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Interact opens its intranet to outside AI assistants and uses Claude to attack its own platform.
Comparison · Collab
Excalidraw vs Mattermost
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Excalidraw and Mattermost — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Excalidraw vs Mattermost: 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 Mattermost?
Mattermost v12.1 puts bots and burn-after-reading messages under the same access rules.
Mattermost v12 shipped in parts: agents limited to the requesting user's access, Cross Guard for transfers across security domains, and user, device and channel attributes in access policy. A November 9 partnership pairs v12 with Arqit's quantum-safe device trust. v12.1 on November 13 extends attribute-based access control to bot accounts and to Burn-on-Read permissions, and Desktop v6.4 fixes Boards on subpath deployments.
Excalidraw vs Mattermost: 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.
Mattermost
6.3COLLAB
Mattermost v12.1 puts bots and burn-after-reading messages under the same access rules.
◆ Current state
Mattermost v12 shipped in parts: agents limited to the requesting user's access, Cross Guard for transfers across security domains, and user, device and channel attributes in access policy. A November 9 partnership pairs v12 with Arqit's quantum-safe device trust. v12.1 on November 13 extends attribute-based access control to bot accounts and to Burn-on-Read permissions, and Desktop v6.4 fixes Boards on subpath deployments.
◆ Where it's heading
Each release closes another gap in one policy model for who and what can see a message: people, devices, channels, and now automation accounts and ephemeral messages. The audience stays defence and regulated buyers, and point releases are filling in v12 rather than starting new lines.
◆ Prediction
Further v12.x releases likely apply the same attribute rules to more objects, such as files, plugins or AI agent actions, following the pattern of v12.1.
Alternatives to Excalidraw and Mattermost
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 Mattermost.
Nextcloud
Nextcloud's November patches lean on preview speed and sharing fixes across three branches.
Asana
Asana lets Division admins run their own custom roles, on top Enterprise plans only.
Double
Double turns a recorded Chrome session into an agent that repeats the task.
SiYuan
SiYuan 3.8.11 alphas add freeform mind maps and plugin snapshots right after 3.8.10.
Hive
Hive turns reporting into a planning tool: shared inputs, grouped values, per-person drill-downs.
See all Excalidraw alternatives → · See all Mattermost alternatives →
Recent activity from Excalidraw and Mattermost
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 23h agoMattermostMattermost v12.1: Control That Goes Beyond On and Off
- 4d agoMattermostYour MFA Isn't Phishing-Resistant. Here's What Is, and What the Deployment Decision Actually Involves
- 4d agoMattermostMattermost v12 pairs with Arqit for quantum-safe edge deployments
- 9d agoMattermostMattermost v12 adds device and channel attributes to access policy
- 18d agoMattermostMattermost v12 Cross Guard: managed cross-domain transfers
- 21d agoMattermostMattermost v12: Agents Are Doing the Work. Now Control What They Can See. ⚡
- 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
- 3y agoExcalidrawRelease 0.17 expands the programmatic canvas API
- 3y agoExcalidrawDuplicate capture of the 0.17 release
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Excalidraw and Mattermost?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Mattermost is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Excalidraw better than Mattermost?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Mattermost is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. 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 Mattermost?
Top Mattermost alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Mattermost alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mattermost for the full list with editorial commentary on each.