Looking for a Miro Alternative?
Miro is the enterprise online whiteboard — infinite canvas, deep templates, real-time multiplayer, and a cottage industry of integrations. Start Page HQ is the canvas widget that lives on every new tab — quick personal sketches alongside your notes, todos, and weather.
What People Love About Miro
Before we get into where Start Page HQ goes further, credit where it's due.
- An infinite collaborative canvas built for whole-team workshops, sprint planning, and design reviews.
- A deep template gallery — retros, journey maps, mind maps, flowcharts — with thousands of community templates.
- Real-time multiplayer with cursors, voting, timers, and video chat for facilitated sessions.
- A free tier with up to 3 editable boards plus paid plans starting around $8/user/month for unlimited boards.
- A serious integration ecosystem covering Jira, Notion, Slack, Zoom, and dozens more.
Where Start Page HQ Goes Further
Specific differences, not vague claims.
Personal, Not Team-First
Miro is built around shared boards, seats, and workspaces — overkill for a personal sketchpad. The Canvas widget lives on your own dashboard, perfect for thinking alone. Need a canvas the team can see? Put it in a Teams workspace — shared, though not live multiplayer.
Lives on Every New Tab
Miro is a separate site you have to open and pick a board in. Start Page HQ ships a Canvas widget that's already there every time you open a new tab — sketch the idea, get back to work.
Flat Pricing for Personal Use
Miro charges per user per month, which adds up fast for hobbyists and freelancers. Start Page HQ has a free plan (1 page, 8 widgets, Canvas included) and one flat price above it — $4/month, $24/year, or $48 lifetime — with everything included for one person.
Sits Alongside 63+ Other Widgets
Miro is its own product, opened in its own tab. Start Page HQ pairs the Canvas widget with notes, todos, calendar, news, weather, AI, and 63+ more — all on the same dashboard.
Multi-Page Dashboards
Build a "Thinking" page with Canvas, Notes, and QuickNote. Build a separate "Work" page with Tasks, Calendar, and links. Switch between them with a click.
Cross-Device Sync Built In
Sketches and dashboard layout sync across every browser and device automatically, on every plan including the free one.
Side-by-Side Comparison
An honest line-by-line look at how the two stack up.
| Feature | Miro | Start Page HQ |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free, or ~$8/user/mo+ | Free plan; $4/mo, $24/yr, $48 LTD |
| Free tier | Yes (3 editable boards) | 1 page, 8 widgets |
| Per-user pricing | Yes | Teams only; personal is flat |
| Infinite canvas | Yes | No |
| Real-time multiplayer | Yes | No |
| Shared team canvas | Yes | Teams workspace (not live) |
| Template gallery (retros, mind maps, etc.) | Yes | No |
| Sticky notes / voting / facilitation tools | Yes | No |
| Free-form drawing | Yes | Yes |
| Image export (PNG / SVG) | Yes | Yes |
| Lives on every new tab | No | Yes |
| Chrome / Firefox / Safari / Edge | Web + apps | Yes |
| Native browser extensions | No | Yes |
| Cross-device sync | Included | Included |
| Multi-page dashboards | No | Yes |
| Notes, todos, RSS, weather alongside | No | Yes |
| AI tools (answers, translation, image) | No | Yes |
Widgets That Replace Miro
Drop these onto your dashboard and you've covered Miro's core features — plus a lot more.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, and we will not pretend otherwise. Miro is built for whole-team facilitation with infinite boards, voting, templates, and integrations. The Canvas widget is for quick sketches — a space for diagrams, mind maps, and visual notes that sit next to your todos and weather. Use Miro for collaborative workshops; use the Canvas widget for the sketches you'd otherwise do on paper.
No. There are no live cursors and no simultaneous editing. On a Teams plan, a Canvas widget in a shared workspace is visible to everyone with access and editors can update it, but changes show up for others the next time they open a tab, and if two people edit at once the second save is refused and shows the latest version. If you need to whiteboard with a team in real time, Miro is the right tool.
No. The Canvas widget is a free-form drawing surface, not a template gallery. For structured collaborative templates, keep Miro.
Yes — there is a free plan, and it takes no credit card. It gives you 1 page with up to 8 widgets on it, 55 of the 63 widget types (Canvas included), cross-device sync, every browser extension, and 50 one-time AI credits. Extra pages, the 8 premium widgets, image uploads, and public sharing need a paid plan: $4/month, $24/year, or $48 one-time. The public demo at startpagehq.com/demo still needs no signup and unlocks every widget.
Yes. Start Page HQ has native extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, plus a hosted web app at startpagehq.com that works in any modern browser — same as Miro on the web.
Yes — many users do. Miro lives in its own tab for team boards, and the Canvas widget handles personal sketches that need to be one click away on the new tab.
Ready to Try Start Page HQ?
Start free — 1 page, 8 widgets, sync across devices, no credit card. Or open the live demo first, no signup needed.