Ardesia

Ardesia

Ardesia is a free, open source software program for Linux that allows users to turn their computer into an interactive whiteboard. It can be used for presentations, teaching, or collaborating by drawing on the screen with a stylus or other pointing device.
Ardesia image
whiteboard presentation teaching collaboration open-source

Ardesia: Free Open Source Interactive Whiteboard Software

Turn your Linux computer into an interactive whiteboard with Ardesia, a free and open source software for presentations, teaching, and collaboration.

What is Ardesia?

Ardesia is a feature-rich interactive whiteboard software program for Linux operating systems. Developed as free and open source software under the GNU General Public License, Ardesia allows users to turn their computer screen into a virtual whiteboard that can be drawn on using a stylus, mouse, or other pointing device.

Some of the key features of Ardesia include the ability to draw in a variety of colors and line widths, add text with different fonts and sizes, import images and PDF files, and save whiteboard content. It also offers basic shapes, a slideshow mode, and multi-user collaboration features.

As an open source program, Ardesia benefits from ongoing development and improvements from a global community of contributors. It runs on Linux using the X11 graphical system, making it well-suited for Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Debian, Linux Mint, and others.

In educational environments, Ardesia provides an easy yet robust interactive whiteboard solution. Educators can use it for lessons, visual presentations, collaborating with remote students, and spur-of-the-moment drawings or notes. The software is also useful for business meetings, brainstorming sessions, product demos, remote trainings, and more.

With its slate of user-friendly whiteboarding features, cross-platform compatibility, lack of license fees, and open source foundation, Ardesia makes for an attractive alternative to proprietary interactive whiteboard software and hardware setups.

Ardesia Features

Features

  1. Allows turning a computer into an interactive whiteboard
  2. Can draw on screen using a stylus or other pointing device
  3. Useful for presentations, teaching, or collaborating
  4. Includes tools for creating shapes, lines, text, etc
  5. Supports saving/loading documents
  6. Allows recording sessions
  7. Works on Linux

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Free and open source

Simple and easy to use

Good for basic whiteboarding needs

Active development community

Cons

Limited features compared to full-featured whiteboard software

Only available on Linux

No native support for collaboration or sharing


The Best Ardesia Alternatives

Top Education & Reference and Teaching Tools and other similar apps like Ardesia


Epic Pen icon

Epic Pen

Epic Pen is a feature-rich digital notebook and sketching application designed for Windows platforms. Developed by XIam Labs, it provides an easy way to take handwritten notes, draw doodles and sketches, annotate documents like PDFs and images, and save them all in one place for quick access across devices.Some key...
Epic Pen image
Pointofix icon

Pointofix

Pointofix is a versatile customer feedback and survey software designed to help businesses gather and analyze feedback from customers through multiple channels and touchpoints. It facilitates closed-loop feedback processes to enhance customer experience and optimize products and services.The software comes with a suite of pre-built and customizable surveys like NPS,...
Pointofix image
ScreenBrush icon

ScreenBrush

ScreenBrush is a lightweight, easy-to-use screen annotation and screenshot software for Windows. It allows users to annotate, draw, type, and highlight directly on the screen to provide visual context and feedback.Some key features of ScreenBrush include:Intuitive pen and highlighter tools for drawing attention to specific areas of the screenText tool...
ScreenBrush image
Screen Marker and Recorder icon

Screen Marker and Recorder

Screen Marker and Recorder is a versatile screen capture and video recording software for Windows. It provides a wide range of tools to annotate, draw, highlight, and add text or shapes on your computer screen.With Screen Marker and Recorder, you can easily create engaging demos, tutorials, presentations, and other videos...
Screen Marker and Recorder image
Desktop Board icon

Desktop Board

Desktop Board is a virtual whiteboard application designed for remote collaboration and brainstorming sessions. It provides a shared online space for teams to sketch ideas, diagrams, flowcharts, and notes much like they would on a physical office whiteboard.Key features of Desktop Board include:Real-time collaboration - Team members can join a...
Desktop Board image
FlySketch icon

FlySketch

FlySketch is a free online whiteboarding and wireframing software used by product teams for collaboration and design. It provides a large virtual whiteboard where multiple teammates can simultaneously contribute drawings, diagrams, notes, and comments in real-time.Key features of FlySketch include:Intuitive drag-and-drop interface with common shapes and connectors to quickly create...
FlySketch image
Pylote icon

Pylote

Pylote is an open-source, self-hosted alternative to Notion that allows you to take notes, manage knowledge, and organize tasks. It comes with many of the features that have made Notion popular:Rich text support with formatting options like bold, italics, highlights, etc.Markdown formatting for easily creating headers, lists, code blocks, etc.Database...
Gromit-MPX icon

Gromit-MPX

Gromit-MPX is an open-source stop motion animation software developed as a free alternative to commercial options like Dragonframe. It is designed to provide the core tools needed for stop motion filmmaking while keeping things simple and lightweight.Some key features of Gromit-MPX include:Onion skinning - See previous frames underneath the current...
Gromit-MPX image
Ultimate Pen icon

Ultimate Pen

Ultimate Pen is a free online writing application designed for creative writing, blogging, journaling, and note taking. It provides a clean, minimalist interface to allow writers to focus on their craft without distractions.Some key features of Ultimate Pen include:Variety of writing templates for different writing styles and creative projectsAdvanced text...
Ultimate Pen image
Crealesson icon

Crealesson

Crealesson is a vector graphics and 2D animation software application developed for Windows, macOS and Linux. It allows users to create 2D illustrations, user interface assets, icons, logos, characters, and simple frame-by-frame animations.Some of the key features include:Intuitive and easy-to-use interface targeted at beginners and intermediate users.A variety of versatile...
Crealesson image
Annotate!Pro icon

Annotate!Pro

Annotate!Pro is a versatile PDF annotation software used to markup, comment on, and collaborate on PDF documents. With Annotate!Pro, users can add text boxes, highlights, underlines, strikethroughs, arrows, shapes, images, and more to any PDF file.Some key features include:A wide range of annotation tools for adding comments, drawing shapes, highlighting,...