Getting Started

The fastest way to try Drawfinity depends on what you have installed. Pick whichever path suits you.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+)
• Rust (stable toolchain) — needed for the collaboration server and Tauri desktop builds

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libgtk-3-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev

Linux (Arch/Manjaro)

sudo pacman -S webkit2gtk-4.1 gtk3 libayatana-appindicator librsvg

macOS

xcode-select --install

Windows

• Visual Studio Build Tools with the C++ workload
• WebView2 runtime (pre-installed on Windows 10 1803+ and Windows 11)

Quick start with Docker

If you have Docker and Docker Compose, one command gets everything running — the collaboration server and the frontend:

make up

Open http://localhost:1420 in your browser and start drawing. Use make logs to watch output, make restart to rebuild, and make down to stop.

Quick start without Docker

Start both the server and frontend locally:

make dev

This launches the collaboration server on port 8080 and Vite on port 1420. Stop everything with make stop.

Desktop app

For the full native experience with file save/load and tablet support:

make tauri

This starts Tauri in dev mode with hot-reload. For a production build: npm run tauri build.

Platform	Format	Location
Linux	.deb, .rpm, Binary	src-tauri/target/release/bundle/
macOS	.dmg, .app	src-tauri/target/release/bundle/
Windows	.msi, .exe	src-tauri/target/release/bundle/

Browser only

If you just want to sketch without a server:

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:1420. Drawings are saved to localStorage (no collaboration in this mode).

What's next?

• Explore the Features Drawfinity offers
• Learn about Collaboration and drawing with others
• Try Turtle Graphics for creative coding
• See the full Keyboard Shortcuts reference