Freero
An original real-time collaborative whiteboard: an infinite canvas for teams to brainstorm, plan,
diagram and run workshops together.
What's in it
- Canvas — infinite pan/zoom, dot grid, minimap, snapping and alignment guides, multi-select,
resize/rotate, groups, lock, undo/redo, copy/paste across boards, drag-and-drop import.
- Content — sticky notes, 21 shapes, rich text, connectors (straight/elbow/curved, attached,
labelled), pen + highlighter + eraser, images, emoji and stamps, frames, task cards, mind maps, tags,
PDFs, video and audio that play on the board, and file cards for any other file.
- Collaboration — live sync, cursors and selections, avatars, follow a collaborator,
"bring everyone to me", emoji reactions, comment threads, owner/editor/commenter/viewer roles,
share by invite or link.
- Facilitation — voting sessions, a shared timer, presentation mode over frames.
- Templates & export — 180 original templates in 18 categories; export PNG/JPG/SVG, frames to PDF, copy as image.
- Dashboard — boards grid/list, search, filters, stars, live thumbnails, duplicate, sharing.
Run it
Requires Node 22+.
npm install
npm run dev # server on :4000 + web on :5173
Open http://localhost:5173 and log in with the seeded demo account
[email protected] / freero123 (development only), or sign up.
http://localhost:5173/board/local is an offline sandbox board that needs no server.
Production:
npm run build && npm start # serves the built web app and the marketing site (apps/site) on :4000
docker compose up --build -d # or the full stack: proxy, 2 app replicas, Postgres, Redis, MinIO, Mailpit on :8080
Deploying for real: docs/deployment.md · every setting:
docs/configuration.md · backups, monitoring, incidents:
docs/operations.md.
Configuration: PORT (default 4000), FREERO_DATA_DIR (default ./data — the built-in PGlite
database in data/pg + uploads), DATABASE_URL (use a real Postgres instead), DATABASE_POOL_MAX
(default 10). Had boards from before the move to Postgres? Stop the dev server and run
npm run db:import-sqlite once.
Develop
| Command | What it does |
|---|
npm run check | Architecture boundaries + typecheck + unit tests |
npm run verify | Real-session end-to-end check: real server, real Yjs WebSocket clients, roles, persistence |
npm run new:feature <name> -- … | Scaffold a feature folder (see ARCHITECTURE.md) |
node scripts/ui-shot.mjs --url … --out … | Drive the real UI in headless Chromium and screenshot it |
Freero follows the Dune method:
features are isolated folders discovered by reserved file names, every piece of state has one
writer, and forbidden dependencies fail npm run check with an error that names the supported
path. Read ARCHITECTURE.md before changing code.
Stack: React 18 + TypeScript + Vite, Yjs (CRDT) over WebSockets, Express + ws, PostgreSQL
(pg; PGlite for dev/tests), Playwright for UI verification.
License
MIT. Dependencies are kept to permissive licences (MIT, Apache-2.0, MPL-2.0); GPL, AGPL and
source-available projects are integrated at the protocol level only, never vendored.
