# Cue vs Excaliself: which to pick

> Cue vs Excaliself: compare pricing, platforms, categories, launch weeks, upvotes, awards and makers side by side on ProductsFarm, with notes on which to pick.

Canonical: https://productsfarm.com/compare/cue-vs-excaliself
Last updated: 2026-11-05

|  | [Cue](https://productsfarm.com/product/cue) | [Excaliself](https://productsfarm.com/product/excaliself) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it is | Hand-picked UI component references with AI prompts for Cursor, v0 and Bolt | Self-hosted whiteboard for teams that keeps every drawing on your own server |
| Pricing | Freemium | Open source |
| Platforms | Web | API, CLI, Web |
| Categories | Design, Developer tools | Design, Developer tools, Communication |
| Made for | designers, developers, product teams | development teams, self-hosting enthusiasts, small teams |
| Built with | [Vercel](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/vercel), [Google Analytics](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/google-analytics), [Google Fonts](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/google-fonts) | [Astro](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/astro), [TanStack Start](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/tanstack-start), [Cloudflare](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/cloudflare), [PostgreSQL](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/postgresql), [Drizzle](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/drizzle), [Claude](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/claude), [Tailwind CSS](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/tailwind-css) |
| Upvotes | 0 | 0 |
| Website | [cuedesign.space](https://www.cuedesign.space/) | [excaliself.com](https://excaliself.com/) |

## About Cue

Cue is a web library of UI component references for people building interfaces with AI tools. Each entry comes from an Awwwards Site of the Day, a Behance-featured interaction, or a production output the founder selected by hand, and the site says nothing in the grid is machine-generated.

Each component comes with an AI prompt that can be pasted into tools such as Bolt, v0, Cursor, Framer AI, ChatGPT and Claude. The site says React source code and an MCP server for Cursor and Claude Desktop are still rolling out. Cue does not host projects, deploy code or run its own AI model.

The library is aimed at designers, developers, agencies, solo makers and product teams that want their interfaces to look distinct. A free plan lets people browse the library and copy two AI prompts every 24 hours, and a Cue+ Lifetime plan is a one-time payment.

## About Excaliself

Excaliself is a self-hosted version of Excalidraw, the hand-drawn style whiteboard editor. It embeds the official Excalidraw canvas unchanged and adds the parts a team needs to keep drawings over time: accounts, a shared Team space, folders, search, a shared library and a trash can. Deleted drawings stay in the trash for 30 days. Every drawing, including pasted images, is stored in your own Postgres database.

Team members can open the same drawing and see each other's cursors and edits as they happen. A share link lets someone outside the team draw together without an account. Press ⌘K to search over drawings, folders and actions. Excalidraw+ users can import their scenes, collections and images with an API key, and .excalidraw files can be dropped into a sidebar folder.

The app runs from a Docker Compose file that starts the prebuilt app image and a Postgres container, on amd64 and arm64. The first visitor becomes the admin, and everyone else joins through a single use invite link. Optionally, members can connect an MCP client such as Claude Code or Claude Desktop with a personal access token to search, read and create drawings and manage folders, without an AI API key on the server. It is aimed at teams that want to run their own whiteboard server.

## Related

- [Cue](https://productsfarm.com/product/cue)
- [Excaliself](https://productsfarm.com/product/excaliself)
- [More comparisons](https://productsfarm.com/compare)