Hi HN, I soft launched Musel Cloud, a collaborative whiteboard where you can drag and drop files (docx, xlsx, pdf) on the board and edit them in-place. These are all natively rendered on the canvas so they blend in seamlessly with other items. It has a built-in file explorer that syncs with your devices. Is it a whiteboard with a Drive or a Drive with a whiteboard? I'm not sure, but it greatly reduces context switching.
Speaking of context, I made an interesting discovery while working on Musel Cloud. Those who work with Claude Code, Codex, etc... will quickly realize that you'll spend the majority of the time wrestling with context management. With proper context, the LLM can be consistently reliable whereas prompting alone can be hit-or-miss. It turns out whiteboards are really good at managing context and interfacing with LLMs.
Whiteboards are a really crowded category; I didn't even intentionally set out to develop one. I was building a RAG app and needed a way to gather and lay out documents. To my surprise, there weren't any existing product where I can drag and drop forms, documents, contracts, books, etc.. onto a board and then edit them.
Thanks for bringing to my attention. I haven't tried but I can spot some differences in philosophy:
- Musel Cloud doesn't embed Google Docs or Sheets, it has its own text engine; the word processor is built-in. There's no reliance on Google for docx, xlsx editing. Musel's built-in, natively on canvas. File formats such as docx, xlsx are compatible with any other software.
- Musel renders everything using a canvas (and WebGL), it doesn't use HTML at all. It is truly a whiteboard through and through. Everybody else has to rely on HTML for their rich text layout. Musel Cloud doesn't rely on third-party apps or popup a separate modal. Because everything is entirely natively rendered using the canvas, layers work really well, zooming works really fast, and performance is great. Items on Musel are more like Photoshop objects; they're all raster.
- has a built-in drive that syncs (but only supports Windows right now). No reliance on Google Drive or Dropbox.
Musel delivers on the promise of seamlessness. Works on files you already have on your devices.
mochidusk•1mo ago
Speaking of context, I made an interesting discovery while working on Musel Cloud. Those who work with Claude Code, Codex, etc... will quickly realize that you'll spend the majority of the time wrestling with context management. With proper context, the LLM can be consistently reliable whereas prompting alone can be hit-or-miss. It turns out whiteboards are really good at managing context and interfacing with LLMs.
Whiteboards are a really crowded category; I didn't even intentionally set out to develop one. I was building a RAG app and needed a way to gather and lay out documents. To my surprise, there weren't any existing product where I can drag and drop forms, documents, contracts, books, etc.. onto a board and then edit them.
billconan•1mo ago
mochidusk•1mo ago
- Musel Cloud doesn't embed Google Docs or Sheets, it has its own text engine; the word processor is built-in. There's no reliance on Google for docx, xlsx editing. Musel's built-in, natively on canvas. File formats such as docx, xlsx are compatible with any other software.
- Musel renders everything using a canvas (and WebGL), it doesn't use HTML at all. It is truly a whiteboard through and through. Everybody else has to rely on HTML for their rich text layout. Musel Cloud doesn't rely on third-party apps or popup a separate modal. Because everything is entirely natively rendered using the canvas, layers work really well, zooming works really fast, and performance is great. Items on Musel are more like Photoshop objects; they're all raster.
- has a built-in drive that syncs (but only supports Windows right now). No reliance on Google Drive or Dropbox.
Musel delivers on the promise of seamlessness. Works on files you already have on your devices.