Mermaid Chart, a Markdown-like tool for creating diagrams, raises $7.5M | Hacker News Reader

Mermaid Chart, a Markdown-like tool for creating diagrams, raises $7.5M

techcrunch.com

60 pointsjordanroga17 comments

People should know, Mermaid and Mermaid Chart are not the same thing. Mermaid is just the JS library. Mermaid Chart is a diagramming tool built on top of it.

https://mermaid.js.org/ https://www.mermaidchart.com/

I use mermaid.js heavily, but plug for Kroki:

https://kroki.io/

“Kroki provides a unified API with support for BlockDiag (BlockDiag, SeqDiag, ActDiag, NwDiag, PacketDiag, RackDiag), BPMN, Bytefield, C4 (with PlantUML), D2, DBML, Ditaa, Erd, Excalidraw, GraphViz, Mermaid, Nomnoml, Pikchr, PlantUML, Structurizr, SvgBob, Symbolator, TikZ, UMLet, Vega, Vega-Lite, WaveDrom, WireViz... and more to come!”

Besides Mermaid, of special note: BPMN, D2, Excalidraw, and Structurizr.

I don't use Mermaid Chart, but I use Mermaid JS, and encourage my friends and colleagues to use it:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Py7Zig1_ECpEJ3j49Ra5UYci...

BTW ChatGPT is pretty good at creating code for Mermaid diagrams.

I love mermaid so much. It’s powerful, simple, text-based, easy to put into everything.

I hope this cash doesn’t make them suck. This probably starts a ticking clock until it’s no longer simple and integratabtle into everything.

I really like being able to diff diagram versions in diff to easily see who added a node or modified something.

What's the revenue model? So far it's been free to use.. and, I really like Mermaid BTW..

Mermaid, the open source library and Mermaid Live editor[1] are free to use.

Mermaid chart has a paid tier[2], and gives storage, sharing, visual editor, and more.

Disclosure: Long time maintainer of Mermaid and works on Mermaid Chart

[1] https://mermaid.live

[2] https://www.mermaidchart.com/pricing

Huh, never knew mermaidchart existed. Love mermaidjs though. Any plans to ever add styling/placement options? I know that’s not the idea behind it, but optionally, perhaps?

Styling is already present in most charts, and we do have plans to support different layout algorithms which could enable support for custom placement of nodes as well.

I love mermaid for the ability to embed high level or small scale design requirements into design documents.

However, it doesn't scale very well past a few dozen elements (in terms of layout and display). Not sure what other's experiences are like?

Same [1]. Zoom being outsourced to the implementing platform is one major pain-point. That example from us has grown in size.

Having to bump the processing limit multiple times for mermaid to not refuse processing big diagrams, using touch zoom gestures on the laptop, because the diagram is so small, that browser zoom can't provide enough magnification, the list goes on.

We are clearly using the wrong tool for a diagram of this complexity, but the practicality of seeing commit changes in the diff, what property was changed by whom and instantly having the visual feedback in the Pull Request is just way too useful to switch to a "proper" tool.

[1] https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/25803

I purposely placed a Mermaid sequence diagram[1] in the main Readme of my app’s repo because I think it's important that all readers see and understand its workflow[2]

[1] https://mermaid.js.org/syntax/sequenceDiagram.html

[2] https://github.com/hbcondo/revenut-app?tab=readme-ov-file#-w...

PlantUML predates mermaid and is an excellent tool.

A big issue was PlantUML being developed in Java. If it was coded in JavaScript, you could put it in any web app, and the story might have been different.

Wasm might make that a reality rather soon

It is game changing that you can include Mermaid diagrams in Azure DevOps and Github markdown files. Makes it easy to include a chart or diagram and keep it under source control.

Mermaid is ok. Beyond a few elements though you will run up against serious bugs in the layout that have 5 year+ open issues.

I also love mermaid, hopefully this doesn’t enshittify it.

Glad you love Mermaid!

As both the creator of Mermaid and the founder of Mermaid Chart, I can honestly say that both are close to my heart. My hope with Mermaid Chart was to spend more daytime hours working with Mermaid, improving it, and making some structure changes that were needed to continue to grow.

Since Mermaid Chart started in 2022 Mermaid Chart has enabled this. I believe this development is incredibly beneficial for the open-source project too. Our strategy involves Mermaid Chart consistently reinvesting resources and development efforts into the open-source project.

In addition, we hope to make it easier to use Mermaid itself. These services are provided by Mermaid Chart on top of Mermaid JS.

/Knut

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