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ExcalidrawZ for Mac reached version 2.5.1 on October 24, 2026, with full iCloud sync and an AI assistant built into the canvas, and it now also runs on iPadOS and iOS (release notes). On Hacker News, someone looked at the project’s commit history and found something that didn’t match a hand-written app: the development pace spiked recently, far more than a single person working alone would explain (comment by j2kun).
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The repository has about 1,700 stars and close to 100 forks on GitHub as of 2026-11-12, written in Swift under the MIT license, with its last push on 2026-10-24 (chocoford/ExcalidrawZ). It does not rewrite the Excalidraw canvas. It embeds it as is and wraps it with native Apple features, built for anyone who already sketches diagrams in Excalidraw and wants real files in the Finder instead of loose downloads from the browser.
What ExcalidrawZ Adds to the Excalidraw You Already Know
The README itself sums it up: “Excalidraw is an excellent drawing tool,” and ExcalidrawZ simply wraps it with file management, history and sync (chocoford/ExcalidrawZ). In practice that means organizing drawings into groups and local folders, opening and editing .excalidraw, .excalidraw.png and .excalidraw.svg files directly, syncing those files across Mac, iPad and iPhone via iCloud, and saving history checkpoints to restore an earlier version of a diagram.
- AI assistant on the canvas: it can read, create and review drawings, work with attached images, and show a preview before applying any change, with per-file control over what stays visible to the AI.
- MCP server: ExcalidrawZ can expose itself as an MCP server for compatible AI clients, with a basic mode equivalent to the
excalidraw-mcppackage and an optimized mode with current-file editing, navigation, history and export. - Math tools: LaTeX formulas, function plotting and conversion of Mermaid diagrams into editable Excalidraw shapes.
- Live collaboration using Excalidraw’s own collaboration mode, to draw with other people on the same canvas.
- Locked files with local authentication, encrypted checkpoints and a recovery key as backup; exported PNGs and SVGs remain editable
.excalidrawfiles, plus PDF export.
To install it outside the App Store, the README only asks you to download the latest .dmg from Releases and drag the app into Applications (chocoford/ExcalidrawZ).
Who This Changes the Workflow For
It helps anyone who already uses Excalidraw to document architecture, sequence diagrams or visual notes and currently collects those loose files downloaded from the browser. With ExcalidrawZ, those drawings become real system documents, with history and sync across Apple devices, and Apple Pencil on iPad adds undo and redo with the same gestures already used in other apps.
The MCP integration matters to anyone running AI agents locally (Claude Code, Cursor or another MCP client) who wants the agent to read or edit a diagram without copying and pasting JSON by hand. But that same door, a local HTTP server that can write to your files, is the first thing to audit before turning it on on a machine with sensitive diagrams.
What Happened When We Tried to Build It in the Lab
We ran ExcalidrawZ in our isolated sandbox on 2026-11-12. The repository clone finished fine:
$ git -c protocol.allow=never -c protocol.https.allow=always -c core.hooksPath=/dev/null clone --depth 1 --single-branch --no-tags -- https://github.com/chocoford/ExcalidrawZ /tmp/lab-runs/lab-8njj7gl3/w/repo
Cloning into '/tmp/lab-runs/lab-8njj7gl3/w/repo'...The repository weighs 104.4 MB and the clone took 3.912 seconds with a peak memory of 53.3 MB. That’s where it stopped: the lab reported “no supported stack detected” and never got to build or run anything. That makes sense. ExcalidrawZ is a pure Xcode project, tied to SwiftUI and the Apple toolchain, and our sandbox runs Linux (os=Linux-6.18.15, python=3.12.16, node=v18.20.4). There’s no way to build a macOS/iOS app outside a machine with Xcode.
This matters beyond the technical detail: if your team wants to validate ExcalidrawZ in a CI pipeline before distributing it internally, you need a macOS runner with Xcode installed, not a generic Linux container like the one most continuous integration setups use by default. The repository itself documents the signing configuration (Config/Overrides.xcconfig with DEVELOPMENT_TEAM, ICLOUD_CONTAINER and APP_GROUP_IDENTIFIER), but it assumes that environment is already set up (chocoford/ExcalidrawZ).
ExcalidrawZ for Mac vs. Excalidraw, tldraw and Drawnix
| Project | Stars (2026-11-12) | What it is | Key difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| excalidraw/excalidraw | about 135,600 | The original web canvas, also available as an npm package | Runs in any browser with no install; it’s what ExcalidrawZ wraps internally |
| tldraw/tldraw | about 51,400 | React SDK for an infinite canvas | Built to be embedded in your own product, not to be used as a desktop app |
| plait-board/drawnix | about 15,000 | All-in-one open source whiteboard (mind maps, flowcharts, freehand drawing) | It’s a web SaaS, not a native Apple app |
| chocoford/ExcalidrawZ | about 1,700 | Native SwiftUI app for macOS, iPadOS and iOS | The only one of the four with real files, iCloud and Apple Pencil |
There’s a fourth option that doesn’t even require installing an app: Excalidraw has its own npm package, and a Hacker News comment points out that setting up a local project with an empty HTML page and Excalidraw inside is straightforward, works behind corporate firewalls and runs fully offline (comment by BariumBlue). If all you care about is the canvas without the native Apple layer, that route avoids installing a third-party binary.
What This Means for Your Team
If you maintain architecture documentation in Excalidraw within a backend team that uses Mac, the concrete decision before installing ExcalidrawZ is not to turn on the optimized MCP mode (the one that gives edit access to the current file and navigation) until you’ve reviewed who runs that local HTTP server and which AI agent connects to it. It’s the part of the app that most resembles opening a new door to your files.
Second, before saving architecture diagrams with arrows (the most common diagram type in technical documentation), read issue #119, still open: it reports a “the data couldn’t be read” error on exactly lines without an arrowhead. Test it first with a throwaway diagram, not the one that already has six months of history.
Third, if your security policy requires auditing the code before trusting it with the macOS Keychain for the locked files feature, look first at the commit history and the code frequency graph flagged by j2kun’s Hacker News comment before installing the signed .dmg (comment by j2kun). It’s not a confirmed accusation of anything, it’s a community observation worth checking with your own eyes before deciding.
When Not to Install It
ExcalidrawZ only runs on macOS, iPadOS and iOS: there’s no Windows or Linux version, so a mixed team needs to keep the original web access for anyone not on Apple. The version outside the App Store ships as a .dmg without going through Apple’s review, which means trusting the binary’s signer instead of a store that audited it.
Building it from source isn’t trivial: it needs its own Apple developer team, an App Group and an iCloud container configured by hand in Config/Overrides.xcconfig (chocoford/ExcalidrawZ). And as we saw in the lab, no generic Linux CI tool can validate it: any automated verification pipeline needs a dedicated macOS runner.
Finally, issue #119 remains open, and the recent commit pace itself raised questions in the Hacker News community about how much of the code is hand-written versus AI-assisted (comment by j2kun). Neither is a confirmed bug, but both are reasons not to rush adoption in a large team without testing it first on diagrams that don’t matter.
References
- chocoford/ExcalidrawZ: repository, README, stars and license.
- Release v2.5.1: version notes from 2026-10-24.
- Issue #119: open bug with lines missing an arrowhead.
- Hacker News thread: community discussion about ExcalidrawZ.
- excalidraw/excalidraw: the original canvas that ExcalidrawZ wraps.
- tldraw/tldraw: alternative as a React SDK.
- plait-board/drawnix: alternative as an open source SaaS whiteboard.
Featured image: Foto de Tran Mau Tri Tam ✪ en Unsplash
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