Mural: Digital Whiteboard for Collaborative Visual Work

Overview

Mural is a digital collaborative workspace that provides a virtual whiteboard environment for teams to engage in visual thinking and problem-solving. Founded in 2011, the platform is designed to support various collaborative activities, including brainstorming sessions, design thinking workshops, agile sprint planning, and visual project management. Its core offering is an expansive online canvas where users can add sticky notes, text boxes, shapes, connectors, images, and documents, facilitating real-time interaction regardless of geographical location.

The platform is suitable for organizations adopting remote or hybrid work models, seeking to replicate the experience of an in-person workshop. Mural's interface supports simultaneous editing by multiple users, with features like guided facilitation, timers, voting, and private modes to structure and manage collaborative sessions effectively. Project managers can use Mural for visual roadmapping and tracking progress, while product designers might leverage it for user journey mapping and wireframing. The extensive template library provides pre-built structures for common business processes, reducing setup time and standardizing workflows across teams, from SWOT analyses to empathy maps.

Mural offers a free plan for individuals and small teams, allowing users to explore its basic functionalities before committing to a paid subscription. For larger organizations, paid plans introduce advanced features such as administrative controls, single sign-on (SSO), and enhanced security protocols like SOC 2 Type II compliance, as detailed in Mural's security and compliance documentation. The platform's developer experience includes a REST API, enabling programmatic access to manage murals, content, and users, fostering integration with existing enterprise tools. This API functionality is documented in the Mural API reference, detailing endpoints for common use cases.

Key features

• Infinite Canvas: A digital whiteboard that provides unlimited space for visual collaboration, supporting large-scale projects and extensive brainstorming sessions without spatial constraints.
• Sticky Notes and Drawing Tools: Core tools for ideation, allowing users to quickly add text-based notes, freehand drawings, and shapes to organize thoughts and concepts visually.
• Template Library: A collection of pre-designed frameworks for common workshops and methodologies, including Agile planning, design sprints, and strategic planning, streamlining setup.
• Facilitation Tools: Features such as timers, private mode, voting, and laser pointer help moderators guide sessions, manage participation, and focus group attention effectively.
• Content Embedding: Supports embedding various media types including images, videos, and documents directly onto the canvas, centralizing resources for discussions.
• Comments and Reactions: Allows asynchronous feedback and quick acknowledgments, enabling teams to provide input and react to ideas without interrupting the flow of a session.
• Outline and Summarize: Tools to structure and navigate complex murals, helping users create presentations from their canvases and summarize key outcomes.
• Access and Permissions: Granular controls over who can view, edit, or comment on murals, ensuring secure collaboration and data integrity.

Pricing

Mural offers a tiered pricing structure, including a free plan and various paid subscriptions for teams and enterprises. Prices listed are as of May 2026.

For detailed and up-to-date pricing information, refer to the official Mural pricing page.

Common integrations

• Microsoft Teams: Embed murals directly into Teams channels, launch Mural from meetings, and receive notifications. Learn about Mural for Microsoft Teams.
• Slack: Share murals, receive real-time notifications about activity, and collaborate directly within Slack channels. View Slack integration guides.
• Jira: Sync Jira issues with sticky notes in Mural, allowing for visual sprint planning and backlog refinement. Explore Jira Cloud integration options.
• Google Calendar: Schedule Mural sessions, embed mural links directly into calendar invites, and receive reminders.
• Zoom: Integrate Mural into Zoom meetings for interactive virtual whiteboarding during video conferences. Utilize Mural in Zoom meetings.
• Adobe Creative Cloud: Import and export assets between Mural and Adobe applications, facilitating design workflows.

Alternatives

• Miro: A comprehensive online whiteboard platform offering a wide array of templates and integrations for diverse collaboration needs.
• Figma (FigJam): A collaborative online whiteboard from Figma, designed for brainstorming, diagramming, and conducting workshops alongside design files.
• Lucidspark: An intuitive virtual whiteboard for brainstorming, organizing ideas, and collaborating in real-time with extensive mapping and diagramming features.

Getting started

To begin using the Mural API, developers typically need to obtain an API key and understand the authentication process. The primary method for programmatic interaction involves making HTTP requests to the Mural API endpoints, often using a tool like cURL or a programming language's HTTP client. The following example demonstrates how to fetch a list of available murals using the Mural API.

Before executing this, ensure you have an API key from your Mural developer dashboard and replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual key.

curl -X GET \
  'https://api.mural.co/api/v1/murals' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY'

This cURL command sends a GET request to the /murals endpoint. The -H 'Accept: application/json' header specifies that the client expects a JSON response, and -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' includes the API key for authentication. A successful response will return a JSON array containing details about the murals accessible to your account. For more complex operations, such as creating content within a mural or managing users, refer to the Mural API documentation for specific endpoint details and required parameters.

Mural's API can be integrated with various backend systems to automate tasks, sync data, or embed Mural functionalities into custom applications. For instance, a developer might use the API to automatically generate a new mural for each new project initiated in a project management system, pre-populating it with a standard template. This level of integration can streamline workflows, as highlighted in discussions around developer productivity on platforms like InfoQ's API-first development insights, which emphasize the benefits of programmatic interfaces for enhancing application ecosystems.