Teable
Teable is spending this release cycle making computed fields and admin recovery trustworthy
Comparison · Collab
Excalidraw vs Flame
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Excalidraw and Flame — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Excalidraw vs Flame: at a glance
What is Excalidraw?
Excalidraw's package went ESM-only in 0.18 — a big release, then 16 months of silence on this feed.
This feed tracks the embeddable @excalidraw/excalidraw package rather than the hosted app, so every entry is a library release aimed at developers integrating the canvas. Version 0.18.0 in March 2025 was the large one: command palette, multiplayer undo and redo, flowcharts, elbow arrows, scene search, image cropping, element linking, CJK fonts, and a move from UMD to ES modules that broke existing consumers. Earlier releases are smaller, mostly programmatic API surface and rendering fixes. Nothing has been captured since.
What is Flame?
Self-hosted dashboard that finished its feature arc and stopped shipping in 2023.
Flame is a self-hosted startpage for homelab services — app tiles, bookmarks, weather, and a search bar. The feature set it set out to build was finished across 2021 and 2022: custom app descriptions, Docker secrets support, a secondary search provider, and a custom theme editor. The most recent release in this feed is v2.3.1 from July 2023, and it is entirely bug fixes.
Excalidraw vs Flame: editorial side-by-side
Excalidraw
0.0COLLAB
Excalidraw's package went ESM-only in 0.18 — a big release, then 16 months of silence on this feed.
◆ Current state
This feed tracks the embeddable @excalidraw/excalidraw package rather than the hosted app, so every entry is a library release aimed at developers integrating the canvas. Version 0.18.0 in March 2025 was the large one: command palette, multiplayer undo and redo, flowcharts, elbow arrows, scene search, image cropping, element linking, CJK fonts, and a move from UMD to ES modules that broke existing consumers. Earlier releases are smaller, mostly programmatic API surface and rendering fixes. Nothing has been captured since.
◆ Where it's heading
The package's direction has been to expose more of the editor to host applications — API subscribers, programmatic element creation, viewport control, sidebar tabs — so Excalidraw can be embedded as a component rather than only used as a site. The ESM transition fits that: tree-shakable output matters to the teams shipping it inside their own products. With no releases captured in over a year, this source no longer says anything about current activity, which more likely reflects the crawl target than the project.
◆ Prediction
Insufficient data for a forward call from this feed: the last captured release predates the window by more than a year, so any prediction would be about the package's dormancy rather than Excalidraw's actual roadmap.
Flame
0.0COLLAB
Self-hosted dashboard that finished its feature arc and stopped shipping in 2023.
◆ Current state
Flame is a self-hosted startpage for homelab services — app tiles, bookmarks, weather, and a search bar. The feature set it set out to build was finished across 2021 and 2022: custom app descriptions, Docker secrets support, a secondary search provider, and a custom theme editor. The most recent release in this feed is v2.3.1 from July 2023, and it is entirely bug fixes.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc reads as a project reaching completion rather than one under active development. Later releases shifted from adding capability to correcting the edges of what already existed — search-provider interactions, iOS input rendering, theme editor field sizes, label wording. There has been nothing since.
◆ Prediction
Nothing in these entries suggests further releases; anyone deploying Flame should treat the current version as the final one unless the project resumes.
Alternatives to Excalidraw and Flame
Other Collab products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Excalidraw or Flame.
GitHub
Copilot's model roster churns weekly while GitHub quietly rewires policy and billing plumbing
Hive
Governance and cross-workspace plumbing, not new AI surface
AFFiNE
A nightly canary train where the AI platform work hides between dependency bumps
CommaFeed
A self-hosted RSS reader that now spends most of its release notes on security.
SiYuan
SiYuan's v3.8.0 train restates one AI feature set across seven consecutive builds.
See all Excalidraw alternatives → · See all Flame alternatives →
Recent activity from Excalidraw and Flame
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1y agoExcalidrawExcalidraw 0.18 drops UMD for ESM and adds flowcharts ⚡
- 1y agoExcalidrawDuplicate capture of the 0.18.0 release
- 2y agoExcalidrawPatch release fixes UMD build and arrow label bounds
- 2y agoExcalidrawDuplicate capture of the 0.17.3 patch
- 2y agoExcalidrawRelease 0.17 expands the programmatic canvas API
- 2y agoExcalidrawDuplicate capture of the 0.17 release
- 3y agoFlameBug fixes for local search, iOS input styling, and theme editor
- 4y agoFlameCustom theme editor and secondary search provider
- 4y agoFlameIn-app location detection and tightened file permissions
- 4y agoFlameLocal search covers app descriptions; background task tuning
- 4y agoFlameCustom app descriptions and a cluster deployment fix
- 4y agoFlameDocker secrets support
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Excalidraw and Flame?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Excalidraw and Flame are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Excalidraw better than Flame?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Excalidraw and Flame are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Excalidraw?
Top Excalidraw alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Excalidraw alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/excalidraw for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Flame?
Top Flame alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Flame alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/flame-dashboard for the full list with editorial commentary on each.