What is drawdb-collaborative?

drawDB Collaborative is a self hosted, browser based tool for designing database diagrams, sometimes called entity relationship diagrams, together with other people in real time. It is an independently maintained fork of the original drawDB project, meaning it started from that project's code and added new features, but it is not officially connected to or endorsed by the original drawDB maintainers. The main addition in this fork is turning drawDB from a single user, browser only tool into a shared, live collaborative one. Instead of storing diagrams only in the browser, this version stores them centrally in a SQLite database, so multiple people opening the same diagram link automatically join the same live session. Changes such as moving or editing a table appear for everyone in real time over a WebSocket connection, and each participant's cursor and current view are visible to others. To prevent one person's changes from silently overwriting another's, the app checks a version number before saving and gives an outdated client the current version instead of letting it overwrite newer work. The project keeps drawDB's original browser based diagram editing and its ability to import and export SQL. Everything needed to run it, including the web interface, the backend API, the WebSocket server for live updates, and the SQLite storage, is packaged into a single container, which can be started with one Docker command. For development without Docker, it can also be run locally using npm, starting a frontend server and a separate API and WebSocket server. The application exposes a small set of API endpoints for creating, reading, updating, and deleting diagrams, plus a WebSocket endpoint for the live collaboration itself. When deployed behind a reverse proxy, it needs certain headers forwarded so the WebSocket connections work correctly. The project is released under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3, meaning that anyone running a modified version of it as a network service must make that version's source code available to users of that service.