# Excaliself vs ShotStudio: which to pick

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

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

|  | [Excaliself](https://productsfarm.com/product/excaliself) | [ShotStudio](https://productsfarm.com/product/shotstudio) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it is | Self-hosted whiteboard for teams that keeps every drawing on your own server | Watch a screenshot and X post become content. |
| Pricing | Open source | Freemium |
| Platforms | API, CLI, Web | Web |
| Categories | Design, Developer tools, Communication | Design, Marketing |
| Made for | development teams, self-hosting enthusiasts, small teams | indie hackers, makers, 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), [Vercel](https://productsfarm.com/tech-stack/vercel) |
| Upvotes | 0 | 0 |
| Website | [excaliself.com](https://excaliself.com/) | [shotstudio.online](https://www.shotstudio.online/) |

## 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 ShotStudio

ShotStudio is a web tool that turns plain screenshots into presentation-ready visuals. It offers frames, 3D tilt effects and annotations to dress up an image.

It can also create cards styled after X profiles and posts, as well as milestone proof cards. Finished visuals can be exported in high resolution or as animated files.

The canvas renders in the browser, so editing happens on the page itself. It suits people who share product screenshots and progress updates on social media.

## Related

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