Beautiful Mermaid
Shares rank 7 of 11 diagram tools by recommenders
Recommended for rendering Mermaid diagrams as ASCII or Unicode text for terminals, AI workflows and DOM-free environments, though critics say the ASCII/Unicode mode doesn't work well.
Recommended for rendering Mermaid diagrams as ASCII or Unicode text for terminals, AI workflows and DOM-free environments, though critics say the ASCII/Unicode mode doesn't work well.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Praised as a great project
“This is a really cool project, and incredible traction - great job!”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Beautiful Mermaid” “This is great, I will definitely make use of this!”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Beautiful Mermaid” “You solved a big problem.”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Beautiful Mermaid” Useful for documentation and planning
“Looks really useful to document complex applications”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Beautiful Mermaid” “Looks awesome, perfect for a feature request”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Beautiful Mermaid” “This tool will prove useful for posterity.”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Beautiful Mermaid”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
ASCII output unreliable, differs from SVG
“the ASCII/Unicode mode doesn't work all that well”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Beautiful Mermaid” “they appear incorrect/inconsistent with the SVG”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Beautiful Mermaid”
Other diagram tools people recommend
The four most recommended other diagram tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mermaid | 93 | 46 | 67% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Reladraw | 28 | 7 | 80% | 1 | — | — |
| SQL to ER diagram tool | 27 | 1 | 96% | 2 | — | — |
| D2 diagram language | 21 | 6 | 78% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Beautiful MermaidThis page | 12 | 5 | 71% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
All 17 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“anyone who has the extension installed is leveled up”
“This tool will prove useful for posterity.”
“Just another AI copies the entire project and you get to put your name on it.”
“You solved a big problem.”
“This is a really cool project, and incredible traction - great job!”
“Quite nice for cloudflare workers as they don’t have access to DOM”
“While a bit nifty to have this available in the TS/JS ecosystem for web usage... I'm not sure it'd be my first thing if I were using such a thing as a CLI.”
“The main algorithms are 1:1 conversion.”
“the ASCII/Unicode mode doesn't work all that well”
“I think I ran into a bug, the "start" edge is not rendered.”
“A crazy amount of dropdown shadow (in the examples), stretched fonts (front page example).”
“Looks really useful to document complex applications”
“Looks awesome, perfect for a feature request”
“they appear incorrect/inconsistent with the SVG”
“The ASCII output is the missing piece for AI-assisted coding workflows.”
“This is great, I will definitely make use of this!”
“With this, you should be able to approximate swim lane diagrams, which is something Mermaid lacks.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.