head to head · open source
Mermaid vs rawgraphs-app
Mermaid has 90,981 GitHub stars, 9,444 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rawgraphs-app has 9,052 stars, 1,838 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 26 days ago. Mermaid leads on adoption by 905% (90,981 vs 9,052 stars). Mermaid is written in TypeScript under MIT; rawgraphs-app is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. Mermaid has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, rawgraphs-app 20%. 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 | rawgraphs-app | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 9.1K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.4K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 rawgraphs-app if
- You want the rawgraphs-app feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and rawgraphs-app 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 rawgraphs-app
About RAWGraphs is an open web tool to create custom vector based visualizations on top of the amazing d3.js library. It has been developed by DensityDesign Research Lab (Politecnico di Milano), Calibro and INMAGIK. Primarily conceived as a tool for designers and vis geeks, RAWGraphs aims at providing a missing link between spreadsheet applications (e.g., LibreOffice Calc, Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, Google Docs) and vector graphics editors (e.g., Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator). RAWGraphs works with tabular data (e.g., spreadsheets and comma separated values) as well as with copied and pasted texts from other…
read the full rawgraphs-app overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mermaid or rawgraphs-app more popular?
Mermaid has 90,981 GitHub stars and rawgraphs-app has 9,052. Mermaid has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mermaid and rawgraphs-app free?
Both are open source. Mermaid is licensed under MIT and rawgraphs-app under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mermaid and rawgraphs-app?
Mermaid is written in TypeScript and rawgraphs-app in JavaScript. 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 rawgraphs-app?
Choose Mermaid if you want the larger community (90,981 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rawgraphs-app if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.