Liro

A self-hosted collaborative whiteboard for your local network. Inspired by Miro and Milanote — but your boards live on your own server, work offline and need no accounts.

English · Русский · 中文

Why Liro

• Your network, your data. One small Node.js server on Linux or Windows; boards and files are plain folders on its disk.
• Real-time teamwork. Everyone on the LAN edits the same board and sees each other's cursors and selections.
• Offline first. Cache a board on your computer and keep working when the server is down — Liro asks how to merge when it comes back.
• No accounts, no cloud, no tracking. Open the app, pick the server it found on the network, start drawing.

Features

🗒️ Content	Sticky notes, text with bulleted/numbered lists, 48 shapes (basic, flowchart, callouts) and your own SVG shapes, lines and arrows (straight, elbow, curved) with labels and connection to shapes, freehand pen with smoothing, frames
✅ Structure	Nested checklists with drag & drop and progress, tables, a year calendar for any year, comments with threads, nested boards with folder icons and breadcrumbs
🖼️ Media	Images, video, audio, any files, link cards with previews (cached on the server), sticker packs, 3D models (glTF/GLB, FBX, OBJ+MTL, STL, PLY, 3MF, DAE) with a rotatable viewer
🎨 Styling	Colour wheel with saved presets, fill and line opacity, dash settings, 23 bundled fonts plus your own uploads, smart alignment guides, align & distribute
👥 Collaboration	Live editing, cursors and selections of other people, conflict-free merging of concurrent edits, undo/redo
📴 Offline & local	Cached boards work without the server; create new boards offline; Local boards that never leave your computer and can later be moved to a server
🗄️ Admin	Backups of the whole server, a single board or your local boards; disk space limits; unused files cleaned up after 24 h; install, update and storage-move scripts for Linux and Windows
🌍 Languages	English and Russian interface (follows the system language)

Screenshots

Servers and boards. Servers found on the network, local boards, caching and backups.	Shape library. Basic shapes, flowchart, callouts and your own SVG shapes.
Working together. Comment threads, nested checklists, tables and live cursors.	3D models. Rotate a model right on the board; it remembers the view.
Nested boards. Boards inside boards with breadcrumbs.	Year calendar. A big calendar for any year, built from an editable table.

Getting started

1. Run the server

Linux (systemd)

tar xzf liro-src.tar.gz && cd liro
sudo bash deploy/install.sh

Installs Node.js 22 if needed, copies the server to /opt/liro, keeps boards in /var/lib/liro, settings in /etc/liro/liro.env, starts the liro service and opens firewall ports.

sudo bash deploy/update.sh                           # update to a new version, keeps boards and settings
sudo bash deploy/configure.sh --data /mnt/storage/liro  # move the board storage
journalctl -u liro -f                                # logs

Windows (PowerShell as administrator)

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File deploy\windows\install.ps1 -DataDir D:\LiroData
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File deploy\windows\update.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File deploy\windows\configure.ps1 -DataDir E:\LiroData
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File deploy\windows\uninstall.ps1

The server runs as the scheduled task Liro Server (starts with Windows, restarts on failure). Settings: C:\ProgramData\Liro\liro.env, log: C:\ProgramData\Liro\logs\liro.log.

Without installing

cd server && npm install && npm start

The board is now available at http://<server-ip>:1919 — in any browser, or in the desktop clients.

2. Install a client

Download from Releases:

Platform	File
Windows (installer)	Liro-<version>-win-x64.exe
Windows (portable)	Liro-<version>-portable.exe
Linux	Liro-<version>-linux-x86_64.AppImage (chmod +x, needs libfuse2)

The client finds Liro servers on the network automatically (UDP broadcast and mDNS). You can also connect by address: liro.loc, 192.168.1.10 or 192.168.1.10:1919.

3. Optional: the liro.loc name

The clients don't need it, but browsers do. Either add a DNS record liro.loc → <server-ip> on your router (dnsmasq: server=/loc/<server-ip> with the built-in DNS responder LIRO_DNS=1), or add <server-ip> liro.loc to the hosts file of each computer.

Working offline

• Tick Cache on a board: the board and all its files are stored on your computer and kept in sync.
• If the server becomes unreachable, a cached board stays fully editable. Your changes are queued on disk (they survive restarts).
• When the server is back, Liro asks: update the board on the server, save your version as a copy, or discard your changes.
• New boards can be created while the server is offline — they are uploaded when it returns.
• Local boards live only on your computer (or in your browser) and can be moved to any server later.

Backups

The Backup button exists in three places:

Where	Saves	Restores into
Board list of a server	All boards with files, uploaded fonts, shapes, icons and sticker packs	That server
Local boards	All local boards, local fonts/shapes/icons and client settings	Local boards
An open board	This board with its nested boards and files	Where the board is

Backups are plain .tar archives named after what they contain (Liro-server-…, Liro-board-…, Liro-local-…) with a manifest.json inside. When restoring you choose whether to replace existing boards and files or only add missing ones.

Configuration

Server settings are environment variables, usually set in liro.env:

Variable	Default	Description
LIRO_NAME	Liro (<hostname>)	Server name shown in the clients
LIRO_PORT	1919	HTTP/WebSocket port (UDP discovery uses the same number)
LIRO_EXTRA_PORTS	—	Extra HTTP ports, e.g. 80 for http://liro.loc
LIRO_DATA	server/data	Boards, media, fonts, shapes, icons, stickers
LIRO_HOSTNAME	liro.loc	Name answered by the built-in DNS responder
LIRO_DNS	0	Built-in DNS responder on port 53
LIRO_MDNS	1	Announce the server via mDNS
LIRO_MAX_UPLOAD_MB	2048	Max size of one uploaded file
LIRO_DISK_WARN_GB / LIRO_DISK_BLOCK_GB	10 / 5	Warn about low disk space / allow editing only
LIRO_MEDIA_GRACE_HOURS	24	Unused files are deleted after this time
LIRO_CONFIG	/etc/liro/liro.env, %ProgramData%\Liro\liro.env	Settings file to read

Ports: 1919/tcp (web, API), 1919/udp (discovery), 5353/udp (mDNS), optional 80/tcp and 53/udp.

Sticker packs: drop a folder of images into <data>/stickers/<pack>/ (optional pack.json with {"name": "…"}). They appear in all clients without a restart.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action	Key	Action
V	Select	H / Space	Hand
N	Sticky note	T	Text
R / O	Rectangle / Oval	L / A	Line / Arrow
P	Pen	E	Eraser
K	Checklist	G	Table
B	Nested board	F	Frame
C	Comment	Del	Delete
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z	Undo / Redo	Ctrl+C / V / D	Copy / Paste / Duplicate
Shift+1	Zoom to fit	Alt while dragging	Move without snapping

Building from source

cd server && npm install && npm test          # server + 15 end-to-end tests
cd client && npm install && npm run dist:win   # Windows installer + portable (on Windows)
cd client && bash build-linux.sh               # Linux AppImage (on Linux or WSL)

Releases are built by GitHub Actions: push a version tag and the workflow runs the tests, builds the Windows and Linux clients and the server archive, and publishes them as a release.

git tag v1.1.0 && git push origin v1.1.0

server/   Node.js server: HTTP API, WebSocket sync, storage, discovery, backups
web/      board UI shared by the browser and the desktop client
client/   Electron desktop client: discovery, local cache, offline mode
deploy/   install / update / configure scripts for Linux and Windows

License

Liro is free software released under the GNU General Public License v3.0. Bundled fonts, icons, stickers and libraries keep their own licenses — see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Liro is an independent project and is not affiliated with Miro or Milanote; their names are trademarks of their respective owners.