head to head · open source
Mermaid vs sigma.js
Mermaid has 90,981 GitHub stars, 9,444 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sigma.js has 12,215 stars, 1,619 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Mermaid leads on adoption by 645% (90,981 vs 12,215 stars). Mermaid is written in TypeScript under MIT; sigma.js is written in TypeScript under MIT. Mermaid has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, sigma.js 13%. Mermaid was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (javascript), 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
| Mermaid | sigma.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.4K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 sigma.js if
- You want the sigma.js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sigma.js 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 sigma.js
Website Documentation Storybook Mastodon [!NOTE] Sigma v4 is now available as an alpha release. See v4.sigmajs.org for the website, or the v4 branch for the source code. Sigma.js is an open source JavaScript library aimed at visualizing graphs of thousands of nodes and edges using WebGL, mainly developed by @jacomyal and @Yomguithereal, and built on top of graphology. How to use in your project To integrate sigma into your project, follow these simple steps: 1. Installation: Add sigma and graphology to your project by running the following command: 2. Usage: Import sigma into your JavaScript or TypeScript file…
read the full sigma.js overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mermaid or sigma.js more popular?
Mermaid has 90,981 GitHub stars and sigma.js has 12,215. Mermaid has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mermaid and sigma.js free?
Both are open source. Mermaid is licensed under MIT and sigma.js under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mermaid and sigma.js?
Mermaid is written in TypeScript and sigma.js 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, Mermaid or sigma.js?
Choose Mermaid if you want the larger community (90,981 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose sigma.js if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.