head to head · open source
diagram-design vs charts.css
diagram-design has 64,318 GitHub stars, 4,247 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. charts.css has 6,584 stars, 179 forks, 36 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. diagram-design leads on adoption by 877% (64,318 vs 6,584 stars). diagram-design is written in HTML under MIT; charts.css is written in HTML under MIT. diagram-design has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, charts.css 3%. diagram-design was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (data-visualization), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| diagram-design | charts.css | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 6.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | HTML | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-04-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 179 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick diagram-design if
- You weight community size — 64K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick charts.css if
- You want the charts.css feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and charts.css fits your workflow better
About diagram-design
Diagram Design Editorial diagrams your designer won't hate. New in 2.0 — the Loop: flywheels with a shared memory hub. The dashed lines are the write backs. New in 2.3: semantic system patterns and optional accessible motion, while static output stays the default. New in 2.5.10: ten more layout grammars — Sankey, fishbone, Wardley map, kanban, user journey, deployment, dependency graph, UML class, story map, and database schema. 39 editorial diagram types for Claude Code, Codex, Factory Droid, Pi, and Agent Skills compatible hosts. Self contained HTML + SVG. No shadows. No Mermaid slop. Semantic patterns…
read the full diagram-design overview →
About charts.css
Charts.css Charts.css is an open source CSS framework for data visualization. Visualization help end users understand data. Charts.css help frontend developers turn data into beautiful charts and graphs using simple CSS classes . No dependencies. 58.4kb minified size. 5.9kb gzipped file size! Documentation Check the full documentation on ChartsCSS.org. Get Started Components Charts Customization Development Examples Installation CDN Use jsdelivr CDN: Or unpkg CDN: Package Manager Install using npm: Or using yarn: Usage The data is structured using semantic HTML tags and styled using CSS classes which change the…
read the full charts.css overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is diagram-design or charts.css more popular?
diagram-design has 64,318 GitHub stars and charts.css has 6,584. diagram-design has the larger community by that measure.
Are diagram-design and charts.css free?
Both are open source. diagram-design is licensed under MIT and charts.css under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between diagram-design and charts.css?
diagram-design is written in HTML and charts.css in HTML. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, diagram-design or charts.css?
Choose diagram-design if you want the larger community (64,318 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose charts.css if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.