# Excaliself vs Imaginry: which to pick

> Excaliself vs Imaginry: pricing, platforms, launches, upvotes and makers side by side on ProductsFarm, with notes on which to pick.

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

|  | [Excaliself](https://productsfarm.com/product/excaliself) | [Imaginry](https://productsfarm.com/product/imaginry) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it is | Self-hosted whiteboard for teams that keeps every drawing on your own server | Browser studio for making generative background images, loops and embeddable |
| Pricing | Open source | Free |
| Platforms | API, CLI, Web | Web |
| Categories | Design, Developer tools, Communication | Design, Developer tools, Productivity |
| Made for | development teams, self-hosting enthusiasts, small teams | designers, web developers, social media creators |
| Built with | [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) | [Next.js](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/nextjs), [React](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/react), [Vercel](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/vercel), [Tailwind CSS](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/tailwind-css) |
| Upvotes | 0 | 0 |
| Website | [excaliself.com](https://excaliself.com/) | [imaginry.tech](https://www.imaginry.tech/) |

## 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.

## About Imaginry

Imaginry is a free studio for creating generative backgrounds. It is built from stacked layers: a gradient base, fluted glass, optical effects such as aberration and glow, and film grain. Each layer can be reordered in the studio and the result updates live in the browser. The page presents a gallery of ready-made designs that can be opened and remixed, or a blank canvas to start from.

Finished work can be exported in several forms. Still images are rendered as PNG at up to 4K in common ratios such as square, tall and ultra-wide, and the site says each PNG is rendered directly from the shader rather than upscaled. Looping designs can be exported as MP4, WebM or AV1 video, with the final moments faded into the opening frames so the clip repeats smoothly. For websites, a designer or developer can copy a self-contained embed for Framer, React or plain HTML that keeps animating.

Imaginry is aimed at people who need background visuals for websites, social posts, banners and presentations without building shader code themselves. The studio is designed for a wide screen, so a laptop or desktop browser is the best way to use it.

## Related

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