Mattermost
Mattermost ships v11.8 compliance controls amid heavy sovereign-defence content
Comparison · Collab
Excalidraw vs Skedda
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Excalidraw and Skedda — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Excalidraw vs Skedda: at a glance
| Feature | Excalidraw | Skedda |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Collab | Collab |
| Velocity score | 1.3 | 6.3 |
| Sparks · 30d | 0 | 1 |
| Top themes | whiteboard, open-source, diagramming, react-component | workplace-booking, hybrid-office, visitor-management, microsoft-integration |
| Last editorial update | 1mo ago | 5d ago |
| Website | Visit → | — |
What is Excalidraw?
Excalidraw library cadence is glacial — v0.18 in March 2025, then silence; feed is mostly GitHub-profile noise.
The captured changelog tracks the npm library at github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw, not the hosted app at excalidraw.com. The library has shipped four substantive releases over two-and-a-half years: v0.16.1 (Sep 2023), v0.17.0 (Nov 2023), v0.17.3 (Feb 2024), and v0.18.0 (March 2025). The latest entry is from April 2026 but is a GitHub-profile scraping artifact, not a release. Half the feed is GitHub user-profile pages ('Sorry, something went wrong') that landed instead of release content.
What is Skedda?
Skedda keeps widening from desk booking toward full workplace operations.
Skedda is a workplace booking platform steadily absorbing the operations work around hybrid offices — visitor management, facilities issue reporting, presence search, and now on-tablet room control. This batch mixes one capability-surface expansion (walk-up tablet terminals) with a stack of booking-flow refinements: equipment add-ons, day-scoped priority windows, and deeper Microsoft sync. The product is no longer just 'reserve a desk'; it is accreting the operational layer that sits on top of the booking.
Excalidraw vs Skedda: editorial side-by-side
Excalidraw
1.3COLLAB
Excalidraw library cadence is glacial — v0.18 in March 2025, then silence; feed is mostly GitHub-profile noise.
◆ Current state
The captured changelog tracks the npm library at github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw, not the hosted app at excalidraw.com. The library has shipped four substantive releases over two-and-a-half years: v0.16.1 (Sep 2023), v0.17.0 (Nov 2023), v0.17.3 (Feb 2024), and v0.18.0 (March 2025). The latest entry is from April 2026 but is a GitHub-profile scraping artifact, not a release. Half the feed is GitHub user-profile pages ('Sorry, something went wrong') that landed instead of release content.
◆ Where it's heading
v0.18.0 was the high-water release — command palette, multiplayer undo/redo, editable element stats, text wrapping, and laser pointer. Since then the library has been quiet for over a year while the hosted app at excalidraw.com presumably continued to evolve through unversioned deploys. This pattern suggests the team has shifted investment toward the SaaS product and integrations, with the open-source library treated as a stable embedding target rather than the frontier of feature work.
◆ Prediction
The library will likely see another minor release rather than going dormant — there is too much downstream embedding (Notion, Obsidian, etc.) for it to fully fall behind the SaaS app — but expect months between releases, not weeks. The feed-source issue is fixable: the crawler should target the GitHub Releases API or RSS, not the HTML release pages and contributor profiles that produce the current noise.
Skedda
6.3COLLAB
Skedda keeps widening from desk booking toward full workplace operations.
◆ Current state
Skedda is a workplace booking platform steadily absorbing the operations work around hybrid offices — visitor management, facilities issue reporting, presence search, and now on-tablet room control. This batch mixes one capability-surface expansion (walk-up tablet terminals) with a stack of booking-flow refinements: equipment add-ons, day-scoped priority windows, and deeper Microsoft sync. The product is no longer just 'reserve a desk'; it is accreting the operational layer that sits on top of the booking.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is to turn every touchpoint — map, tablet, Outlook, visitor kiosk — into a Skedda surface, cutting the need to open the web app at all. Walk-up tablet booking and two-way Microsoft approval sync both attack that friction from opposite ends. The visitor, check-in, insights, and issue-reporting work points at Skedda owning the physical-presence layer, not just the reservation.
◆ Prediction
Next likely move is extending the tablet terminal further — room-status display, wayfinding, or walk-up usage analytics — building on the check-in and Insights data Skedda has already shipped.
Alternatives to Excalidraw and Skedda
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 Skedda.
SiYuan
SiYuan's 3.7.0 turns the note-taker into a scriptable, extensible platform
Anytype
Anytype's 0.55 cycle is a steady grind on chat, with code blocks the headline
Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is methodically migrating off Meteor DDP toward a REST core
Front
Front is rebuilding the shared inbox around AI agents and omnichannel reach.
Claromentis
Claromentis's feed is secure-AI and compliance thought-leadership, not a release log.
See all Excalidraw alternatives → · See all Skedda alternatives →
Recent activity from Excalidraw and Skedda
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 5d agoSkeddaTablet Room Actions ⚡
- 11d agoSkeddaBooking Add-Ons Now Available
- 12d agoSkeddaInvite multiple visitors at once with CSV import
- 24d agoSkeddaPriority Booking Rules
- 25d agoSkeddaBooking Approval rules now work with Microsoft two-way sync
- 1mo agoSkeddaIssue Reporting
- 2mo agoExcalidrawGitHub profile scrape (feed artifact, not a release)
- 1y agoExcalidrawv0.18.0 (2025-03-11) ⚡
- 1y agoExcalidrawGitHub profile error page (feed artifact)
- 1y agoExcalidrawv0.18.0 (duplicate feed entry)
- 2y agoExcalidrawv0.17.3 (2024-02-09)
- 2y agoExcalidrawv0.17.3 (2024-02-09)
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Excalidraw and Skedda?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Skedda is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 1.3), 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 Skedda?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Skedda is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 1.3), 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 Skedda?
Top Skedda alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Skedda alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/skedda for the full list with editorial commentary on each.