# Obsidian - Canvas vs Excalidraw ![[images/Obsidian-Canvas-vs-Excalidraw.webp]] [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pwmdKdE8n4) · 6:32 · Josh Plunkett · 2024-01-19 ## Outline ### 00:00 Canvas vs Excalidraw - Intro to an upcoming video series on Canvas and Excalidraw; this short video gives his conclusion first. - Canvas is Obsidian's native board for dragging notes around and making flowcharts. Excalidraw is a community plugin that does the same job but is more free-form, with more shapes, elements and control. - He has tried to convince himself to move to Canvas because it is built in, and went down a rabbit hole making Canvas match Excalidraw: differently shaped nodes, nodes linked to notes, freely dragged and resized images, and different kinds of joins between nodes. Out of the box Canvas lacks these. - Candy Canvas is a good way to add some of this, and there is another plugin that helps too. ![[images/Obsidian-Canvas-vs-Excalidraw-t0020.webp]] ### 02:05 Canvas is slow and clunky - He shows a real Canvas board from his game (asking viewers to ignore a player-made drawing) with shapes, pictures, callout boxes and CSS-resized elements. - Once set up, it lags badly: zooming and panning visibly grab and stutter, even though the board was made in a single day and isn't complex. He asks you to imagine it after a year. ![[images/Obsidian-Canvas-vs-Excalidraw-t0310.webp]] *The Canvas test board in his vault while he demonstrates the lag.* ### 03:34 Excalidraw as the better tool - His Excalidraw journey board, used for a year to track his campaign, zooms and pans instantly with no hesitation. - Verdict: a clear performance winner, and it isn't Canvas. Canvas performance needs polish, and he shouldn't have to hack in different shapes since flowcharting shapes are a standard. - Canvas feels too controlling with images; Excalidraw is free-form, simple and quick. ![[images/Obsidian-Canvas-vs-Excalidraw-t0355.webp]] ### 05:00 Future tutorial plans - The series will still cover Canvas: adding shapes, changing its CSS, and a right-click menu for inserting shapes. - It then goes deeper into Excalidraw, including his Visual Tutorial work: Excalidraw maps he can publish with clickable elements. - Recommendation: Excalidraw. ![[images/Obsidian-Canvas-vs-Excalidraw-t0555.webp]] *His Excalidraw "Tutorial Flowchart" with a fantasy map and clickable tutorial steps.* ## Things mentioned ### Obsidian features, plugins and tools - **Canvas**: Obsidian's built-in, free whiteboard for notes and flowcharts. - **Excalidraw** (community plugin, free): free-form drawing and diagramming in Obsidian, his recommendation. - **Candy Canvas**: a way to add shaped nodes and extra styling to Canvas. - Custom **CSS snippets** for resizing Canvas elements and adding shapes. - **Meta Bind** (canary build visible in his status bar). - Publishing Excalidraw maps with clickable links. ### Websites and options - [Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials](https://obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/), free. - [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/), free. - [Josh Plunkett's Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/JPlunkett), paid, includes the Foundation Vault. ### TTRPG content visible - His D&D 5e vault with Tyranny of Dragons, Rise of Tiamat and Curse of Strahd folders, and a Cult of the Dragon leaders board. ## Bios - **Josh Plunkett**: Game master and creator of Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials, who makes free videos on running tabletop RPGs in Obsidian and offers a prebuilt vault to Patreon supporters.