# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/d2-vs-mural-mcp
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/d2-vs-mural-mcp.md (~2,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/d2-vs-mural-mcp.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/d2-vs-mural-mcp.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

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.

- D2: grade B, 65.3/100, rank #295 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/d2.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/d2.json
- Mural MCP: grade E, 41.9/100, rank #795 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mural-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mural-mcp.json

## 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

| Category | Weight | D2 | Mural MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 35 | D2 +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 30 | D2 +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 26 | D2 +52 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 48 | 72 | Mural MCP +24 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 10 | D2 +50 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 75 | Mural MCP +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 61 | D2 +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.3 · B** | **41.9 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | D2 | Mural MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | MCP server |
| Vendor | D2 project (The Hack Foundation) | Tactivos, Inc. (d/b/a Mural) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://mcp-canvas.mural.co/mcp` |
| Transports |  | Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MPL-2.0 | Proprietary 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 documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | `co.mural/mural` |
| Last release | 2026-09-07 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-07-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 26k stars, 22k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 2/5 (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.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/d2-vs-mural-mcp.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/d2-vs-mural-mcp.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "d2", "b": "mural-mcp"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare d2 mural-mcp`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/d2.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mural-mcp.json

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