Developer Builds Free AI-Powered Whiteboard Tool as Miro Alternative in 30 Days

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A developer has built and publicly released Scrawl.ai, a free AI-powered collaborative whiteboard tool designed as a lightweight alternative to premium platforms like Miro. The tool targets developers, students, and system architects, allowing users to generate diagrams and flowcharts from plain-English prompts using Google Gemini or OpenAI APIs. The stack includes React.js, Node.js, and Supabase for authentication and cloud sync, with the backend acting as a secure proxy to prevent API key exposure and abuse. One of the core technical challenges was engineering prompts that forced large language models to output structurally valid canvas JSON, which the backend validates before streaming to the frontend. The project was built with zero budget in 30 days and is currently live at scrawldraw.vercel.app, with source code available on GitHub.

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