How to Choose an Online Whiteboard for Meetings

An online whiteboard gives everyone in a meeting a shared canvas for sketching, brainstorming, explaining a process or annotating a document. There are many whiteboard tools, and the one that suits a team depends on how the board will actually be used during calls. This guide helps you match a whiteboard app to your meetings and devices instead of choosing by popularity alone.

Start with the intended use

Before comparing products, describe the meetings where the board will be used. A simple online whiteboard for quick sketches during a one-to-one call has very different requirements from a platform that stores project boards your team edits for months.

• Meeting type: live discussion, workshop, teaching session, client presentation or asynchronous planning between calls.
• Participants: how many people draw at the same time and how many only watch.
• Guests: whether external people must join without creating an account.
• Input devices: mouse and keyboard, touchscreen laptop, tablet with stylus or a large interactive display in a meeting room.
• Video call setup: whether the board must open inside your video call app or can run in a separate browser tab or window.
• Result: what you need afterwards, such as an exported image, a PDF for meeting notes or a board that stays editable.

Also note your constraints. Organizations may restrict which cloud services can store work content, block certain sites on the company network or require sign-in through a corporate account. Find out about these limits first, because they can rule out an otherwise suitable tool.

If your team already uses a physical whiteboard, consider whether a digital board is needed at all. Pointing a webcam at a wall board can work for occasional sessions, but remote participants cannot edit it, glare and room lighting affect readability, and the writing may look reversed in your own mirrored self-view even though others usually see it the right way round.

Features that matter

Feature lists are long, and most interactive online whiteboards share a core set of drawing and note tools. Focus on the features that affect your meetings, and treat each vendor claim as something to verify on your own devices.

• Real-time collaboration: whether several people can edit at once and whether you can see who is drawing or where others are looking.
• Drawing and pen input: smooth handwriting with a stylus, shape recognition, an eraser and an undo that works per person.
• Canvas and structure: a large or infinite canvas, frames or pages, sticky notes, text, connectors and templates for common exercises.
• Import: placing images, PDFs or slides on the board for annotation.
• Export: saving the board as an image or PDF, and what happens to content outside the visible area.
• Permissions: separate view, comment and edit rights, and control over who can open a shared link.
• Facilitation tools: a timer, voting, locking objects or following the presenter's view, if your workshops need them.
• History: version history or the ability to restore deleted content.
• Accessibility: keyboard navigation, readable contrast and support for screen readers if anyone on the team relies on them.

Free plans often limit the number of boards, editors, templates or export options. Read the current plan terms rather than assuming that a feature shown in a demo is available on the plan you will use.

Privacy and file handling need the same care. Check where boards are stored, who can access them through share links, how long content is kept after deletion, whether an administrator can manage or remove boards and whether uploaded files are processed by any additional features. Use the vendor's own documentation and your organization's requirements as the reference, not marketing summaries.

Check compatibility

A whiteboard program that works well on one laptop can behave differently on a tablet or a meeting-room display. Confirm compatibility for every device and platform your participants actually use.

• Access method: browser-based, desktop application, mobile app or a combination, and which features each version supports.
• Operating systems and browsers: the versions listed as supported for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, iPadOS, Android or ChromeOS as relevant.
• Stylus and touch: whether pressure, palm rejection and pen buttons work in the app on your specific tablet or display.
• Video call integration: whether the board can be opened inside your meeting platform or must be shared with screen sharing.
• Network: whether the service is reachable through your company network, proxy or firewall.
• Accounts: support for your sign-in method, including single sign-on if your organization requires it.
• File formats: the image and document formats you need to import and export.

If the board runs in a separate window and you share your screen, remember that remote participants see only your view and cannot draw unless they open the board themselves. Sharing a single window instead of the whole screen helps avoid exposing notifications or other content.

On a laptop, running the video call and a whiteboard at the same time adds load to the device. If you notice lag while drawing, close unneeded tabs and applications and compare the experience in the desktop app and in the browser, where both are available.

Build a shortlist

There is no single best online whiteboard for every team. The right choice is the tool that meets your must-have requirements with the fewest workarounds. Turn the notes from the previous sections into a checklist and test two or three candidates against it.

• Must-have: the meeting types, participant numbers and guest access you defined.
• Must-have: working support on every device and browser your team uses.
• Must-have: storage, retention and sharing controls that meet your organization's rules.
• Must-have: the export format you need for meeting notes or records.
• Nice to have: integration with your video call platform.
• Nice to have: templates and facilitation tools for workshops.
• Plan check: the limits of the free or paid plan you would actually use.

Test each candidate in a real meeting with at least one colleague, ideally including someone outside your organization. Have participants join from different devices, draw at the same time, add an image or PDF, change a permission and export the result. Note any step that required an account, an extra download or a workaround.

Choose the digital whiteboard that passed your must-have checks and felt easiest for occasional users, since many meeting participants will not be regular users of the tool. Record the settings you chose for sharing and retention so the next person who sets up a board follows the same approach.