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Miro Alternative: A Free Whiteboard That Doesn't Limit Your Boards

Miro's free tier gives you 3 boards. Here's the whiteboard we use instead — unlimited boards, shapes, sticky notes, and real-time collaboration.

Brainstorming shouldn’t stop at board number four.

The Miro board limit

Miro is brilliant for visual collaboration. Infinite canvas, sticky notes, shapes, connectors — it’s a digital war room.

But the free tier gives you 3 editable boards. Three.

Run a design sprint? That’s one board. Quarterly planning? Board two. Retrospective? You’re out.

The paid plans:

  • Starter: $10/user/month
  • Business: $20/user/month
  • Enterprise: custom pricing

For a 10-person team doing weekly brainstorms, that’s $200/month — for sticky notes.

We needed a whiteboard we could actually use without counting boards.

What a real Miro alternative looks like

“Whiteboard apps” are everywhere now. Most are either too simple (just sticky notes) or too complex (CAD software disguised as a whiteboard). A real alternative needs:

  1. Unlimited boards — one per project, one per meeting, one per idea
  2. Shapes and connectors — rectangles, circles, arrows, lines
  3. Sticky notes — drag, resize, color-code, cluster
  4. Freehand drawing — sketch when shapes aren’t enough
  5. Real-time collaboration — see cursors, see changes, work together

That’s what Whiteboard in the Vault delivers.

The switch: what gato Whiteboard does differently

Boards without limits

Create a board. Create another. Create one for every meeting, every project, every half-baked idea. No counter in the corner. No “upgrade to continue.”

Shapes that connect

Rectangles, rounded rectangles, circles, diamonds, arrows, lines. Drag connectors between shapes; they stay connected when you move things. Build flowcharts, org charts, mind maps — whatever the thinking requires.

Sticky notes that cluster

Drag notes to group them. Color-code by theme. Resize to emphasize. Double-click to edit. Familiar if you’ve used Miro; available without the paywall.

Freehand for the rest

Sometimes a shape isn’t right. Draw with your mouse, trackpad, or stylus. The stroke smooths automatically. Annotate, circle, underline — whatever makes the point.

Collaborate live

Share a link. See other cursors. Watch edits appear in real time. No “view only” for free users.

A real workflow: running a retro

Here’s how our team uses gato Whiteboard for sprint retrospectives:

  1. Create board — “Sprint 47 Retro”
  2. Add columns — three rectangles: “Went Well,” “Could Improve,” “Action Items”
  3. Team adds sticky notes — everyone writes, drags to the right column
  4. Cluster and vote — drag similar notes together; dot-vote with small circles
  5. Draw connections — arrows from problems to action items
  6. Export or screenshot — share in Slack; archive in Drive

One board per retro. No board limit. No “you’ve used your 3 boards” popup.

What you keep from Miro

  • Infinite canvas (zoom, pan, navigate)
  • Sticky notes with colors
  • Shapes and connectors
  • Real-time multiplayer
  • Export to image

We didn’t rebuild Miro feature-for-feature. We built the whiteboard teams actually need — and removed the paywall.

Try it

Open the Whiteboard app — no login, no board limit. Create a board, drop some sticky notes, draw a flowchart. See how it feels when brainstorming doesn’t cost per board.

Because Whiteboard lives in the Vault, your boards connect to:

  • Doc — embed whiteboard snapshots in meeting notes
  • Kanban — turn action items into tasks
  • Slide — export diagrams to presentations
  • Drive — store and organize board exports

One platform, unlimited visual thinking.