Best for
Best for organisations on Microsoft 365 that want a shared board inside their Teams meetings and classrooms.
Whiteboards & Diagramming Comparison
Microsoft Whiteboard vs. MindManager
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for teams that plan projects in mind maps and work inside Microsoft 365.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Microsoft Whiteboard | MindManager |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Not stated | From $99 / year Essentials, the web version, per user and including VAT. Professional is $179 a year or $369 as a one-time purchase; Enterprise is quoted. |
| Free trial | Not stated | 30-day fully functional free trial |
| Output | Whiteboards with inking, sticky notes, text, images, links, videos and Loop components | Mind maps, flowcharts, org charts, timelines, concept maps, Kanban boards and Gantt charts |
| Hosting | OneDrive for Business by default; boards started on Surface Hub or Teams Rooms devices are stored in Azure | Not stated |
| What it makes | Boards for meetings, workshops, brainstorming, sprint and project planning, problem solving, incident management and teaching, with inking, sticky notes, text, images, links and online videos | Mind maps, organisational charts, timelines, flowcharts, concept maps, Venn and onion diagrams, Kanban boards, fishbone diagrams, funnel charts, matrix diagrams and Gantt charts |
| Templates and styling | More than 60 free templates for brainstorming, problem solving, strategy, project planning, retrospectives and workshops, plus custom templates saved to OneDrive and shared by link; a chosen background can be set as the default | A library of built-in templates for maps, charts and boards across industries, with eleven more added in the October 2026 update, plus reusable sticky note styles, a customisable topic info style and imported SVG graphics as topic shapes, images or backgrounds |
| Diagramming | Ink to shape turns drawn circles, squares and triangles into precise shapes, ink to table turns a drawn grid into a table with rows and columns, and ink beautification tidies handwriting | Flowcharts, concept maps and fishbone, funnel, Venn, onion and matrix diagrams next to mind maps, with Gantt charts exportable as HTML5 |
| Collaboration and facilitation | Co-editing in Teams meetings with collaborative cursors, everyone annotating at once and a follow mode for the presenter, with Loop components and Microsoft Forms polls on the canvas and objects that can be locked in place | Real-time co-editing of maps across platforms; co-editing is part of the subscription, or an add-on for customers with an active Upgrade Protection Plan or maintenance agreement |
| Permissions and guests | People from other organisations can collaborate in Teams meetings once an administrator enables the settings; transferring a board's ownership is done by an IT administrator | Content Control limits which elements of a map others can change; a published map gets view, comment or edit access levels without managing individual permissions |
| Export and sharing | Boards export as an image and are shared by link; after a Teams meeting the board stays available in the meeting chat and the Whiteboard app | Maps publish as a dynamic web link that can be updated at any time; import and export of Microsoft Word, Excel and Project files |
| API | Microsoft's WhiteboardAdmin PowerShell module exports boards to HTML through the Microsoft Graph API, reading the board files from OneDrive: a user's own boards with delegated rights, or every user's in a tenant with admin consent | Yes, on Windows: a COM API for add-ins, external programs and WinWrap Basic macros, documented for MindManager Windows 22. It does not apply to the Mac, web or mobile versions |
| AI features | stated Yes | No |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Not stated | Email helpdesk, Chat, Community forum |
| Onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | Not stated | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Microsoft Loop, Microsoft Forms, Microsoft Copilot | more entries Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Lists, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, iCloud, Jira |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- AI features Microsoft Whiteboard Yes MindManager No
- Output Microsoft Whiteboard Whiteboards with inking, sticky notes, text, images, links, videos and Loop components MindManager Mind maps, flowcharts, org charts, timelines, concept maps, Kanban boards and Gantt charts
- What it makes Microsoft Whiteboard Boards for meetings, workshops, brainstorming, sprint and project planning, problem solving, incident management and teaching, with inking, sticky notes, text, images, links and online videos MindManager Mind maps, organisational charts, timelines, flowcharts, concept maps, Venn and onion diagrams, Kanban boards, fishbone diagrams, funnel charts, matrix diagrams and Gantt charts
- Templates and styling Microsoft Whiteboard More than 60 free templates for brainstorming, problem solving, strategy, project planning, retrospectives and workshops, plus custom templates saved to OneDrive and shared by link; a chosen background can be set as the default MindManager A library of built-in templates for maps, charts and boards across industries, with eleven more added in the October 2026 update, plus reusable sticky note styles, a customisable topic info style and imported SVG graphics as topic shapes, images or backgrounds
- Diagramming Microsoft Whiteboard Ink to shape turns drawn circles, squares and triangles into precise shapes, ink to table turns a drawn grid into a table with rows and columns, and ink beautification tidies handwriting MindManager Flowcharts, concept maps and fishbone, funnel, Venn, onion and matrix diagrams next to mind maps, with Gantt charts exportable as HTML5
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Microsoft Whiteboard
Strengths
- Opens inside Teams meetings, so participants can annotate right away
- More than 60 free templates, plus custom templates of your own
- Loop components sync across chats, meetings, emails and documents
- Free for schools as part of Microsoft 365 A1
Limitations
- Copilot features need a separate Microsoft Copilot license
- Export inside the app is documented as an image only
- Changing a board's owner requires an IT administrator
MindManager
Strengths
- Reads and writes Word, Excel and Microsoft Project files
- Runs inside Microsoft Teams as well as on desktop, web and mobile
- Professional can be bought once instead of rented
- Maps can be stored in SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box or iCloud
Limitations
- Co-editing is a separate add-on for owners of a one-time licence
- The Jira integration is a paid add-on
- Essentials covers the web version only
Plans
Pricing
Microsoft Whiteboard
- Microsoft 365 Not stated Whiteboard comes with Microsoft 365 and is enabled by default for most Microsoft 365 organisations.
- Microsoft 365 A1 Not stated Free for students and education professionals.
MindManager
- Essentials $99 / year Per user, billed per year, including VAT. The web version of MindManager for individual projects.
- Professional $179 / year Per user, billed per year, including VAT, or $369 as a one-time purchase. The full MindManager for individuals and small teams.
- Enterprise Not stated Custom pricing through sales, with IT administration for teams, enterprises, governments, nonprofits and educational institutions.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Microsoft Whiteboard
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
MindManager
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Reviews are not published yet. The form on a tool's page works and reaches us, but nothing from it appears on this site, so no score here is based on a review. The rules below are the ones that will apply once reviews go live.
Every review is read by a person before it appears. We require a working email address and use it to come back to the author, so a review has a reachable sender rather than being anonymous. We publish positive and negative reviews alike, we pay nothing and offer nothing for a review, and we accept none that was bought or incentivised.
What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on what they tell us, plus the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.
A vendor cannot have a review removed, cannot buy one, and cannot have one changed. Paid placement and a paid listing have no effect on which reviews appear or on any score.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Microsoft Whiteboard https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-whiteboard/digital-whiteboard-app · no check date recorded yet
MindManager https://www.mindmanager.com/en/ · checked against the official source on 2026-10-23
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.