Parchment is the infinite canvas that lives directly in your Documents folder. Zero subscription tax, instant 85ms startup, 0.3% deep superzoom, and full Miro import compatibility.
Modern cloud boards suffer from memory bloat, sluggish zoom, and arbitrary subscription walls. Parchment is built from first principles for instant flow.
No proprietary cloud database lock-in. Every board is stored directly on your drive as clear JSON in ~/Documents/Parchment. Sync automatically with Git, Syncthing, or OneDrive.
Miro locks up at 2.5%. Parchment zooms out 8x further down to 0.3%, allowing you to inspect massive multi-year architectures and enterprise roadmaps at high altitude with zero stutter.
Migrate from Miro in seconds. Copy or upload any Miro export to reconstitute stickies, frames, curved connectors, images, and stickers faithfully without losing layout coordinates.
Compiled in Rust with WebView2. No 400MB Electron installer and zero background node telemetry processes. Cold boots in 85ms and consumes less than 90MB of RAM.
Independent of the UI theme. Switch seamlessly between Pure White, Pure Black, Graph Paper Green, Warm Doneas Parchment, Architectural Blueprint, and Warm Claude Charcoal.
Accidental deletions are buffered in a local 30-day trash lifecycle. One click to restore boards, view itemized element statistics, and create offline backups.
Comparing the architecture of local-first software against subscription SaaS whiteboards.
| Architecture Spec | Parchment | Miro / Mural | Electron Whiteboards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storage Model | ✓ ~/Documents/Parchment | Proprietary Cloud Silo | App Data Cache |
| Offline Capability | ✓ 100% Full Fidelity Offline | Requires Connection | Partial Read-Only |
| Cold Launch Time | ✓ 85 milliseconds | 8 to 14 seconds | 4 to 7 seconds |
| Deepest Zoom Out | ✓ 0.3% (8x deeper) | 2.5% max | 5.0% max |
| Installer Footprint | ✓ 8.7MB Single .exe | Web app / 380MB Electron | 420MB+ |
| Pricing Model | ✓ Free & Open Source | $16–$20/mo/user | Freemium / Locked |
Single executable. No installer wizard, no account creation, no cloud telemetry. Just download, run, and start whiteboarding immediately.