head to head · open source
ECC vs d2
ECC has 299,780 GitHub stars, 44,278 forks, 244 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. d2 has 25,811 stars, 777 forks, 530 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. ECC leads on adoption by 1,061% (299,780 vs 25,811 stars). ECC is written in JavaScript under MIT; d2 is written in Go under MPL-2.0. ECC has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, d2 3%. ECC was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (developer-tools), 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
| ECC | d2 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 300K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 44K | ⑂ 777 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ECC if
- You weight community size — 300K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick d2 if
- You want the d2 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and d2 fits your workflow better
About ECC
Language: English العربية Português (Brasil) 简体中文 繁體中文 日本語 한국어 Türkçe Русский Tiếng Việt ไทย Deutsch Español Українська Polski বাংলা [!WARNING] Official sources only. Install ECC only from verified channels: the GitHub repository github.com/affaan m/ECC, the npm packages ecc universal and ecc agentshield , the GitHub App, the plugin slug ecc@ecc , and the project website ecc.tools. Third party re uploads and unofficial mirrors are not maintained or reviewed by the project and may contain malware. Install with Claude Code Use the guided setup or native plugin commands. Both install the same ecc@ecc plugin. Choose…
About d2
A modern diagram scripting language that turns text to diagrams. Docs Cheat sheet Comparisons Playground Table of Contents What does D2 look like? Quickstart Install D2 as a library Themes Fonts Export file types Language tooling Layout engines Comparison Contributing License Related Official plugins Community plugins Misc FAQ Notable open source projects documenting with D2 What does D2 look like? Open in playground For more examples, see ./docs/examples. Quickstart The most convenient way to use D2 is to just run it as a CLI executable to produce SVGs from .d2 files. A browser window will open with out.svg and…
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Frequently asked questions
Is ECC or d2 more popular?
ECC has 299,780 GitHub stars and d2 has 25,811. ECC has the larger community by that measure.
Are ECC and d2 free?
Both are open source. ECC is licensed under MIT and d2 under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ECC and d2?
ECC is written in JavaScript and d2 in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ECC or d2?
Choose ECC if you want the larger community (299,780 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose d2 if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.