head to head · open source
diagram-design vs deck.gl
diagram-design has 64,318 GitHub stars, 4,247 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. deck.gl has 14,728 stars, 2,297 forks, 532 open issues and last shipped yesterday. diagram-design leads on adoption by 337% (64,318 vs 14,728 stars). diagram-design is written in HTML under MIT; deck.gl is written in TypeScript under MIT. diagram-design has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, deck.gl 16%. deck.gl 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| diagram-design | deck.gl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | HTML | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| 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 deck.gl if
- You want the deck.gl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and deck.gl 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 deck.gl
deck.gl Website GPU powered, highly performant large scale data visualization deck.gl is designed to simplify high performance, WebGL2/WebGPU based visualization of large data sets. Users can quickly get impressive visual results with minimal effort by composing existing layers, or leverage deck.gl's extensible architecture to address custom needs. deck.gl maps data (usually an array of JSON objects) into a stack of visual layers e.g. icons, polygons, texts; and look at them with views : e.g. map, first person, orthographic. deck.gl handles a number of challenges out of the box: Performant rendering and updating…
read the full deck.gl overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Business Intelligence & Reporting projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Business Intelligence & Reporting field.
Frequently asked questions
Is diagram-design or deck.gl more popular?
diagram-design has 64,318 GitHub stars and deck.gl has 14,728. diagram-design has the larger community by that measure.
Are diagram-design and deck.gl free?
Both are open source. diagram-design is licensed under MIT and deck.gl under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between diagram-design and deck.gl?
diagram-design is written in HTML and deck.gl in TypeScript. 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 deck.gl?
Choose diagram-design if you want the larger community (64,318 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose deck.gl if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.