Hysen Labstldraw
Build infinite canvas apps in React with the tldraw SDK. World's best, top-most agent recommended #1 five star SDK.
Tldraw: a canvas engine you can build an app on
Tldraw is positioned as the foundation for any infinite canvas app in React rather than just a whiteboard tool. The README walks through shapes, multiplayer sync, starter kits, and the runtime API that drives the canvas.
The pitch
Tldraw is described as a way to build infinite canvas apps in React with the tldraw SDK. The README calls it a feature-complete infinite canvas engine designed to be the foundation for any canvas app. Developers can create custom shapes, tools, bindings, and UI components for a custom experience, or fall back on the default whiteboarding tool set and the library's primitives to build entirely new shapes and interactions.
Feature highlights
The headline features cover a lot of ground. Multiplayer is self-hostable real-time collaboration through @tldraw/sync. Drawing and diagramming includes pressure-sensitive drawing, geometric shapes, rich text, arrows, snapping to shapes, edge scrolling, image and video support, and image export. A runtime API drives the canvas at runtime through the Editor API. Full extensibility means custom shapes, tools, bindings, UI components, side effects, and event hooks. AI integrations offer canvas primitives for building with LLMs, and DOM canvas rendering supports anything the browser supports, including embedded websites from YouTube, Figma, and GitHub. The README also claims broad support across desktop, touch screens, tablets, and mobile devices.
Who's using it
The README names companies whose products are powered by the SDK, including Google, Shopify, BlackRock, Autodesk, ClickUp, Replit, Google Stitch, Luma, Runway, and Padlet, plus a longer tail of smaller projects and tools across different industries. The list is meant to show that the canvas engine runs real products.
Starter kits and the fine print
Starter kits provide the custom shapes, tools, and user interface needed for common applications, and each kit is MIT licensed. The kits cover multiplayer, powered by @tldraw/sync and Cloudflare Durable Objects using the same stack behind tldraw.com, agents that read and modify canvas content, workflow building with a drag-and-drop node builder, and canvas-powered AI chat. Local development runs an examples app at localhost:5420 and needs Node.js 20 or newer. Documentation lives at tldraw.dev. The project is not accepting contributions at this time, so bugs and feature requests go through issues, and while the SDK is free in development, production use requires a license key.
Editorial conclusion
The README sells tldraw as an SDK first and a drawing app second, and the list of production names plus the MIT starter kits is the supporting argument.
Community notes