Discussion
How I manage Images for my Blog
emil-lp: Should be Show HN, as it reads like an ad for some extension to a program I've never heard about.
emil-lp: Apparently Excalidraw is An open source virtual hand-drawn style whiteboard. Collaborative and end-to-end encrypted.https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw
bryanhogan: Both Excalidraw and TLDraw are the two most popular apps of their kind, so I don't think it's that surprising.TLDraw: https://www.tldraw.com/Excalidraw: https://excalidraw.com/
wdroz: You can also bootstrap your initial schema with LLMs with the excalidraw MCP "app" [0]. But MCP "apps"[1] are quite new and not very well supported yet.[0] -- https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw-mcp[1] -- https://modelcontextprotocol.io/extensions/apps/overview
jruohonen: For me, draw.io is still the winner, and especially now that it runs locally also on Linux. As for works in progress, I hope this one succeeds (and would also run locally at some point):TikzMaker: https://tikzmaker.com/
mi_lk: I didn't have good experience with excalidraw-mcp when it first came out a month ago; the Claude-generated diagrams were too raw/unpolished. I'm sticking to mermaid for now but I'm interested in hearing how people make exclidraw-mcp work for them
darshanmakwana: I simply just draw in excalidraw and take a ss and past it in my obsidian note, I have a setup that automatically parses posts from my vault and then pushes them to my site
postatic: I love excalidraw, but don't need the excalidraw+. But Excalidraw open source is the frontend only, which means I have to delete my drawings each time. So I built the backend so I can create many canvases.https://drawx.ossy.dev
jstanley: Your site makes me make an account before I can use it, whereas excalidraw.com doesn't, and also excalidraw.com seems to save my drawing just fine? I closed a tab and reopened it and my drawing was still there, presumably from localStorage.The three-lines-menu also has a "Save to..." option that lets you create a sharable link or save to your local disk.
dewey: Everyone does that these days and they are becoming AI tells like the em-dash or the blue-glow of the early AI generated images that everyone added to their blog posts.
elric: I use the Obsidian Excalidraw plugin, means I can add diagrams to notes without leaving Obsidian.
walthamstow: Excalidraw has proliferated quite widely in my company since we got Claude Code. Its a shame the default font is ugly, childish and inaccessible.
petepete: I use Excalidraw extensively at work. For me, it's really close to perfection.It has an excellent UI, selections work way better than Lucid or Figma etc, the sketchy look makes it clear designs are rough and not blueprints, it's private and loads instantly.The one negative is that it's a pain to get the multiplayer self-hosted version running.
fabbbbb: I was surprised about that, too. Tried a bit but found very few sources online.A self-hosted version with storage (multiplayer) plus any Claude access would be a killer setup for team planning etc and let us drop Miro.
hhh: AI can generate mermaid diagrams, not excalidraw. If you use the mermaid to excalidraw, i guess it can be, but it just looks like a mermaid diagram then and not an excalidraw.
blahlabs: You can also embed the excalidraw drawing in the exported image. So you can drag/drop the exorted image back into excalidraw and edit it later.
darshanmakwana: Yeah I use that plugin too. I was just referencing it in relation to how I setup my blog[1][1]: https://darshanmakwana412.github.io/2026/03/a-system-of-jour...
lnenad: I love diagramming, but I genuinely don't understand how people can use these wonky looking tools. It looks off, I had to make my own[1] to create something that's easy to use and looks good/normal.[1] https://grafly.io
