# D2 vs Excalidraw (slim)

> D2 scores 65.3 (B) to Excalidraw's 54.5 (C) for diagrams as code. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/d2-vs-excalidraw.md (~2,400 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/d2-vs-excalidraw.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/d2-vs-excalidraw
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

D2 scores 65.3 (B) on agent readiness against Excalidraw's 54.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Excalidraw leads on security & auth. Both do diagrams as code.

- D2: B 65.3, rank #322 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/d2.min.md
- Excalidraw: C 54.5, rank #683 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/excalidraw.min.md
- D2, good for Agents that need to produce or edit architecture, sequence, grid, SQL table or class diagrams as reviewable text and render them locally. Ahead on Reliability, 68 against 50; Agent ergonomics, 78 against 58; Payments & pricing, 60 against 35; Maintenance & community, 74 against 44; Transparency & trust, 69 against 63. Also No key needed to call it.
- Excalidraw, good for Teams already on Excalidraw+ that want agents to create and edit hand-drawn diagrams, slides and wireframes in a shared workspace, and one-off sketches through the free MCP App. Ahead on Security & auth, 73 against 48. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.

| Category | D2 | Excalidraw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 68 | 50 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 65 | 65 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 78 | 58 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 48 | 73 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 35 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 74 | 44 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 69 | 63 |

| Fact (where they differ) | D2 | Excalidraw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | HTTP API |
| Vendor | D2 project (The Hack Foundation) | Excalidraw s.r.o. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.excalidraw.com/api/v1/mcp` |
| Transports |  | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | MPL-2.0 | Excalidraw+ is a proprietary service under Excalidraw's terms of use. The editor and the MCP App on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 37 |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-01 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2021-04-29 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 26k stars, 22k npm/wk | 134k stars, 676k npm/wk |