30+ Online Drawing Tools

Here are some great online drawing tools for those who like to draw and work online at the same time. Way back in 2006, online drawing tools were few and far between, especially anything with collaborative functionality for multi-user action. Back then, the choices were basically Groupboard and LiTha-Paint. But the scene is much improved, with some amazing single- and multi-user drawing tools available for getting creative and having fun. Here’s a round-up of our favorites..

Single-user drawing & painting tools

Mr. Doob’s Harmony

Easily our favorite single-user drawing tool, Mr. Doob’s Harmony makes it fun and easy to express your creativity with some pretty amazing brushes. I’ve seen similar (if not identical) drawing filters/effects used on the Motorola Xoom to achieve striking results.

• Pros: simple and elegant with some great effects
• Cons: perhaps too simple, only black-&-white
• Unique Feature: Longfur brush FTW!

ptzonline Harmony

Just like Mr. Doob’s Harmony but with some much-needed tools like color, brush size, and opacity, ptzonline’s Harmony is my new favorite online drawing tool :) Definitely fun and rewarding tool for solo art sessions.

• Pros: Just like Mr. Doob’s but with more features and tools
• Cons: weird “error” warnings if you resize the screen
• Unique Features: History/Undo, Save, Publish, and more

Slimber

Pretty nice and simple online drawing tool. Reminds me a lot of an online version of the original MS Paint program. Not that it sucks, it’s actually pretty great for what it is: a basic yet useful tool for drawing online.

• Pros: custom canvas size (up to 800×800), zoom function, toggle “smoothing” feature
• Cons: better than MS Paint, but still limited, max canvas size too small
• Unique Feature: clean minimal design, pencil tool with automatic fill (makes cool abstract designs)

Mudcube Sketchpad

Mudcube’s Sketchpad is an excellent drawing tool that gives users full-control over color, brush-size, and just about everything else. It’s super-well polished and brings tasty treats like Patterns, Swatches, History, and a healthy set of tools. Recommended with our highest rating for online drawing tools.

• Pros: feels like Photoshop, sweet interface, deluxe color-picker & brush-tuning, customizable/movable menu palettes, diverse set of tools
• Cons: single-user sessions only, small canvas area
• Unique Feature: spirograph brush, paint with “light”, and sleek UI

Queeky

Even more like Photoshop than Mudcube’s Sketchpad, Queeky delivers a wealth of useful drawing tools, including filters, adjustments, customizable menus, and even layers to make it all good. Queeky is a remarkable drawing tool that’s a pleasure to use for solo-drawing expeditions.

• Pros: like having Photoshop online, layers, super-snazzy UI
• Cons: single-user only, limited canvas size (1000×1000 max), huge advertisement
• Unique Feature: includes a procedural brush tool with options (nice!)

SUMO Paint

Another incredible Photoshop-esque online-drawing tool, SUMO Paint feels like a slick iPad app with all the trimmings and features you could ever hope for.. one of the best online drawing/painting/creative tools currently available. SUMO Paint is definitely one of our favorites for online creativity. Also available in app flavor :)

• Pros: online version of Photoshop, many features, fully customizable UI
• Cons: no complaints, but would be better with multi-user functionality
• Unique Feature: must try the “symmetry brush” – so much fun!

Flame Painter

Even more fun than Mr. Doob’s drawing tool, Flame Painter makes it easy (and addictive) to create beautiful light-based imagery using a variety of “fire” effects, colors, and more. It’s super fun to create your own “fire” art, but the canvas-size is too small for serious design work.

• Pros: easy to create beautiful imagery
• Cons: sort of a one-trick pony, but with plenty of options
• Unique Feature: fire-based graphics in the comfort of your browser

The same dude who made Flame Painter also makes Fields, Fluid, and much more. With Fields, you get to set the initial coordinates of the fields, and then watch the script slowly transform this:

..into this (and beyond):

The Fluid painting makes it fun to splash and mix paint around on a swirling liquid canvas:

With the default settings it’s difficult to get any crisp results, but after some experimentation Fluid is like virtual watercolor or something. Wild.

Multi-user drawing tools

Open Studio

This is one of my favorites. The results are usually pretty abstract-looking, but you can get some great patterns and visual effects by experimenting with the settings. Don’t let the simplicity fool you — this one is worth checking out.

• Pros: nice interface, simple controls, fun to use
• Cons: small drawing board, chat window not visible at all times, mysterious “play” button
• Unique feature: brush tools with texture!

A Web Whiteboard

This drawing tool is pretty basic, just pick a brush size and color and go to town. We had fun with this one, but it’s probably too simple for more than casual sketching.

• Pros: full-width drawing area
• Cons: only 7 colors (no white!), only one drawing tool, no chat
• Unique feature: very dumbed down, but stylish and uncluttered

Update: another one bites the dust. “A Web Whiteboard” is no longer in service. RIP.

coSketch.com

coSketch.com provides some great features to go along with its basic selection of drawing tools. While sketching, multiple users can chat, add stamps and backgrounds, and even add and draw on a custom Google Map for any zip code. There’s even a multi-user History feature and image uploader.

• Pros: features include chat, maps, import, history, and custom stamps
• Cons: limited to 3 brush sizes, small board size, menus tedious to browse
• Unique features: large set of custom stamps, “snap-line” feature, undo history states, selective board clearing

Groupboard

Last but not least, Groupboard is one of the originals and has been online longer than any others. It’s pretty simple and basic, but that’s also part of the charm.. if you want to know what multi-user online drawing tools were like back in 2002, Groupboard is it.

• Pros: Java or Ajax versions, chat box, free use (or register for static board)
• Cons: limited canvas size
• Unique features: longest running online drawing tool

Honorable mentions

Here are some more online drawing and painting tools for your enjoyment.

Update: I’ve been loosely following online drawing tools for 20 years. The one big lesson learned is that they come and go ALL the time. One minute a drawing tool exists, then suddenly — POOF — it disappears forever into the void. For example, in the following original list of online drawing tools, more than half are no longer available. Sad emoji face. Oh well life goes on.

• Favicon Icon Drawing Program
• iSketch
• Sketch Swap
• Scribbler (404 link removed 2023/04/05)
• SwarmSketch (404 link removed 2023/01/03)
• mikons (404 link removed 2022/02/18)
• Online Drawing Board (404 link removed 2021/09/27)
• Rate My Drawing (404 link removed 2017/03/20)
• Scriblink (404 link removed 2016/01/19)
• Scribble (404 link removed 2016/05/05)
• Artpad (404 link removed 2015/09/15)
• BRUSHster (404 link removed 2017/01/12)
• PaintBox (404 link removed 2017/01/12)

Bonus tools!

Four bonus links that aren’t exactly drawing or painting tools, but within the same general category of “online creative tools” and worth sharing here:

• Ultimate Flash Face — it’z fun 2 make faces
• Piknik — full-screen color-picker slash awesome
• Vector Splatter Drawing — or something.. simple but SO fun

Shouts out..

Props to Thane Champie for his help with the research for this article!

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Creative thinker. Passionate about free and open Web.