# silt vs tldraw

> tldraw is the best canvas engine to build on. silt is the finished canvas for your team.

- canonical: https://silt.app/compare/silt-vs-tldraw
- compared with: tldraw (https://tldraw.dev)
- last updated: 2026-07-20

tldraw is superb at what it is: a feature-complete infinite-canvas sdk for react, with multiplayer via tldraw/sync and thoughtful ai starter kits (agent, workflow, chat). if you are a developer building your own canvas app, it is the best foundation you can start from.

silt is not an sdk, it is the product. you do not wire up shapes, bindings, and a sync backend; you open a canvas and your team thinks on it with ai already inside. integrations, node and global agents, voice, a decision trail, an mcp bridge to your ide, all shipped. tldraw gives engineers a canvas to build; silt gives teams a canvas to decide on.

## feature comparison

| | silt | tldraw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| what it is | a product your team uses | an sdk developers build with |
| time to value | open a canvas and start | build the app first |
| ai out of the box | node + global agents, integrations, mcp, all shipped | starter kits you implement yourself |
| integrations | slack, linear, notion, attio via plugins | you build them |
| multiplayer | built in (yjs + hocuspocus), managed | tldraw/sync, self-hosted or your infra |
| decision trail | decisions, reasoning, and context captured for the team | not a product concept (it is a canvas engine) |
| customization | the silt workflow, opinionated | total, it is your code |
| who it is for | ai-native teams | developers and product builders |

## pick tldraw when

- you are a developer building a custom canvas application and want full control of shapes, tools, and bindings.
- you need to embed a canvas inside your own product with your own ui.
- you want to own the whole stack, including self-hosted multiplayer.

## pick silt when

- you want to use a canvas today, not build one.
- you need agents, integrations, voice, and decision records working out of the box.
- your team, not just your codebase, is the user.

## faq

### is silt built on tldraw?

no. silt’s canvas runs on react flow for the graph and yjs over hocuspocus for real-time collaboration. tldraw is a separate canvas sdk you would use to build your own app.

### should i use tldraw or silt?

if you are a developer building a canvas product, use tldraw. if you are a team that wants to think and decide with ai on a canvas today, use silt. one is infrastructure, the other is the finished tool.

### does silt have an sdk?

silt exposes an mcp server so external agents and your ide can read and write canvas context. it is a product with an integration surface, not a canvas sdk you build a new app on.

## verdict

this is a build-versus-use choice, not a feature fight. tldraw is the canvas engine we admire; if you are building a canvas app, start there.

if you are a team that wants the canvas, the agents, the integrations, and the decision trail without building any of it, that is silt.

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from Silt — https://silt.app