Next-gen digital whiteboards buyer’s guide: 7 shared canvas apps for visual collaboration

Digital collaboration platforms have seen an explosion of interest over the past year, as all-remote teams look to provide better ways for employees to brainstorm, develop products, manage projects, and more. Once used mainly by software development teams, these platforms have expanded horizontally to include users from across the enterprise looking for visual collaboration tools that go beyond the basic whiteboard function found in online meeting platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Webex.

As teams begin to explore return-from-remote strategies for the post-Covid era, companies may want to look at these tools to provide visual collaboration for their employees. Not everyone will return to the office, and many organizations are looking to deploy a hybrid work strategy where some employees work in an office some days of the week, others come in on other days, and whoever’s not in the office works remotely.

In this scenario, you can’t return to meetings where people brainstorm with sticky notes or draw ideas on a physical whiteboard. All of these processes need to exist in a continuous digital form.

“A topic of conversation that comes up every day now in a hybrid environment is, ‘How do we provide collaboration equity, so that those who are remote have the same access to the same information and influences?’” said Mike Fasciani, senior research director for digital workplace applications at Gartner. “The physical whiteboard is less relevant in that kind of setup.”

Practices established during the pandemic, such as exploring visual collaboration tools, will likely remain in a hybrid world, Fasciani said. “The hybrid work environment just presents new challenges around how to integrate the virtual world with our physical conferences. It’s an ongoing challenge that hasn’t quite been solved yet.”

When investigating these apps, the first big thing companies should note is the difference between a collaboration canvas and a tool or app that simply emulates the features of a physical whiteboard, whether it’s a standalone whiteboard app or the whiteboarding feature inside a meeting app like Zoom. A big difference is that collaboration canvases provide persistent workspaces that people can access and add documents, images, videos, designs, diagrams, and other types of content to over time. Many also offer templates, scheduling and task assignment, enterprise-level security and administrative tools, and integrations with popular third-party enterprise apps.

Software development teams are still the likeliest group to use visual collaboration platforms, but other teams across the enterprise are showing interest in the tools for brainstorming, designing, planning business strategies and processes, and creating storyboards for anything from new product designs to marketing plans. Project managers are also gravitating toward these types of purpose-built collaboration applications, Fasciani said.

Despite the widespread interest in such tools, Fasciani advises companies to start with a small pilot program rather than deploying a visual collaboration app to everyone immediately, as if it were an email or web conferencing app. At around $10 per seat per month, these applications can get costly when you are thinking of deploying to hundreds or thousands of users.

“Before you go out and equip everyone in the organization with a seat license, you really want to start small and make sure those power users in those use cases are actually seeing some benefit before you expand further,” said Fasciani.

To help you find the right visual collaboration tool for your organization, we’ve gathered information on several established and emerging collaboration canvas platforms.

Bluescape

Bluescape is a digital platform for visual collaboration in a hybrid work environment. Its infinite workspaces provide teams with a secured, shared meeting place and content repository for group activities including brainstorming, planning, and decision making. While everyone in a company can benefit from improved collaboration, Bluescape said, key roles include planning and strategy teams, creative teams, and product teams.

In addition to whiteboarding, presentation, and annotation capabilities, the platform provides an enhanced alternative to screen sharing, as users can interact with multiple pieces of content at the same time instead of sharing screens in a linear fashion. Features such as content watermarking and video uploads with synchronized playback are one of the reasons the vendor counts media and entertainment companies among its customers.

Bluescape

Other features include templates for consistent formatting across meetings, presentations, or projects, and integrations with key enterprise tools including Office 365, Google Docs, OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and Outlook. Videoconferencing integrations include Cisco Webex and Zoom.

Noteworthy feature: Bluescape offers unique clients for mobile devices, browsers (laptops/desktops), and touch-enabled in-room displays, including multi-screen installations. Once people start returning to the office, Bluescape said, it will offer a common platform that enables in-room, room-to-room, and room-and-remote collaboration.

Security: All data is encrypted at rest and in transit using TLS 1.2+ with 256-bit AES encryption. Data is stored in a public or private cloud (see enterprise features, below), with support for bring your own key (BYOK), allowing customers to manage their own encryption keys. Single Sign-On is supported through SAML 2.0. Bluescape is NIST 800-171 and NIST Cybersecurity Framework compliant, and is also ISO 27001 certified.

Enterprise features: Multiple deployment options, including a Bluescape-managed public cloud, managed virtual private instance, partner- or customer-managed private cloud, and on-premises. Administrators can access self-serve reports and graphs to see data on utilization, consumption of users, workspaces, and clients.

Pricing: Bluescape said it focuses on enterprise deployments, working with customers to create a cost structure that scales to their needs. Contact sales for more information.

InVision Freehand

Originally developed for internal use by InVision, the Freehand online whiteboard aims to solve collaboration pains felt by organizations with a remote workforce, allowing users to share ideas quickly. It started as a tool for designers and product teams but is useful for any type of team looking to collaborate visually. Part of InVision’s digital product design and development platform, Freehand can be accessed at freehand.new.

Designed to be intuitive and easy to use, the tool includes more than a dozen templates developed by the likes of AWS, Asana, Atlassian, Microsoft, Salesforce, and American Express for everything from brainstorming to customer journey mapping. The company said these are not random templates but were intentionally sought out and included to help teams with their most pressing challenges, whether they are design sprints or marketing plans. Users can also create and upload their own templates for their own use or to help others.

InVision

Other features include voting (synchronous and asynchronous) via animated emoji reactions; tasks that meeting facilitators can enable; version history; exporting; and deep-linking. Conversation tracking is in early release. The InVision platform integrates with Jira, Trello, Slack, Photoshop, Sketch, Dropbox, and more.

Noteworthy feature: Live meeting integration with Microsoft Teams lets users create and share a whiteboard directly within a Microsoft Teams meeting to replicate the collaborative energy of an in-person whiteboard session.

Security: User sessions are encrypted in transit via Transport Layer Security, with support for TLS v1.2 and TLS v1.3; all data at rest is encrypted with AES-256 and stored in the U.S. Third-party auditors perform annual SOC2 Type 2 validations for security and confidentiality compliance.

Enterprise features: In-app audit logs, IP allow lists, advanced user roles and permissioning structures, configurable access management controls, single sign-on, system for cross-domain identity management (SCIM), auto-provisioning and deprovisioning, and multifactor authentication.

Pricing: Free plan for individuals and small teams allows collaboration with up to 10 users in unlimited boards; Pro plan is $8 per user per month, billed annually, and allows collaboration with up to 15 active users and additional perks. For enterprise features such as team management and advanced security, companies can pay by the seat or as a bundled cost.

Klaxoon Board

Klaxoon’s flagship application, Board, is accessible from any device, with no installation needed. The visual workspace allows users to share content in several formats through ready-to-use templates, with an unlimited canvas size to let teams share, prioritize, and organize ideas visually.

Board was designed for several teamwork scenarios, such as running a weekly meeting using a visual collaboration approach. To that end, Klaxoon’s Live app (included with Board paid plans) adds videoconferencing for up to 15 participants to the mix. Board also integrates with Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Skype, Cisco Webex, and Zoom. With cross-functional teams in mind, the app comes with a large library of meeting templates that aren’t reserved for experts or specialists.

Klaxoon

Klaxoon also offers a suite of apps and tools for use with Board that add features such as polling, word clouds, quizzes, and challenges to boost interaction in meetings. Klaxoon’s suite integrates with Dropbox and Microsoft Teams, with Jira integration coming soon. Offline access to Board is available through a hybrid software/hardware approach (via Klaxoon Box and MeetingBoard).

Noteworthy features: Board’s different view modes, such as whiteboard, Kanban, and list, allow team members to sort information faster. And the ability to launch other Klaxoon apps and tools from the Board app allows participants to think about visual collaboration differently. The Quiz, Survey, Capsule, Adventure, and Mission features, for example, let facilitators test their team’s knowledge and learn from each other in a variety of formats.

Security: All user data is encrypted in transit via TLS 1.3 and at rest via AES-256. Backups are also encrypted. User data is hosted in data centers located in Europe, and is administered from Europe. European data protection legislation (GDPR) applies. Single Sign-On authentication is supported as an option.

Enterprise features: In addition to SSO and SCIM, Klaxoon offers an administration console designed to drive adoption within the organization, with data such as activity monitoring and number of interactions generated per user. Its internal consulting department and global network of partners provide customers with meeting audits, visual collaboration training, and other support.

Pricing: Free to try out the Board templates (up to 10 participants, one-shot template use); Board plan (up to 100 participants, unlimited boards, includes Live videoconferencing app, template library, 5GB of storage) is $9.90 per month; Suite plan (adds Klaxoon Suite apps and management features, with 10GB storage) starts at $12.90 per month. For Enterprise plan (up to 300 users, adds more management, security, and analytics features, with 100GB storage), contact sales.

Lucidspark

Basic whiteboards such as those found in web conferencing apps can help get ideas on a page. Lucid Software’s Lucidspark is designed for teams to take action on those ideas. Use cases include engineering, project management, marketing, user experience, product management, executive teams, and cross-functional teams.

Features include:

• Intelligent data synthesis, which lets users automatically group sticky notes, shapes, and cards based on themes without having to manually sort through contributions. The software automatically organizes ideas, highlights key takeaways, and assigns next steps.
• Breakout boards, which let facilitators bring large groups together on a main Lucidspark board and then direct teams to breakout boards for smaller brainstorming and idea sessions.
• Language support that includes Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and Dutch, in addition to English.
• Enhanced voting, which includes names-attached voting, anonymous voting, selection voting (where participants choose which content to vote on), and persistent voting (results remain on the board after a session).

Lucidspark

Integrations include Slack, Jira, Microsoft Teams, and Google Drive, as well as Lucid’s intelligent diagramming application, Lucidchart, which allows teams to go from the brainstorming and initial idea phase through action plans, documentation, and execution, through one interface.

Noteworthy feature: Collaborator colors provides the ability to assign a color to each collaborator, making their cursor, sticky notes, and freehand drawings all one consistent color, to eliminate confusion around what each collaborator contributes.

Security: Data in transit is encrypted via TLS v1.2. At rest, data is secured with AES-256 encryption. Lucid also offers secure domain provisioning, user authentication, domain lockdown, and key management services; cryptographic keys are protected by Amazon’s Key Management Services. Lucid’s cloud provider is Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company is PCI, SOC 2, and EU-US Privacy Shield certified, and complies with CCPA and GDPR regulations.

Enterprise features: Centralized account management for users and administrators across the Lucid visual collaboration suite; centralized account and billing management; license management to easily provision, deprovision, and reallocate licenses; document management, including team folders, document tags, and statuses; ability to turn off anonymous guest functionality.

Pricing: Free for up to 3 editable boards with 300 objects per board; Individual plan is $8 per month with unlimited boards and objects; Team plan (3 user minimum) starts at $9 per user per month and includes advanced collaboration features and some management controls. Enterprise plan adds more integrations and advanced admin controls; contact sales for pricing.

Miro

Miro’s digital whiteboard was created with all company functions in mind, from product and engineering to marketing and sales. The app offers an infinite canvas that allows up to 1,000 people to collaborate at the same time. The result is a visual representation of a team’s end-to-end product design and developmental process, according to the company.

Hundreds of templates are available, with categories ranging from frameworks such as design thinking, agile, lean, and SAFe to team-based templates that support groups such as sales/marketing, development/engineering, product management, UX design, IT/TechOps, HR, and executive-level team members. It can be used asynchronously or in real time with embedded videoconferencing, chat, and screen sharing.

Miro

Miro offers integrations with dozens of third-party apps and services, from Google Drive and Evernote to Slack and Azure Active Directory. The Live Embed API provides integrations with nearly 20 apps and tools, including Microsoft Teams, Asana, Trello, and Jira, embedding full-featured Miro boards into their existing interface. Miro users can also build their own apps with API, SDAK, and iframe embed, then share with teams or others by publishing in the Miro Marketplace.

Noteworthy feature: Stickies Capture lets you take a photo of a physical whiteboard or handwritten sticky notes and convert it into digital sticky notes that you can edit and organize in Miro, or export to CSV or Jira cards.

Security: Data in transit is secured with TLS 1.2 or higher, and data at rest is encrypted via AES-256. The Miro platform is hosted on AWS. All production data is hosted within the EU (Ireland) and the U.S. (Virginia). Miro is compliant with rules from the Cloud Security Alliance, SOC2, SOC3, CCPA, GDPR, and NIST.

Enterprise features: Flexible licensing program,insight and analytics tools, company dashboards, meeting and workshop summaries, and additional security features such as domain whitelisting, link access controls, and domain control options.

Pricing: Free plan includes three editable boards, premade templates, and anonymous board viewers; Team plan is $8 per member per month (billed annually) for unlimited boards, private board sharing, custom templates, and more; Business plan (for 20+ members) is $16 per member per month (billed annually) and adds single sign-on, day passes, and external editors. Enterprise plan adds advanced security and management features with flexible licensing options for larger deployments; contact sales for pricing.

Mural

Mural says its platform is used by more than 50% of the Fortune 100, with members joining a global community that provides learning and transformation within the enterprise. While anyone in a company can use Mural, it’s aimed at product, consulting, leadership, sales, and customer success teams, as well as employee-facing teams such as those in innovation, IT, and operations.

The platform includes more than 180 customizable pre-built templates and frameworks, including brainstorming, mind maps, design sprints, sales discovery, and retrospectives. Additional features include customizable shapes and connectors, easy diagramming, and Quick Talk, powered by Dolby.io, which lets collaborators instantly start a voice call inside any mural for spontaneous collaborative sessions.

Mural

Integrations include OneDrive, Google Drive, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Atlassian Jira, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Zapier. The Zapier integration allows Mural members to set up integrations with more than 2,000 third-party apps, including Airtable, Trello, Evernote, Salesforce, and Asana. A Mural Zoom app (due this year) will include videoconferencing support for Zoom.

Noteworthy feature: Facilitation Superpowers for meeting leaders include the ability to set timers for activities, summon others to follow you or to take control to engage everyone, invite others to anonymously vote on ideas, hide sections of a mural to focus participants and reveal them when ready, resize the canvas, assign facilitation permission to others, lock specific content, add key elements to a content library, celebrate positive moments with confetti or reactions, share to Jira or GitHub, and export the entire mural as a PDF or PNG.

Security: Data at rest resides only in the production environment, encrypted with AES-256. Data in transit uses TLS v1.2 and is encrypted and authenticated using AES_128_CGM, with ECDHE_RSA as the key exchange mechanism. Mural’s cloud provider is Microsoft Azure. The company is CCPA and GDPR compliant, holds SOC 2 Type 2 certification, and supports SSO via SAML 2.0.

Enterprise features: Company dashboard with overview of workspace activity to manage and monitor usage; billing groups; enterprise APIs for deprovisioning and audit logs; API key management; self-service single sign-on; and access to training and hands-on support.

Pricing: Starter plan (1-50 memberships) is $12 per member per month, billed annually; Plus plan (10-50 memberships) is $20 per member per month, billed annually. Both plans offer free trials. Enterprise plans also available; contact sales for pricing.

Stormboard

Stormboard is designed to solve bigger meeting problems than the average digital whiteboard can handle. Digital workspaces, called Storms, include advanced tools to help teams prioritize and organize ideas, assign tasks, and follow up after a meeting.

Features include real-time agile integrations; task management; report creation, and the ability to share all your content as sticky notes, whiteboards, files, images, and videos. Customizable templates let you resize or reconfigure sections on the go, and the ideas automatically and intelligently stay in the correct sections. Stormboard features more than 100 templates with interactive guides that walk you through the process.

Stormboard

The tool’s smart reports instantly generate meeting minutes so teams can start taking action immediately, through a built-in relationship between the template and the content in the workspace. Reports can then be edited in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel or in Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets.

Stormboard offers integrations with several third-party business platforms including Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Zapier, and Azure DevOps. Jira integration includes two-way sync, which means that when changes are made in Jira, they are reflected back in Stormboard and vice versa; no double-entry or manual synchronization is required.

Noteworthy feature: Index Cards allow line-by-line entry of content, allowing users to create lists, organize and group content, and access a Substorm (a specific sub-workspace within a Storm) where teams can work on projects, brainstorm, and create timelines.

Security: All data transfer to and from Stormboard’s cloud services is encrypted with Transport Layer Security (TLS). Encryption for data at rest varies by subscription level. Data is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Stormboard is SOC 2 certified. Two-factor authentication is available to all Stormboard users through the use of an authenticator app.

Enterprise features: Invoice billing, single sign-on, advanced user management, service level agreement (99.5% uptime), single tenant, corporate data retention, corporate branding, additional enterprise templates, concierge support, training programs, and volume pricing.

Pricing: Personal plan is free for individuals and teams of 5 or less; Business is $8.33 per user per month, billed annually; Enterprise is $16.67 per user per month, billed annually. Free trials are available for business and enterprise plans.

Other whiteboard tools

Still looking? Here are a number of other whiteboard-like emulations or online tools to consider. All offer free tiers or demos.

• Allo: Remote workspace that combines simple project management with whiteboards
• Ayoa: All-in-one online whiteboard and mind mapping app where you can brainstorm ideas, work together and get things done
• Explain Everything: One-stop whiteboard for remote teaching
• FlatFrog: Project visualization and task tracking tool for Agile, Lean, Pulse, or other projects, in-room or across remote sites
• iObeya: Enterprise collaboration app with digital visual management designed on Lean and Agile principles
• Milanote: Tool that organizes ideas and projects into visual boards
• MindManager: Collaborative space for mind maps, flowcharts, diagrams, Kanban boards, and more