head to head · open source
Mermaid vs plot
Mermaid has 90,981 GitHub stars, 9,444 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. plot has 5,418 stars, 251 forks, 349 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Mermaid leads on adoption by 1,579% (90,981 vs 5,418 stars). Mermaid is written in TypeScript under MIT; plot is written in HTML under ISC. Mermaid has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, plot 5%. Mermaid was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Mermaid | plot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | MIT | ISC |
| Written in | TypeScript | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.4K | ⑂ 251 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Mermaid if
- You weight community size — 91K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick plot if
- You want the plot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the ISC license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and plot fits your workflow better
About Mermaid
Mermaid Generate diagrams from Markdown like text. Live Editor! 📖 Documentation 🚀 Getting Started 🌐 CDN 🙌 Join Us 简体中文 Try Live Editor previews of future releases: Develop Next :trophy: Mermaid was nominated and won the JS Open Source Awards (2019) in the category "The most exciting use of technology"!!! Thanks to all involved, people committing pull requests, people answering questions! 🙏 Table of content Expand contents About Examples Release Related projects Contributors Security and safe diagrams Reporting vulnerabilities Appreciation About Mermaid is a JavaScript based diagramming and charting tool…
read the full Mermaid overview →
About plot
Observable Plot Observable Plot is a free, open source, JavaScript library for visualizing tabular data, focused on accelerating exploratory data analysis. It has a concise, memorable, yet expressive API, featuring scales and layered marks in the grammar of graphics style. Daily downloads of Observable Plot · oss analytics Documentation 📚 Examples 🖼️ Releases 🚀 See our CHANGELOG and summary release notes. Getting help 🏠 See our community guide. Contributing 🙏 See CONTRIBUTING.md.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mermaid or plot more popular?
Mermaid has 90,981 GitHub stars and plot has 5,418. Mermaid has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mermaid and plot free?
Both are open source. Mermaid is licensed under MIT and plot under ISC. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mermaid and plot?
Mermaid is written in TypeScript and plot 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, Mermaid or plot?
Choose Mermaid if you want the larger community (90,981 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose plot if its feature set, stack or ISC licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.