Google introduced final yr that help for Jamboard units and apps will finish as of Oct. 1, 2024. Google Jamboard delivers easy-to-use collaborative drawing capabilities to individuals who use Google Workspace by 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 internet, iOS, iPadOS, and Android units and in Google Meet.
Individuals who use Jamboard units or apps might want to search options. For {hardware} choices, Google’s announcement beneficial both the Sequence One Board 65 (priced round $9,000) or the Sequence One Desk 27 (priced round $2,000), each by Avocor.
Three software program options — FigJam by Figma, Lucidspark by Lucid Software program, and Miro — have been built-in to work with Sequence One units, and import choices for Jamboard content material can be found.
Prime Jamboard opponents and options: Comparability desk
Individuals who use the Jamboard apps, unbiased of the Jamboard gadget, might think about a variety of software program options. The next six choices all help visible collaboration and would possibly function appropriate replacements for Jamboard.
FigJam by Figma: Greatest for pleasant design
Figma, a collaborative interface design software firm, launched FigJam (Determine A) in 2021. FigJam helps drawing instruments, shapes, stickers, notes, textual content, connectors, and stamps, together with part and desk administration options. You might also import photos or insert hyperlinks to internet sources, together with shared Google Drive information. Cursor chat permits an ephemeral dialog with collaborators that disappears whenever you exit the mode, whereas the remark system permits standard feedback on content material anyplace on the board. FigJam affords just a few extra options than Jamboard, delivered with a cleanly designed person interface, as you would possibly anticipate. Included with these is FigJam AI, a brand new collaboration instrument that helps groups brainstorm with AI-generated strategies, text-to-image capabilities, and automations.
Determine A
Figma’s possession deserves point out since Adobe, a inventive content material large, introduced an settlement to accumulate Figma in September 2022; nevertheless, the deal was terminated in December 2023. Whereas possession doesn’t immediately 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.
| Professionals | Cons |
|---|---|
| FigJam app is offered on the internet (and Google Workspace Market) and iPad. | No devoted FigJam iPhone or Android app. |
| Clear design. | No offline mode. |
| Extra options than Google Jamboard. | |
| Free version is offered to college students and educators. |
Pricing
Figma affords 4 FigJam pricing plans: Starter, Skilled, Group, and Enterprise.
- Starter, which is free and allows you to create as much as three Figma and three FigJam information, with limitless private information and limitless collaborators, amongst different options.
- Skilled, $5 per full seat per 30 days. Consists of all Starter options and provides limitless FigJam information, open periods, password protections, voting, and extra. College students and educators might entry this version without cost.
- Group, $5 per full seat per 30 days. Consists of all Profesional options plus customized colours and templates, centralized administration, centralized content material administration, and extra.
- Enterprise, $5 per full seat per 30 days. Consists of all Group options, plus devoted workspaces, visitor entry controls, together with many different person administration and safety features.
Miro: Greatest for enterprise integrations
Miro (Determine B), previously referred to as RealtimeBoard, gives a sturdy set of options all centered round visible collaboration. Normal 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 enables you to add an enormous number of content material varieties, together with photos, spreadsheets, tables, kanban, code blocks, charts, diagrams, and extra. Timer, voting, chat, video chat, and notes allow you to collaborate with others in numerous methods in your board content material, whereas the brand new “Create with AI” function generates concepts from a immediate or gadgets on a board.
Determine B
Miro enables you to current your board to different folks in a number of methods. The Talktrack function enables you to document a video together with your webcam (inset in a circle on the display screen) as you navigate and talk about the board. The ensuing video is saved and could also be shared. Alternatively, you could 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. Enterprise and Enterprise editions supply entry to facilitation instruments to help actions corresponding to voting and including sticky notes or reactions.
| Professionals | Cons |
|---|---|
| Miro app is offered on the internet (and Google Workspace Market), macOS, Home windows, iPhone, iPad and Android. | No offline mode. |
| Very full-featured. | |
| Numerous sorts of content material might be added. | |
| Helpful number of presentation choices. |
Pricing
Miro affords 4 pricing plans for skilled use: Free, Starter, Enterprise, and Enterprise.
- Free, which incorporates one workspace with three editable boards, 5 Talktracks, entry to templates, and help for integrations.
- Starter, $8 per member per 30 days, paid yearly. This plan provides limitless boards, high-resolution exports, collaboration with limitless guests on public boards, limitless Talktracks, limitless mission folders, Personal Mode sticky notes, model historical past, assembly options (e.g., timers, voting, and video chat), and personal boards.
- Enterprise, $16 per member per 30 days paid yearly. This plan contains all Starter options, plus limitless boards for each workforce and consumer, safe collaboration with limitless visitors 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 Enterprise options plus added safety, compliance, administration, and reporting capabilities, together with premium help.
College students, educators, and non-profits might entry completely different Miro pricing plans.
- Educator plans are designed for workers members and college students of academic institutes. For educators, the plan is legitimate indefinitely, however for college students they’re legitimate for 2 years. They arrive with limitless energetic boards, board viewers, and commenters, coaching and discussion board sources, and extra.
- Nonprofits can get a 30% low cost on paid Miros plans.
SEE: How you can use Miro as your whiteboard in a digital assembly
Lucidspark by Lucid Software program: Greatest for experimental AI
Lucidspark (Determine C) gives a board on which you will draw and add photos, shapes, sticky notes, textual content, and features. The feedback and process system lets board collaborators not solely touch upon particular board content material but additionally assign work to a colleague. To assist rationalization, you could outline body areas and designate paths in order to point out sections of the board in sequence. Visible actions templates help numerous sorts of sorting, score, and board engagement, together with extra timer and voting instruments.
Determine C
Lucidspark additionally affords menu customization and an experimental AI function. Customise the left-side on-screen menu with a Device pinning function to point out solely the choices you choose. For instance, if you happen to hardly ever want Jira integration, you could unpin that choice and it’ll not show on-screen, though you should still entry it from the Extra menu. And a Collaborative AI choice generates concepts from an entered immediate. For instance, a immediate of “Greatest options of Lucidspark” created a 3×3 set of sticky notes, every stuffed with two or three phrases describing options corresponding to “Built-in Video Chat,” “Seamless Integrations,” and “Presentation mode.”
| Professionals | Cons |
|---|---|
| Lucidspark app is offered on the internet (and Google Workspace Market) and Android. | Group 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. | |
| Collaborative AI to generate concepts. | |
| Vital variety of supported app integrations. |
Pricing
There are 4 Lucidspark plans: Free, Particular person, Group, and Enterprise.
- Free, which incorporates three editable boards, limitless shapes, drawing, emoji reactions, commenting, presentation mode, fundamental visible actions to assemble suggestions and mixture outcomes, fundamental collaborative AI, and different options.
- Particular person, $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 mixture outcomes, and extra.
- Group, 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, contact display screen whiteboards, developer platform, and extra.
- Enterprise licenses require contacting gross sales. This plan affords entry to Lucidchart for diagramming and provides Group folders, Common Canvas, many app integrations, and entry to varied person administration and safety features.
Educators might entry a variant of the Group plan without cost; this gives academics and college students entry to the cell app and plenty of Group options at no cost. An optionally available improve to a paid workforce plan for schooling provides centralized account administration, audit logs, and entry to precedence help.
Microsoft Whiteboard: Greatest without cost use
Microsoft Whiteboard (Determine D) is free, but it surely does require a Microsoft account to view, create, or collaborate on boards; subsequently, this selection might take advantage of sense for people or organizations who already use different Microsoft companies, corresponding to Microsoft 365.
Determine D
Microsoft Whiteboard affords a typical set of instruments that features a pen, highlighter, ruler, notes, emoji-style reactions, textual content and shapes. You might also add photos to a board. Plus, Microsoft Whiteboard affords numerous templates for all types of brainstorming, planning, assembly, and studying actions. Chances are you’ll 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 provide collaborators entry to all of those instruments, too.
| Professionals | Cons |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Whiteboard is offered on the internet, iPhone, iPad and Android, in addition to for Microsoft Floor Hub and Microsoft Groups Rooms units. | Not obtainable within the Google Workspace Market. |
| Free. | Should register with a Microsoft account. |
| Vital number of templates for enterprise makes use of, corresponding to brainstorming, mission planning and assembly actions. | No offline mode. |
| Targeted set of instruments. |
Pricing
Microsoft Whiteboard is free, though you need to register with a Microsoft account to make use of it. A Microsoft account could also be obtained without cost.
Zoom Whiteboard: Greatest for Zoom conferences
The Zoom conferencing platform affords Zoom Whiteboard (Determine E), which can be used both with an internet assembly or individually. For anybody with an current Zoom account, Zoom Whiteboard deserves consideration.
Determine E
Zoom Whiteboard affords numerous templates for brainstorming, diagramming, assembly, schooling, or leisure; or you could merely create a brand new clean board. The system contains instruments corresponding to pens, shapes, strains, textual content, sticky notes, and feedback. Chances are you’ll add photos and PDFs to your board or add a thoughts map, desk, kanban board, or playing cards. Specifically, playing cards allow you to assign duties and observe each dates and process standing. Zoom boards additionally allow you to create a number of pages. As a presentation assist, you could add frames round your board content material, then set up and current the frames in sequence. The timer and laser pointer could also be helpful throughout shows or collaborations as nicely.
| Professionals | Cons |
|---|---|
| Out there as a part of Zoom on the internet (and Google Workspace Market), macOS, Home windows, Linux, iPhone, iPad and Android. | Zoom Whiteboard affords secondary performance to internet conferences. |
| Massive variety of templates for enterprise makes use of, corresponding to brainstorming and diagramming. | No offline mode |
| Help for a number of pages inside a board. | |
| Frames to order presentation sequence. |
Pricing
Three Zoom Whiteboard editions can be found: Whiteboard Fundamental, Whiteboard, and Whiteboard Plus.
- Whiteboard Fundamental, which is included with Zoom Office Fundamental and Zoom Office Professional, 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 Office Fundamental or Zoom Office Professional plan. This plan provides limitless concurrent editable boards, normal options, and superior doc management. It is usually included in Zoom Office Enterprise, Zoom Office Enterprise Plus, and Zoom Office Enterprise.
- Whiteboard Plus, $70 per person per yr and could also be added to both Zoom Office Fundamental or Zoom Office Professional plans, provides superior whiteboard options and help for customized and organizational templates. Additionally, Zoom Whiteboard Plus is included as a part of Zoom Rooms plans and Zoom Office Enterprise Plus.
SEE: How you can use the brand new Zoom Whiteboard for hybrid conferences
Apple Freeform: Greatest for Apple gadget customers
Freeform (Determine F), a visible collaboration instrument by Apple, is included with present units that run iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The app is free, though solely individuals who use Apple units might use it. For instance, Freeform could be a wonderful choice for a classroom the place a trainer and college students all use iPadOS or macOS units, however wouldn’t be appropriate for a state of affairs the place collaborators would possibly use Home windows, ChromeOS, or Android units.
Determine F
Freeform affords quite a few writing and drawing types, together with a pen, pencil, highlighter, crayon, ink, and watercolor choices. On units that help an Apple pencil, you could leverage the system’s built-in handwriting recognition system, Scribble, to transform pencil strokes into textual content. Freeform enables you to add notes, hyperlinks, shapes, and typed textual content. Chances are you’ll use a digital camera to seize a photograph or add a picture, video, audio file, or PDF to a board. Freeform works offline, so you should use it to seize concepts virtually anyplace. Freeform permits as much as 100 folks to collaborate on a board, and it might be used with Messages or FaceTime.
| Professionals | Cons |
|---|---|
| Out there on present iPhone, iPad and macOS units. | Out there solely on Apple units. |
| Can create and work offline. | |
| Works nicely with Apple Pencil, Messages and FaceTime. | |
| Wider vary of drawing instrument types (e.g., watercolor, ink and crayon) in comparison with most of the different options on this article. |
Pricing
Freeform is offered as one of many default apps on all fashionable Apple units, together with iPhone, iPad, and macOS techniques.
Extra Jamboard options to think about
Past the six companies coated above, many different collaborative drawing choices exist. Google suggests Google Drawings or Google Slides would possibly meet some wants. Different companies which will benefit consideration embrace Canva Whiteboard, Conceptboard, Excalidraw, Clarify Every part, Inko, Pear Deck, Pencil Areas, Sketchboard, or Whiteboard.chat.
Jamboard phase-out timeline: What you want to do
- Sept. 30, 2024: By this date, you need to have backed up any Jamboard gadget occasion logs that you just wish to maintain from the Admin console, as you’ll not have the ability to do that afterwards and occasion log information will probably be deleted.
- Oct. 1, 2024: In the event you haven’t already, you want to begin backing up the Jam information you wish to retain and migrating them to different functions. It’s also possible to save them as PDFs or PNG information.
Additionally, you will not have the ability to create new or edit current Jam information on any platform, together with the online, iOS, and Android, whereas the 55-inch Jamboard gadget will not be a part of Meet conferences or save to the cloud. - Dec. 31, 2024: The Jamboard software will probably be wound down, so you’ll not have the ability to entry your Jam information, and they are going to be completely deleted.
Methodology
The primary three companies — FigJam by Figma, Miro, and Lucidspark by Lucid Software program — are included as a result of Google particularly recommends these as options to Google Jamboard. All three will supply some sort of import instrument to help you protect current Jamboard content material.
The remaining three choices have been chosen due to the widespread use of Microsoft, Zoom, and Apple instruments within the schooling neighborhood — a big person of Jamboard apps. In the event you and your collaborators use Apple {hardware}, Freeform is smart as a substitute for Jamboard. In the event you and your collaborators have current Microsoft or Zoom accounts, then both of these respective companies would possibly serve you nicely.
The writer signed and actively examined every of the companies for testing functions, and has actively used and coated Google Jamboard since its inception. Every of the screenshots was taken throughout this experimentation. We depend on vendor web sites for pricing.