NoemaBoard

Free, open-source visual boards for teams. Collect notes, images, links, to-dos and ideas on an endless canvas, organise them with columns and boards inside boards, and work on them together in real time. No accounts, no subscriptions, no card limits, and no server you have to pay for.

NoemaBoard is an independent open-source project inspired by visual board tools such as Milanote. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Milanote or its makers.

Try it: https://noemaboard.app · Download: latest release · Found a problem? Tell us on Discord or open an issue

---

What you can do

• Endless canvas. Pan and zoom freely. Snap-to-grid, multi-select, marquee selection, copy and paste between boards, duplicate, undo and redo.
• Cards:
  • Notes with rich text, headings, lists and checklists.
  • To-do lists with progress.
  • Links with previews, including YouTube, Vimeo and Spotify embeds.
  • Images with captions and a lightbox.
  • Files of any type, with audio and video players.
  • Colour swatches, sketches (freehand drawing), documents (long-form writing) and comment threads.
• Structure. Columns to stack cards, boards inside boards (with breadcrumbs), and lines and arrows with labels to connect cards.
• Templates. Start boards from project plan, weekly planner, brainstorm, moodboard, meeting notes, retrospective and storyboard templates.
• Colours. Card colours, board icons and colours, and light and dark mode.
• Works on touch screens. Pan with one finger, pinch to zoom, double-tap to add a note.
• Real-time collaboration:
  • Everyone sees edits instantly, including typing in the same note.
  • Live cursors, who-is-editing outlines, and an avatar list of who is on the board.
• Your data:
  • Trash with restore: deleted cards are kept for 90 days.
  • Search across boards.
  • Export to Markdown or plain text, plus full backups (.noema files) you can import again.
  • Presentation mode.

How collaboration works

Most collaboration apps keep everything on the company's servers, which is why they charge monthly fees. NoemaBoard works differently:

1. Every board lives on the devices of the people who use it. Your boards are saved on your computer, so the app works offline too.
2. Teammates' apps talk to each other directly, over an encrypted peer-to-peer connection (WebRTC, the same technology video-call apps use).
   • To find each other, the apps briefly use free public "matchmaking" services (Nostr relays and WebTorrent trackers).
   • These services only see an anonymous, encrypted handshake, never your content.
3. A small sync service keeps an encrypted copy of shared boards, so changes arrive even when nobody else is online. Boards are encrypted on your device before they travel, so the sync service can't read them. The public NoemaBoard (the web app and the downloads) includes one that runs on a free hosting plan.
4. Sharing is a link. Click Share → Copy invite link and send it to your team.
   • Anyone with the link can open and edit that board and the boards inside it.
   • The secret key is in the part of the link after #, which browsers never send to any server.

Things to know

• Shared boards stay available. In the web app and the downloads, your changes are saved on your device and reach the sync service as soon as you're online. Teammates get them the next time they open the board, even if you're offline by then.
  • If the sync service's free daily allowance is ever used up, it pauses until the next day. Boards keep working, and devices keep syncing directly.
  • Running your own copy without a sync service? Then someone who has the board must be online for changes to reach others. Leave the desktop app running on one or two computers (Settings → Desktop → Keep boards online when the window is closed), or set up your own sync server. It is free to self-host and can't read your boards either.
• A few strict networks block direct connections. Some company networks and mobile hotspots are like this.
  • Shared boards still sync live through the sync service there, cursors included. If the app warns that some teammates can't connect directly, you can also add a free TURN server in Settings → Network.
• Access works like a key. Anyone with the invite link can edit.
  • To remove someone, copy the content into a new board and share the new link.
  • People keep the copies already on their own devices.
• Many people at once. Large teams can share boards. Directly between devices, a single board works best with up to about 25–30 people editing at the same moment. The sync service (built into the public app, or your own sync server) lifts this limit.

Getting started with your team

1. Install the desktop app (Windows, macOS or Linux) from the Releases page, or use the web version at https://noemaboard.app/app/.
   • Windows may warn about an "unrecognised app". Click More info → Run anyway: the app isn't code-signed yet.
   • macOS: open the app once, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.
2. On first launch, choose the name and colour your teammates will see.
3. Click Create a board, add some cards, then click Share → Copy invite link.
4. Send the link to your teammates. They open it in their browser or in the desktop app (or paste it into Home → Join a board), and the board appears for them.
5. Work together. You'll see each other's cursors and edits live.

Publish your own copy (free)

GitHub builds and hosts the downloads for free. The web app and its encrypted sync service run on Cloudflare's free plan. You only do this once:

1. Create a free account at github.com.

2. Create a new public repository (for example noemaboard) and upload this folder to it. GitHub Desktop is the easiest way.

3. Host the web app together with its sync service on Cloudflare's free plan: follow docs/HOSTING.md (npm run deploy:cloudflare). Then add two repository variables (Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → Variables), so installers built by GitHub link to your web app and use your sync service:

   • PUBLIC_URL: https://app.<your-subdomain>.workers.dev/app/
   • DEFAULT_RELAY: https://app.<your-subdomain>.workers.dev/relay (the full address, not same-origin)

   Invite links then open in any browser, so teammates can join without installing anything.

4. To build installers, create a tag such as v0.1.0 (in GitHub: Releases → Draft a new release → Choose a tag → v0.1.0 → Publish). GitHub Actions then builds:

   • the Windows installer and portable .exe
   • macOS .dmg files (Intel and Apple Silicon)
   • Linux AppImage and .deb packages

   They are attached to that release. The version in package.json must match the tag (0.1.0 for v0.1.0).

5. Optional: put your repository address in src/config.ts (REPO_URL) and package.json (homepage). The Help menu and About screen then link to it.

Develop

Requirements: Node.js 24 LTS (or newer) and npm.

npm install

Command	What it does
npm run dev	Web app with hot reload at http://localhost:5173
npm run dev:desktop	Desktop app in development mode
npm test	Unit tests (Vitest)
npm run typecheck	TypeScript checks for the web app and the desktop shell
npm run build:web	Production web build in dist/
npm run dist:win	Windows installer and portable .exe in release/

Tip: open http://localhost:5173/?profile=alice and http://localhost:5173/?profile=bob in two tabs to simulate two people. Each profile has its own name and storage and syncs peer-to-peer like real teammates.

Further reading:

• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md: how the app, data model and sync fit together.
• src/collab/sync/README.md: the peer-to-peer protocol.
• docs/RELAY.md: the optional sync server.
• electron/README.md: the desktop shell, packaging and security model.

Project layout

src/model        board data model (Yjs documents, cards, soft-delete trash)
src/board        canvas: pan/zoom, selection, drag & drop, lines, shortcuts
src/cards        card types (text, media, structure, creative)
src/editor       rich-text editing (TipTap)
src/collab       local storage, invite links, presence, peer-to-peer sync, optional relay client
src/ui           header, toolbar, menus, dialogs, export/backup, search
electron         desktop app shell
relay            optional self-hosted sync server (Node.js, Docker, Cloudflare Workers)

Privacy & security

• No accounts, no tracking, no analytics.
• Board content travels directly between your team's devices over encrypted (DTLS) WebRTC connections.
• In the public app (the hosted web app and the release downloads), shared boards also sync through NoemaBoard's sync service, so changes arrive even when nobody else is online. Your device encrypts everything before sending it (AES-256-GCM, with a key that comes from the invite link), so the sync service only stores and passes on data it can't read. Like the matchmaking services, it does see your IP address, and how much encrypted data each board has and when it changes.
• Sharing a board also shares every board inside it. Home, and boards that aren't shared, stay on your device (unless you set your own sync server for a board in Share → Advanced).
• Matchmaking services see that someone is looking for peers under a random, derived room id, plus your IP address. Peers also see each other's IP addresses, as in any peer-to-peer app.
• Link previews are fetched only by the desktop app of the person who added the link, with protections against requests to private networks.

License

MIT: free to use, modify and share, including in commercial teams.