DIAGRAMMING
draw.io is open source and can run entirely offline or on your own infrastructure — sovereignty is not the difference here. The difference is the working model: draw.io produces diagram files you park in Drive, Confluence or Git; Polybase Canvases are live shared spaces inside the workspace where your team already talks and plans.
Polybase Canvases are infinite, shared spaces that live inside your workspace channels. Several people edit at once with live cursors and presence; you can follow a presenter, discuss an element in the channel thread, and convert sticky notes into tracked Kanban tasks. Canvases also import draw.io files, so existing diagrams come along. The canvas is part of the project, not a file attached to it.
draw.io (diagrams.net) is a free, open-source diagram editor with real depth: large shape libraries for flowcharts, UML, network and cloud architecture diagrams, Visio (VSDX) import, and offline editing in the browser. It is genuinely excellent at producing precise diagram files. The catch is the word 'files' — diagrams are saved to Drive, Confluence or a Git repo, edited mostly by one person at a time, and live apart from the conversations and work they describe.
Review how Polybase and draw.io approach the work your team needs to do.
Based on publicly available information about draw.io as of August 2026. Products evolve — plans and features may have changed; please verify details with the vendor. Spotted something out of date? Let us know at [email protected].
A practical sequence for planning the change, moving the useful material and introducing the new workspace.
Go through your draw.io files and split them in two: finished reference diagrams (architecture docs, network maps) and living canvases your team actually works on together (planning canvases, system sketches under discussion). Only the second group benefits from moving.
Polybase Canvases import draw.io files directly, so active diagrams don't need to be redrawn. Bring the living canvases into the channels where the related project work happens.
Create or use the Polybase channel for each project and open its canvas there. The diagram now sits beside the chat where it gets discussed, the tasks it produces, and the docs that explain it — instead of a link pasted into three different tools.
For design discussions and planning sessions, work on the canvas together: live cursors, presence, follow mode and a call in the same channel. Sticky notes from the session convert to tracked Kanban tasks in one click.
If parts of your team produce formal UML or network diagrams, they can keep using draw.io for that — Canvases import the files whenever a diagram needs to move into a collaborative context. This is a workflow upgrade, not a forced replacement.
The additional workspace capabilities to consider when comparing Polybase with draw.io.
draw.io is primarily built around one person editing a file. Polybase Canvases are built for several people on the same canvas at once — live cursors, presence, and follow/'spotlight me' for guided walkthroughs.
A draw.io diagram is a file in Drive or Confluence; the discussion about it happens somewhere else. A Polybase canvas lives inside the channel, so the drawing and the conversation about it share one place.
Diagrams describe work; they don't track it. On a Polybase canvas, sticky notes and elements convert into Kanban tasks with assignees and due dates — the planning canvas feeds the actual plan.
File-based workflows often leave draw.io diagrams scattered across Drive folders, Confluence pages and Git repos, each with its own copy and its own staleness. Canvases are part of the workspace: one canvas per project, versioned, found where the project lives.
Reviewing a diagram over a call usually means screen-sharing a static file. In Polybase, start the call in the channel and edit the canvas together while you talk — everyone can point, move and draw.
Common questions about switching from draw.io to Polybase.
Miro is a standalone whiteboard. Polybase canvases live next to your chat, tasks and docs in the same workspace.
See the comparisonFigJam is Figma's whiteboard, US cloud only. Polybase puts canvases next to chat, tasks and docs — self-hostable.
See the comparisonWorkshop whiteboards inside the team workspace — retro canvases live next to chat, tasks and docs, with EU cloud or self-host.
See the comparison