The whiteboard for system design interviews
Flocci Draw is a free whiteboard suited to system design interviews: draw services, queues, databases, and arrows fast on an infinite canvas, share a live link so the interviewer watches you think in real time, and export the final architecture to PNG for your prep notes.
Draw architecture at the speed of speech
System design rounds reward candidates who can sketch while they talk. The hand-drawn style keeps diagrams legible without pixel-pushing: rectangles for services, cylinders you sketch in two strokes, arrows that snap between boxes, and labels that stay readable when you zoom out to show the whole system.
The infinite canvas matters more than it sounds: start with a naive design on the left, then evolve it rightward — load balancer, cache layer, queue, shards — without erasing anything. Your interviewer sees the whole journey, which is exactly what they are grading.
Interview and practice modes
Interviewing someone? Create a canvas, share an edit link, and watch their cursor live — no screen-share lag, no 'can you see my screen'. Practicing? Keep one canvas per classic question (URL shortener, news feed, chat system) and revisit them before the real interview; everything autosaves.
No signup is needed to practice solo, so it also works as a scratchpad in the middle of a live interview when the interviewer says 'use any whiteboard tool you like'.
How to get started
- Open a canvas. Load draw.flocci.in — instant, no signup needed for solo practice.
- Sketch the baseline. Draw the naive design first: client, server, database, arrows.
- Evolve it visibly. Extend rightward with caches, queues, replicas — keep the history on canvas.
- Share or export. Share a live link with the interviewer, or export PNG into your prep notes.
Frequently asked questions
Can the interviewer watch me draw live?
Yes. Share an edit or view-only link from a cloud canvas and they see every stroke and your cursor in real time — smoother than screen-sharing a drawing app.
Is it good for mock interview practice?
Yes. Keep one canvas per classic system design question and switch between them in a click; autosave keeps every attempt, and PNG export drops diagrams straight into your notes.
Why hand-drawn style instead of a formal diagram tool?
In interviews, speed and legibility beat polish. Hand-drawn shapes are faster to place, communicate 'work in progress' honestly, and keep attention on your reasoning rather than your formatting.