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Excalidraw vs IconSim
Excalidraw is a virtual whiteboard, unrelated to icon preview functionality.
Which to pick
Pick Excalidraw if you want…
- Hand-drawn style collaborative whiteboarding
- A free, open-source tool
Pick IconSim if you want…
- Quick icon preview on macOS
Side by side
- What it is
- Excalidraw:Excalidraw is an open-source virtual whiteboard for creating hand-drawn style diagrams.
- IconSim:IconSim lets macOS designers preview app and menubar icons in multiple formats instantly.
- Best for
- Excalidraw:Hand-drawn style collaborative whiteboarding
- IconSim:Quick icon preview on macOS
- Who it’s for
- Excalidraw:Designers, developers, and teams needing quick sketching and collaborative diagrams.
- IconSim:UI/UX designers creating macOS app icons
- Pricing
- Excalidraw:Free
- IconSim:Paid
- Open source
- Excalidraw:Yes, 133,502 GitHub stars
- IconSim:—
- Works with
- Excalidraw:—
- IconSim:SwiftUI, PNG, JPEG, SVG, ICO, ICNS
Excalidraw features
- Hand-drawn style canvas. Create diagrams that look hand-sketched with a simple drawing interface.
- Live collaboration. Invite others to edit the same canvas in real time after signing up.
- Export options. Save your work to a file to avoid loss from browser storage clearing.
- Keyboard shortcuts. Quickly open files (Ctrl+O) and access help via the UI.
- Canvas navigation. Move the canvas using scroll wheel, space-drag, or the hand tool.
IconSim features
- Main & menubar icon preview. Shows how both app and menubar icons will appear on macOS.
- Multi-format support. Accepts .png, .jpeg, .svg, .ico and .icns files.
- Native macOS app. Built with SwiftUI for fast, lightweight performance.
- Apple Silicon & Intel compatible. Runs on both ARM-based and Intel-based Macs.
- One-time purchase, no ads. Pay once and use forever without ad interruptions.
Excalidraw vs IconSim FAQ
Is Excalidraw or IconSim free?+
Excalidraw is free. IconSim is paid.
Is Excalidraw or IconSim open source?+
Excalidraw is open source (excalidraw/excalidraw on GitHub, MIT license). DevHunt has no public source repository on record for IconSim.
On DevHunt
Based on each tool's website and DevHunt data. Details may change; check the official sites.