Whiteboard AnimationDoodly alternative: draw your own picture without setting draw paths
Doodly is a desktop doodle-video editor for Windows and Mac: you build scenes from its library of characters, props and backgrounds, or from your own images with draw paths you click onto them, and add text, voice-over and music on a timeline. WhiteboardAnimation.ai does one part of that in the browser — it draws a finished picture you upload, outlines first and then colour, with no draw paths to set — and you finish the video in your own editor. We have not run the same picture through Doodly yet, so this page compares what each product says and offers, not what each produced.
| Compared | Doodly | WhiteboardAnimation.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Standard $49/month or $490/year; Enterprise $79/month or $790/year. The plans differ in library size, music tracks and storage. | Free to start; Starter and Pro monthly or yearly, or a one-off credit pack. One credit draws one picture. Current prices are on the pricing page. |
| Free option | A 14-day free trial (its homepage), and a 30-day money-back guarantee. | 5 free credits on sign-up, no card; free exports are 720p with a watermark. |
| What you start from | A scene built from its library — characters in 20 poses each, props, background scenes, templates — or your own PNG, JPG, SVG or animated GIF, up to 1920 × 1080. | One finished picture: PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 10 MB. It does not generate pictures from text. |
| How your own image is drawn | Smart Draw: a wide, sweeping default path, or a custom draw path you click onto the image. Its help says SVG gives the best results. | Drawn stroke by stroke from the picture itself: outlines first, then colour region by region. |
| Drawing order and timing | Layers move forward or back; each layer’s draw duration and enter and exit animations are set in the editor, and draw paths shape how each image is drawn. | Lines only, or lines then colour; the subject or the background coloured first; and on the timeline, any layer’s lines or colour in any order. Each change replays at once: no redraw, no credit. |
| Hand | Its help lists right- or left-handed, sleeve or sleeveless, male or female, skin tones, cartoon, and no hand; which ones show depends on the board. Your own hand cannot be uploaded. | Six hands, or none. Switching hands never redraws or spends a credit. |
| Output | MP4, OGG, MKV or WebM; 360p to 1080p, a Facebook & Instagram preset or a custom size, up to 60 fps; no watermark. A whiteboard, dark or green chalkboard, glass board or your own background behind it. Transparent export: not stated. | MP4, WebM or a PNG sequence, up to 1080p, in the picture’s shape or 16:9, 1:1 or 9:16, on paper or any colour, such as a green screen; transparent WebM or PNG frames, and one transparent clip per layer, subject and background apart, on Pro. |
| Editing | Scenes on a timeline, text and uploaded fonts, voice-over recorded in the app or uploaded as MP3, royalty-free music, subtitles, pan and zoom. | After the drawing: reorder, trim and re-time its line and colour clips on a timeline, with no redraw and no credit. No text, scenes or voice-over: you finish the video in your own editor. |
| API for agents | Not stated: we found no API page. | A REST API for agents, on Pro; an MCP server is in development. |
| Best for | Building whole doodle videos from a library of characters and props on a Windows or Mac computer; it says it was “created by marketers, for marketers”. | Turning illustrations you already have into drawing clips for your own edit, or for an agent through the API. |
The same picture in both: not run yet
We compare tools by running one picture — our water-cycle illustration — through both and showing frames from each. Doodly is a desktop app with a 14-day trial, and we have not run the picture through it yet. Until we do, this section shows only our clip.
No frames here until we have run the same picture through Doodly ourselves. Its homepage shows examples of its doodle videos.
The hand traces the outlines first — cloud, mountain, river, arrows — and the colour comes after, region by region, as if someone drew it. Watch the full wasserkreislauf als whiteboard-animation
What each costs
Doodly’s pricing page lists two plans, monthly or yearly: Standard at $49 a month or $490 a year, and Enterprise at $79 a month or $790 a year, with a larger image library, more music tracks and more storage. On the day we read it, its homepage also showed a “New Year” deal at $67, described as a one-time price, which the pricing page does not list. Both pages offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
WhiteboardAnimation.ai: Free to start; Starter and Pro monthly or yearly, or a one-off credit pack. One credit draws one picture. Current prices are on the pricing page. Pricing
When Doodly may be the better choice
- You want to build the whole video in one app: characters, props, scenes, text, voice-over and music.
- You would rather pick ready-drawn characters in many poses than start from your own artwork.
- You want a chalkboard or glass-board look built in.
- You want to set exactly how an image is drawn by clicking its draw path yourself, or your artwork is SVG.
Using both, or moving over
- Export the scene or illustration you want drawn as a PNG, JPEG or WebP and upload it here; every picture is its own clip.
- Change the hand, lines only, or which part is coloured first after the drawing: none of it redraws or spends a credit.
- Put the clips into your video editor — Premiere, Final Cut, DaVinci Resolve or CapCut — and add your voice-over and music there.
Questions
Questions people ask
What people make with it
Sources (read October 21, 2026)
- Doodly homepage (library, Smart Draw, music, trial, guarantee)
- Doodly pricing (plans, system requirements)
- Doodly help: importing a custom image (formats, size, draw paths)
- Doodly help: editing assets (layers, draw paths)
- Doodly help: draw duration
- Doodly help: hand styles
- Doodly help: exporting (formats, resolutions, frame rates)
- Doodly help: canvas and background
- Doodly help: voice-over and sound
- Doodly help centre (scenes, text, subtitles, pan and zoom)
