head to head · open source
Plasmic vs zag
Plasmic has 7,053 GitHub stars, 727 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zag has 5,220 stars, 291 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Plasmic leads on adoption by 35% (7,053 vs 5,220 stars). Plasmic is written in TypeScript under MIT; zag is written in TypeScript under MIT. Plasmic has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, zag 6%. Plasmic was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (design-systems, headless), 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
| Plasmic | zag | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.1K | ★ 5.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 727 | ⑂ 291 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Plasmic if
- You weight community size — 7.1K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick zag if
- You want the zag feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and zag fits your workflow better
About Plasmic
Plasmic is an open source, MIT licensed visual builder for React that integrates with an existing codebase, aimed at developers and at the marketing, design, and technical users who build alongside them.
read the full Plasmic overview →
About zag
Zag is an MIT licensed TypeScript library of framework agnostic, headless component state machines for building an accessible design system once and consuming it in React, Solid, Vue, Svelte or vanilla JavaScript.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Plasmic or zag more popular?
Plasmic has 7,053 GitHub stars and zag has 5,220. Plasmic has the larger community by that measure.
Are Plasmic and zag free?
Both are open source. Plasmic is licensed under MIT and zag under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Plasmic and zag?
Plasmic is written in TypeScript and zag 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, Plasmic or zag?
Choose Plasmic if you want the larger community (7,053 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zag if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.