We all know that art practice can get lonely. That’s why here at PanelJam we’ve made it our mission to help artists grow through collaborative play. Our free online drawing game brings you new sources of inspiration as you build up your comic making skills, but we’re not the only online drawing game on the block.

So what else is out there? We’ve scoured the web and we’re listing them all…

We’ve listed every free online drawing game we could find and grouped them by category for easy comparison.

(Okay, there’s a lot here so maybe they’re not all games exactly – but every website we’ve listed lets you draw online with an element of play. That’s what we’re really after, right?)

Short for time? Jump to the end of each category to find out who’s the winner.

The categories are:

Online Live Drawing Games

These are websites that let you share a canvas with other artists and draw together in real time. Things can get messy, but they can also be a lot of fun, especially if you pair them with a chatroom or a group of your friends.

This site is interesting. Like many others, the drawing canvases are set up like chat rooms. Users can give these rooms names so drawings can stick to a theme. Some of the art made here can be good, and overall everything functions well. However, the interface is kind of ugly and feels dated. There are some weird choice too, like a good number of sound effects which are strange for a website. Drawesome isn’t the most popular option, but there’s usually a handful of rooms going on.

“A free software collaborative drawing program”. Drawpile stands out from most live drawing platforms, as it’s not an app or a website. Rather, Drawpile is open source software that can be downloaded and installed on Windows, Mac, or Linux. The plus side to this is that the drawing tools are quite complex, and the interface isn’t bad either. The downside is that social functions are lacking and clunky.

“A collaborative painting application” that is really quite nice. Aggie.io is web-based and works well. The interface is very modern, and performance is good. This platform is less social than others, as there are no chat rooms but if you’re looking just to draw with your friends this is a great option, as when you create your canvas you get a private invite link that you can share.

There’s one thing that’s cool about FlockMod, and that’s that it is both a web-based and a downloadable application (Windows only, though). You’ll find a similar number of users here as you will on Drawesome. What’s not cool about FlockMod? Well, the web-based version still uses flash, the website hasn’t been updated since 2017, and the interface is downright ugly.

“Collaboration without limits” on an “infinite public canvas”.

Like many online drawing games, the interface can be a bit clunky at times, but AnonDraw is actually a pretty cool community.

The infinite aspect of the canvas is nice. Since everyone has plenty of time and space to draw you can find some really interesting artwork. The code is open source on GitHub which is a nice touch, though it doesn’t appear to be updated often.

They have a portfolio section for artists, however, this is broken and most images just don’t load.

“A free to use online whiteboard based painting & drawing tool”.

This is one of the oldest live drawing spaces still kicking it, dating back to 2009. The interface is nice and simple, and they have a gallery section where people can share their drawings to be voted on.

Unfortunately, discovering rooms to join is impossible unless someone shares their link, and on top of that, the drawing tools use Flash. While still online, the website hasn’t been maintained since 2017. However, they do have an iOS app.

“A collaborative drawing app”.

This site runs pretty quick, but that might be its best feature. The drawing tools are rather limited compared to other live drawing tools, and the community looks to be on it’s last few breaths.

As far as live online drawing goes, MalMal fits somewhere in between Drawesome and AnonDraw. The canvas is infinite, but you’re not limited to just one shared drawing canvas. Instead, folks can create different “drawings” each with their own names and rules.

“Draw with others in real time.”

Here you’ll find a similar number of artists active as Drawesome or FlockMod (maybe a bit more) however half of them are in private drawing rooms. Unfortunately, loading times are slow, the interface is ugly, and the drawing tools are just bad. Pass!

So who’s the winner when it comes to live drawing games?

That depends what you’re looking for. If it’s strangers you’d like to draw with, the winner is without a doubt AnonDraw.com. If you’re just looking to draw with your friends though, head on over to Aggie.io for a smoother interface experience.

Draw & Guess Games

The classic game of Pictionary taken digital. It’s a simple concept, and not surprisingly, often copied. There’s a lot of competition in this space. Even some of the live drawing sites listed above have included drawing and guessing into their platforms, but we’ll let you check them out to discover which ones those are yourself.

“It’s like the classic ‘Telephone Game’, but with drawing and thousands of players”.

One of the first, and likely the most popular in this space. Drawception has done well with this game and has an active community with artists of all skill levels which leads to a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, the drawing tools are very basic and haven’t seen any real innovation or updates over the years. You’re also limited to specific colors unless you pay for extra palettes.

“It’s like the game of Telephone. Except with doodles.”

…Hmm, that tagline sounds familiar, but where could we have heard that before? It’s just so hard to tell! Here you’ll find a nicer interface if you can get the website to work.

It’s got a slick look, but this website is broken. Their HTTPS doesn’t work and most of the drawings don’t load. On top of that, the community is pretty dead with most games drawn years ago… but there are some cool drawings to check out here if you can get things to load.

“It’s Broken Telephone, but with pictures!”

Now… I just KNOW we’ve heard a tagline like this before. I could swear!

There are certainly prettier interfaces around, and the community here is quite small, but we’ll give one plus to Interference – they give you more colors in your palette than Drawception. Mind you, you’re still limited to a set of very specific colors.

The art that you’ll find here is more basic than other free online drawing games, but that also means there’s less pressure.

“A free multiplayer drawing and guessing game.”

This one is a bit different from the last three. You’re still either writing a phrase or drawing a phrase, but Skribbl stands out by going back to Pictionary’s roots.

Games are drawn in rounds between a set of players, and each round is 80 seconds. The drawing here is done live, but only one person draws at a time. Everyone else watches and guesses what the word being drawn in real time.

Sidenote: Skribbl gives you a cute little avatar that you can customize through a simple mix and match. Neat!

“Draw. Guess. Win!”

Perhaps we spoke too soon by saying Skribbl “stands out”. You see, Gartic has the exact same gameplay, and even the same design right down to the scribbley animated logo and patterned background. Gartic is more polished.

Unfortunately, we don’t know who ripped off whom.

One last free real-time “multiplayer drawing and guessing game”.

It’s beginning to look like the online draw and guess game genre is ripe for innovation. Drawasaurus falls into the same gameplay as Skribbl and Gartic, but at least they’ve gone for a different design than the rest.

The interface is nice, it’s easy to find different game rooms to join, and you’ll see more active players here than on Gartic.

“When it comes to fun, we’re the last word!”

The interface here again is kind of awkward, but we’ve got to give props to Puns.mobi for trying something different.

This isn’t a telephone style drawing game, and this isn’t a live-guessing game like the last three either. Instead, you have a minute to draw your word, and then you leave it for other people to guess later – so it’s a bit of a mix of the two types of drawing and guessing games we’ve seen.

Something that’s really unique about Puns.mobi is that they’ve taken a truly international approach. There is a preset selection of 4000 words, but they’ve used this to their advantage by translating these words into English, Polish, Russian, and Chinese so folks can easily play together no matter which language they speak.

Which is the best Online Draw & Guess game?

Tried and true, the winner here is clearly Drawception. While the interface and tools may be lacking, the community makes up for it and then some.

Mixed Online Drawing Games

These next websites don’t strictly fall into online “live drawing” or “drawing and guessing” game categories. Instead, these are communities with online drawing tools and a variety of drawing options.

“A modern environment for digital drawing”.

What’s interesting about SketchPort is that they’ve got a reak mixed bag of everything you find in other free online drawing games.

They have a web-based drawing platform (using Flash). They have both Android and iOS apps. There’s a gallery where you can browse art made with their tools. They have their own draw and guess game included. A “broadcast” section lets you watch others draw in real-time if anyone happens to be online.

They also have a challenges section where you can set drawing themes for other artists to join in on. There’s an inspiration board where artists can share their favorite art, and they even have a forum for discussions.

There’s so much to unpack!

Unfortunately, as happens with too many of these drawing sites… The platform hasn’t been maintained. As a result, some of these functions are broken. Keeping a community alive takes a lot of work, and this community is rather quiet. It’s a shame, but at least we can learn from what they’ve built, eh?

“A real time collaborative creation platform.”

While it’s not the most active community, FormGraph still sees a few updates a month. It ain’t dead yet!

This website is unique in that there is a mixture of live drawing and remixing elements. You can host your own private drawing room and invite people you know on the website to join you. You can also browse through other published drawings and choose to remix them, starting your canvas off with their drawing as a base if you wish.

The design of the drawing program isn’t the best looking or the most performant, but there are a lot of tools to choose from. They have different kinds of brushes, shape tools, and custom colors. A nice selection!

While there isn’t the most going on here in terms of activity, the fact that they include remixing is quite interesting. It’s worth a browse if you’re just looking for some other scribbles to scribble on.

“The most fun Dutch drawing site for more than 13 years!”

If you’re Dutch, check this out! You might find some local artists you could befriend in “real life”. If you’re not Dutch? Don’t worry! The website is translated into English, too.

The drawing tools here are simple, but they work well and there are some really solid artists in this community.

Only a few drawings seem to be shared here each month, but Oekaki allows you to doodle, animate, and live draw all from the same website.

Which is the best mixed online drawing game?

We’re giving a gold star here to Oekaki.nl for their quality art and solid drawing app.

Online Drawing Message Boards

Originally from Japan, this category includes artist community platforms that let you draw for free online with other artists in discussion board style threads.

That is, if you add a drawing to one of these websites, you can expect to see a chain of drawings posted as comments in response to your original artwork.

“A collaborative art community”.

This is probably the most popular drawing message board around, but does that mean that it’s the best? Let’s find out.

You’ll find a nice and simple interface with basic drawing tools that match. Nothing on this drawing platform is too complicated, but it doesn’t need to be.

Everything works well, and there is a nice range of artists. However, the website does not seem to have any continued active development in the past year.

“A place to draw, create art roleplays, and share art”.

This is one nice artist community. It’s in English just like Droodle, but not quite as popular.

Don’t let that stop you though, the drawing tools are much more advanced with features like pen pressure support and the ability to save your drawings for later.

The website hasn’t been actively developer in over a year either, but the community is still quite alive. The quality of art here is significantly higher than Drooodle.

“All entries and comments are hand-drawn/written, with a mouse or tablet.”

Also known as TeV2, or Tegaki V2. This is a much more classically styled Japanese drawing message board, though the website is in English.

The community isn’t the most active, but there are new drawings daily.

As this is a Japanese website, you’ll find that most artwork is in an Anime or Manga style. The drawing tools are very simple and deliver a bit of a pixelated output, but this also results in a kind of cool ‘techy’ and recognizable look across the entire website.

Which is the best online drawing message board?

We’ll place that crown atop PaintBerri’s creative head! There you’ll find the best drawing tools from the bunch and a great variety of high-quality artwork.

Online Animation Games

These next few websites are those with a key focus on creating short animations right in your browser. They may not be the most collaborative spaces, but they’re active communities that can offer some fun – with motion!

“Toonator is online cartoon editing tool. With Toonator you can easly [sic] make funny animations.”

This right here is the most simple of the animation communities in terms of drawing tools, but that simplicity is great because it lets you focus on the animation rather than providing enough room for you to get hung up on details.

Here’s what you get to draw with: one brush, one erase, two colors (red and black) and five brush sizes. That’s it!

We really like to focus here. Even if artists are animating in dramatically different art styles, this makes for a consistent look for the animations drawn across the entire website.

“Easily create and share animations”.

SlimAnimation offers the most complicated drawing tools available as far as online animation communities go, but does that complexity result in the best animation? The short answer is no.

This animation drawing app provides all sorts of tools from premade stickmen to custom image uploads, but the lack of direction hinders the quality of art you’ll find on the website.

Instead of great complex works of animation, these elaborate tools result in users taking shortcuts and creating low-quality cartoons.

“Create flipbook animations online!”

Striking a bit of balance between the last two animation communities, FlipAnim offers fairly complex drawing tools with more focus than SlimAnimation.

You won’t find the ability to upload your own images here, which is nice as the art is more focused.

As far as this category goes, FlipAnim is by far the most popular animation hangout, although we believe that the tools result in artists placing more of a focus on drawing, rather than the motion-filled art of animation itself.

Which is the best Online Animation Game?

The tools may be simple, but if what you care about is the animation (motion) and not just drawing as a whole, the clear winner here is Toonator.

They have such a focus that really shines in the finished art. Nothing is too complicated, but the animation here is the smoothest out of the lot.

Online Comic Drawing Games

If you’re interested in drawing comics right here on the web, there isn’t too much selection in this niche.

Of course, there are websites with premade art that you can piece together in their drag-and-drop builders, but as with every other category we’ve covered, we’re interested in websites with apps that let you draw online for free right in your web browser.

RIP, WeDrawComics.com

“[Was] a place to draw and create JAM COMICS!”

First things first, we’ve got to pay respects where they’re due.

WeDrawComics is no longer running, as the site shut down without notice at the end of 2018. This was a comic artist community, and for a long time, it was the only place where you could collaboratively make comics with other artists on the internet.

So if this comic drawing community no longer exists, why are we mentioning it? Well, because it’s very relevant to the only two other drawing games in this category. (And we’re sad to see it go!)

“Creating comics together, one panel at a time.”

This right here is very much a spiritual successor to WeDrawComics. Let’s Comic picks up where the old site left off with a focus on comic-book-style comics created one panel at a time by building pages in a 3 column grid.

There are some cool things happening here (like very functional drawing tools) and we really wish them luck, but the developer doesn’t consider the website ready for the public and has labeled the website as an ‘alpha’.

There is practically no activity on this website.

As it stands right now, the last update on the blog was back in September 2018, and in last 3 months only two comics have been drawn in at all – and they both featured artists from our own community!

“Conquer your artists’ block! Improve your art practice with collaborative play.”

PanelJam is our very own free online comic drawing game. In our community, we grow together by drawing comic strip style webcomics one panel at a time.

There is an active and growing community with new comics and artists added daily. Our aim is to help you grow as an artist by making art practice more fun and connected through collaborative play.

Shuffle through comics, find one you like, and add the next panel. The only rules are that you try your best, and you can’t draw two panels in a row. Otherwise, anything goes!

While we aren’t strictly a successor to We Draw Comics, they showed up on our radar partway through the original development process before PanelJam launched.

We’re always improving the website to support our artists and strike the balance between practice and play. That’s why back before We Draw Comics shutdown we actually reached out to the original developer and took the time to learn about his pitfalls. While that community might not be around, we learned a lot from them about what works and what doesn’t. Just like our artists, we’re always learning and improving.

Which is the best online comic drawing game?

Okay, we might be biased, but we really do believe that PanelJam is the best place on the web to make collaborative comics.

The drawing tools provide plenty of variety and functionality while keeping to a simple design.

You can use any brush size you like, as well as customize colors and opacity. There’s even support for geometric shapes, an eyedropper, and a recolor tool. For our premium members, we go even further with pan & zoom, a text tool, and layers.

We also have weekly drawing themes, helpful articles and artist interviews, and on Instagram, we feature some of our best comics there every day. If you’re on Instagram, we can help you grow your following as we always tag our artists to spread the love!

If you’re looking to spread your wings with some online comic art practice, we welcome you to join our comic artist community.

Come draw with us!