BoardSnap vs FigJam — AI whiteboard capture vs digital design canvas.
Short answer
FigJam is Figma's collaborative digital whiteboard, built for design teams doing brainstorming, design critiques, and diagramming together in a browser. BoardSnap is an iOS app that photographs a physical whiteboard and returns a structured summary and action items in about ten seconds. FigJam is the digital surface; BoardSnap captures the physical one.
FigJam is the natural whiteboard choice for design teams already in the Figma ecosystem. It offers a clean canvas with sticky notes, shapes, connectors, and voting tools — and it lives next to Figma files, so design and ideation assets are in the same workspace. It's particularly good for design critiques, design sprints, and collaborative wireframing sessions with mixed design-engineering audiences.
FigJam is entirely digital. When a design team works in a conference room on a physical whiteboard — sketching interaction patterns, mapping a user flow on paper, drawing screen states on a whiteboard before wireframing — FigJam doesn't help. The physical session's output needs to get into FigJam somehow, and that usually means someone manually re-creates it.
BoardSnap is the capture layer for those physical sessions. Snap the whiteboard sketch, get a summary of the interaction flow or design decisions in text, and use that as the brief for the FigJam session or the Figma wireframe.
The FigJam + BoardSnap pairing for design teams:
- Run the rough ideation session on a physical whiteboard — fastest for live group thinking.
- Snap the board with BoardSnap. Get the summary of the flows, decisions, and open questions.
- Open FigJam. Use the summary to seed the more structured ideation session — or go straight to Figma with a clear brief.
When FigJam wins: Remote design critiques, collaborative digital wireframing, and diagramming that lives alongside Figma files.
When BoardSnap wins: Physical ideation and sketching sessions where the whiteboard is the fastest medium and you need to capture and communicate the output.
For the full comparison, see the BoardSnap vs FigJam page.
Frequently asked
Can I use BoardSnap to capture a Figma whiteboard session on a physical monitor?
BoardSnap works best on physical whiteboards and paper where VisionKit's perspective correction adds value. For a screen-based FigJam session, a screenshot or the built-in FigJam export is a better option.
See it work in ten seconds.
BoardSnap is free on the App Store. Snap a board — get a summary and action plan.