Google introduced final yr that help for Jamboard gadgets and apps will finish as of October 1, 2024, with entry to the app and all Jamboard knowledge ending on the finish of 2024. Google Jamboard delivers easy-to-use collaborative drawing capabilities to individuals who use Google Workspace by means of a mixture of Jamboard apps and a Jamboard gadget. The Jamboard apps can be utilized with out shopping for a Jamboard gadget and work on the net, iOS, iPadOS and Android gadgets and in Google Meet.
People who use Jamboard gadgets or apps might want to search options. For {hardware} choices, Google’s announcement beneficial both the Series One Board 65 (priced round $9,000) or the Series One Desk 27 (priced round $2,000), each by Avocor. Google introduced that three software program options — FigJam by Figma, Lucidspark by Lucid Software and Miro — can be built-in to work with Series One gadgets, with import choices for Jamboard content material accessible by March 2024.
Top Jamboard opponents and options: Comparison desk
People who use the Jamboard apps, unbiased of the Jamboard gadget, might take into account a variety of software program options. The following six choices all help visible collaboration and may function appropriate replacements for Jamboard.
FigJam by Figma: Best for pleasant design
Figma, a collaborative interface design software firm, launched FigJam (Figure A) in 2021. FigJam helps drawing instruments, shapes, stickers, notes, textual content, connectors and stamps, together with part and desk administration options. You can also import photographs or insert hyperlinks to net assets, together with shared Google Drive recordsdata. Cursor chat permits an ephemeral dialog with collaborators that disappears if you exit the mode, whereas the remark system permits standard feedback on content material wherever on the board. FigJam presents a number of extra options than Jamboard, delivered with a cleanly designed person interface, as you may count on.
Figma’s possession deserves point out since Adobe, a artistic content material big, introduced an settlement to accumulate Figma in September 2022; nevertheless, the deal was terminated in December 2023. While possession doesn’t instantly have an effect on product options, the truth that Figma as soon as sought to merge with a bigger firm might sign a long run potential for acquisition.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| FigJam app is on the market on the net (and Google Workspace Marketplace) and iPad. |
No devoted FigJam iPhone or Android app. |
| Clean design. | No offline mode. |
| More options than Google Jamboard. | |
| Free version is on the market to college students and educators. |
Pricing
Figma presents 4 FigJam pricing plans: Starter, Professional, Organization and Enterprise.
- Starter, which is free and allows you to create as much as three Figma and three FigJam recordsdata, with limitless private recordsdata and limitless collaborators, amongst different options.
- Professional, $3 per editor/month billed yearly ($36/yr per person), contains all Starter options and provides limitless FigJam recordsdata, open periods, sharing permissions, workforce libraries, voting and extra. Students and educators might entry this version totally free.
- Organization, $60 per editor per yr, contains all Profesional options plus organization-wide libraries, centralized content material administration, unified admin and billing choices, and extra.
- Enterprise, $60 per editor per yr, contains all Organization options, plus devoted workspaces, superior design programs and visitor entry controls, together with many different person administration and safety features.
Miro: Best for enterprise integrations
Miro (Figure B), previously referred to as RealtimeBoard, offers a sturdy set of options all centered round visible collaboration. Standard drawing instruments can be found to attract, add shapes (together with flowchart and Unified Modeling Language symbols), sticky notes and textual content, together with many templates. Miro additionally helps you to add an enormous number of content material sorts, together with photographs, spreadsheets, tables, kanban, code blocks, charts, diagrams and extra. Timer, voting, chat, video chat and notes allow you to collaborate with others in varied methods in your board content material.
Miro helps you to current your board to different individuals a number of methods. The Talktrack characteristic helps you to file a video along with your webcam (inset in a circle on the display) as you navigate and focus on the board. The ensuing video is saved and could also be shared. Alternatively, chances are you’ll current both your entire board, which hides many menus to emphasise your content material or current frames, which lets you outline and navigate chosen sections of content material so as. Business and Enterprise editions supply entry to facilitation instruments to help actions comparable to voting and including sticky notes or reactions.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Miro app is on the market on the net (and Google Workspace Marketplace), macOS, Windows, iPhone, iPad and Android. |
No offline mode. |
| Very full-featured. | |
| Diverse forms of content material might be added. | |
| Useful number of presentation choices. |
Pricing
Miro presents 4 pricing plans for skilled use: Free, Starter, Business and Enterprise.
- Free, which incorporates one workspace with three editable boards, 5 Talktracks, entry to templates and help for integrations.
- Starter, $96 per member per yr paid yearly. This plan provides limitless boards, high-resolution exports, collaboration with limitless guests on public boards, limitless Talktracks, limitless challenge folders, Private Mode sticky notes, model historical past, assembly options (e.g., timers, voting and video chat) and personal boards.
- Business, $192 per member per yr paid yearly. This plan contains all Starter options, plus limitless boards for each workforce and consumer, safe collaboration with limitless friends on personal and workforce boards, superior form entry, enhanced assembly options (e.g., breakouts and voting) and extra.
- Enterprise, which requires contacting gross sales for pricing. This plan contains all Business options plus added safety, compliance, administration and reporting capabilities, together with premium help.
Students, educators and academic establishments might entry totally different Miro pricing plans.
- Student accounts are free and help as much as 10 workforce members, availability for 2 years, limitless boards, one workspace with limitless tasks, limitless exterior guests, amongst different options.
- Educator accounts are free endlessly and help all pupil options, plus help for as much as 100 workforce members, together with entry to coaching and discussion board assets.
- Institution accounts can be found at a 50% low cost from normal pricing and embrace all pupil and educator options, plus extra administrative and person administration options, together with help.
SEE: How to make use of Miro as your whiteboard in a digital assembly
Lucidspark by Lucid Software: Best for experimental AI
Lucidspark (Figure C) offers a board on which you’ll draw and add photographs, shapes, sticky notes, textual content and contours. The feedback and process system lets board collaborators not solely touch upon particular board content material but additionally assign work to a colleague. To support rationalization, chances are you’ll outline body areas and designate paths, in order to indicate sections of the board in sequence. Visual actions templates help varied forms of sorting, score and board engagement, together with extra timer and voting instruments.
Lucidspark additionally presents menu customization and an experimental AI characteristic. Customize the left-side on-screen menu with a Tool pinning characteristic to indicate solely the choices you choose. For instance, when you not often want Jira integration, chances are you’ll unpin that possibility and it’ll not show on-screen, though you should still entry it from the More menu. And a Collaborative AI possibility generates concepts from an entered immediate. For instance, a immediate of “Best features of Lucidspark” created a 3×3 set of sticky notes, every crammed with two or three phrases describing options comparable to “Integrated Video Chat,” “Seamless Integrations” and “Presentation mode.”
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Lucidspark app is on the market on the net (and Google Workspace Marketplace) and Android. | Team or Enterprise version accounts are required to make use of cell app on iOS or iPadOS. |
| Customizable menu for quick entry to most-used choices. | No offline mode. |
| Collaborative AI to generate concepts. | |
| Significant variety of supported app integrations. |
Pricing
There are 4 Lucidspark plans: Free, Individual, Team and Enterprise.
- Free, which incorporates three editable boards, limitless shapes, drawing, emoji reactions, commenting, presentation mode, primary visible actions to assemble suggestions and combination outcomes, amongst different options.
- Individual, $7.95 per person per 30 days billed yearly ($95.40/yearly per person). This plan provides limitless editable boards, 1 GB of storage, premium visible actions to assemble suggestions and combination outcomes, and extra.
- Team, three workforce person licenses for $27 per 30 days billed yearly ($324/yearly for the three licenses, which is $108/person per yr). This plan provides superior controls for visible actions, chat, revision historical past and versioning, voting, a timer and facilitator instruments, amongst different options.
- Enterprise licenses require contacting gross sales. This plan presents entry to Lucidchart for diagramming and provides Team Spaces, many app integrations and entry to varied person administration and safety features.
Educators might entry a variant of the Team plan totally free; this offers academics and college students entry to the cell app and plenty of Team options at no cost. An elective improve to a paid workforce plan for schooling provides centralized account administration, audit logs and entry to precedence help.
Microsoft Whiteboard: Best totally free use
Microsoft Whiteboard (Figure D) is free, but it surely does require a Microsoft account to view, create or collaborate on boards; due to this fact, this feature might take advantage of sense for people or organizations who already use different Microsoft providers, comparable to Microsoft 365.
Microsoft Whiteboard presents a typical set of instruments that features a pen, highlighter, ruler, notes, emoji-style reactions, textual content and shapes. You can also add photographs to a board. Plus, Microsoft Whiteboard presents numerous templates for all types of brainstorming, planning, assembly and studying actions. You might customise the board background shade and choose from a set of 9 background grid designs. And there’s an included timer. Share the hyperlink to present collaborators entry to all of those instruments, too.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Whiteboard is on the market on the net, iPhone, iPad and Android, in addition to for Microsoft Surface Hub and Microsoft Teams Rooms gadgets. |
Not accessible within the Google Workspace Marketplace. |
| Free. | Must check in with a Microsoft account. |
| Significant number of templates for enterprise makes use of, comparable to brainstorming, challenge planning and assembly actions. |
No offline mode. |
| Focused set of instruments. |
Pricing
Microsoft Whiteboard is free, though you should check in with a Microsoft account to make use of it. A Microsoft account could also be obtained totally free.
Zoom Whiteboard: Best for Zoom conferences
The Zoom conferencing platform presents Zoom Whiteboard (Figure E), which can be used both with an online assembly or individually. For anybody with an current Zoom account, Zoom Whiteboard deserves consideration.
Zoom Whiteboard presents numerous templates for brainstorming, diagramming, assembly, schooling or leisure; or, chances are you’ll merely create a brand new clean board. The system contains instruments comparable to pens, shapes, traces, textual content, sticky notes and feedback. You might add photographs and PDFs to your board or add a thoughts map, desk, kanban board or playing cards. In specific, playing cards allow you to assign duties and monitor each dates and process standing. Zoom boards additionally allow you to create a number of pages. As a presentation support, chances are you’ll add frames round your board content material, then manage and current the frames in sequence. The timer and laser pointer could also be helpful throughout displays or collaborations as properly.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Available as a part of Zoom on the net (and Google Workspace Marketplace), macOS, Windows, Linux, iPhone, iPad and Android. | Zoom Whiteboard presents secondary performance to net conferences. |
| Large variety of templates for enterprise makes use of, comparable to brainstorming and diagramming. | No offline mode |
| Support for a number of pages inside a board. | |
| Frames to order presentation sequence. |
Pricing
Three Zoom Whiteboard editions can be found: Whiteboard Basic, Whiteboard and Whiteboard Plus.
- Whiteboard Basic, which is included with Zoom One Basic and Zoom One Pro, contains three concurrent editable boards owned and 25 MB of storage, together with all core drawing, annotation, picture and collaboration options.
- Whiteboard, $24.90 per person per yr, and could also be added to both the Zoom One Basic or Zoom One Pro plan. This plan provides limitless concurrent editable boards owned and 1 GB of storage, together with model historical past and short-term lock options plus shared folders and private labels.
- Whiteboard Plus, $70 per person per yr and could also be added to both Zoom One Basic or Zoom One Pro plans, provides limitless storage and help for private and organizational templates. Also, Zoom Whiteboard Plus is included as a part of Zoom Rooms plans.
SEE: How to make use of the brand new Zoom Whiteboard for hybrid conferences
Apple Freeform: Best for Apple gadget customers
Freeform (Figure F), a visible collaboration device by Apple, is included with present gadgets that run iOS, iPadOS and macOS. The app is free, though solely individuals who use Apple gadgets might use it. For instance, Freeform can be a superb possibility for a classroom the place a trainer and college students all use iPadOS or macOS gadgets, however wouldn’t be appropriate for a scenario the place collaborators may use Windows, ChromeOS or Android gadgets.
Freeform presents quite a few writing and drawing types, together with a pen, pencil, highlighter, crayon, ink and watercolor choices. On gadgets that help an Apple pencil, chances are you’ll leverage the system’s built-in handwriting recognition system, Scribble, to transform pencil strokes into textual content. Freeform helps you to add notes, hyperlinks, shapes and typed textual content. You might use a digicam to seize a photograph or add a picture, video, audio file or PDF to a board. Freeform works offline, so you need to use it to seize concepts virtually wherever. Freeform permits as much as 100 individuals to collaborate on a board, and it could be used with Messages or FaceTime.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Available on present iPhone, iPad and macOS gadgets. | Available solely on Apple gadgets. |
| Can create and work offline. | |
| Works properly with Apple Pencil, Messages and FaceTime. | |
| Wider vary of drawing device types (e.g., watercolor, ink and crayon) in comparison with most of the different options on this article. |
Pricing
Freeform is on the market as one of many default apps on all trendy Apple gadgets, together with iPhone, iPad and macOS programs.
More Jamboard options to contemplate
Beyond the six providers coated above, many different collaborative drawing choices exist. Google suggests Google Drawings or Google Slides may meet some wants. Other providers which will benefit consideration embrace Canva Whiteboard, Conceptboard, Excalidraw, Explain Everything, Inko, Pear Deck, Pencil Spaces, Sketchboard or Whiteboard.chat.
Methodology
The first three providers — FigJam by Figma, Miro and Lucidspark by Lucid Software — are included as a result of Google particularly recommends these as options to Google Jamboard. All three will supply some kind of import device to mean you can protect current Jamboard content material.
The remaining three choices had been chosen due to the widespread use of Microsoft, Zoom and Apple instruments within the schooling neighborhood — a major person of Jamboard apps. If you and your collaborators use Apple {hardware}, Freeform is smart as an alternative choice to Jamboard. If you and your collaborators have current Microsoft or Zoom accounts, then both of these respective providers may serve you properly.
The writer signed and actively examined every of the providers for testing functions, and has actively used and coated Google Jamboard since its inception. Each of the screenshots was taken throughout this experimentation. We depend on vendor web sites for pricing.