excalidraw is amazing for sketch-style simplicity, but tldraw feels more like a framework/platform for building custom whiteboard products. Since you specifically mentioned custom components, arrow control, and easy access to x/y coordinates, tldraw probably maps more naturally to what you want.
Itchy_Selection4314@reddit
tldraw is probably your best bet here, the api is pretty solid for getting coordinates and you can customize arrows way easier than excalidraw 🎯 building from scratch gonna take forever unless you really need something super specific that neither can handle