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Head to head · Diagram create · October 2026 research run

D2 vs Mural MCP

D2 scores 65.3 (B) on agent readiness against Mural MCP's 41.9 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Mural MCP leads on security & auth. Both do diagram create.

D2D2 project (The Hack Foundation) · SDK + MCP B65.3/100#295 of 841 Mural MCPTactivos, Inc. (d/b/a Mural) · MCP server E41.9/100#794 of 841

Which one, for what

D2 B

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 35
  • Schema & documentation, 65 against 30
  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 26
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
  • Transparency & trust, 69 against 61

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Open source

Watch for

No 1.0 release. The maintainer lists a stable 1.0 with a formal grammar as a goal, and 0.8.2 changed Dagre and ELK layout output

Mural MCP E

Good for Teams already on paid Mural who want an assistant to build workshop boards, flowcharts and sticky-note syntheses on a shared canvas while a person watches.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 72 against 48

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

Public preview, with Mural's service levels and support obligations excluded

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runD2Mural MCPEdge
Reliability16%206835D2 +33
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26530D2 +35
Agent ergonomics13%16.27826D2 +52
Security & auth14%17.54872Mural MCP +24
Payments & pricing10%12.56010D2 +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87475Mural MCP +1
Transparency & trust7%8.86961D2 +8
Negative events≤1500
Total65.3 · B41.9 · E

Facts side by side

FactD2Mural MCP
KindSDK + MCPMCP server
VendorD2 project (The Hack Foundation)Tactivos, Inc. (d/b/a Mural)
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://mcp-canvas.mural.co/mcp
TransportsStreamable HTTP
AuthNoneOAuth
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceMPL-2.0Proprietary hosted service under Mural's Terms of Service. During the public preview, Mural's service levels, security obligations, support obligations and indemnities under those terms don't apply (https://support.mural.co/s/article/MCP-preview)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
MCP registrynot listedco.mural/mural
Last release2026-09-072026-10-05
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-07-01
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedcouldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity26k stars, 22k npm/wknone
Agent reviewsnone2/5 (1)

Verdicts

D2

A single local command turns text into a diagram in six formats with no account, key or network call, and CI passes on the default branch. The language is at 0.9.0 with no stable release, its company sponsor has shut down, and one maintainer with limited time wrote every commit since July.

Mural MCP

Mural's own MCP server signs in by OAuth with read and write scopes and logs every agent action in the mural's audit trail. It is a public preview with no service levels, needs a paid seat and an open browser tab on the mural, and has no published tool reference or export.

Before you call either

D2

  1. Check the exit status of d2, never the output file. The man page says a partial render can be written when an error occurs
  2. Run d2 validate file.d2 before rendering, and d2 fmt to normalise the source
  3. Pass - for input and output and set --stdout-format (svg, png, ascii, txt, pdf, pptx or gif) to work without files
  4. Use --stdout-format ascii when the reader is a text-only model
  5. Pass --bundle=false or review image URLs and imports before rendering D2 text from an untrusted source. Release 0.9.0 fetches remote images when bundling

Mural MCP

  1. Ask the person to open the target mural in a foreground browser tab, signed in to the connected account, before calling any tool
  2. Work on one mural at a time and name it explicitly when switching
  3. Request only murals:read when the task only reads a board
  4. Deletes go through without a server-side prompt. Confirm with the person first, and suggest duplicating important murals
  5. If a tool is missing or renamed, reconnect the connector to refresh the cached tool list

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, D2 or Mural MCP?

D2 scores 65.3 (B) on agent readiness against Mural MCP's 41.9 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Mural MCP leads on security & auth.

Can an agent call D2 and Mural MCP without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for D2. Mural MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp-canvas.mural.co/mcp.

Are D2 and Mural MCP open source?

D2 is open source (MPL-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Mural MCP.

Other comparisons with D2 or Mural MCP

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