Mermaid vs Graphviz (DOT): Which Should You Use?

Graphviz is the veteran graph-layout toolkit behind the DOT language. Mermaid is the newer, Markdown-friendly option. Both describe graphs as text, but they target different needs.

Try MermaidViewer free

At a glance

	Mermaid	Graphviz
Focus	Many diagram types for docs	General graph layout
Runs in browser	Yes, natively	Via WebAssembly ports
Markdown platform support	Wide	Rare
Layout control for huge graphs	Good for small/medium	Excellent, many engines
Sequence, Gantt, charts	Yes	No

Same graph, two syntaxes

mermaid

flowchart LR
    A --> B
    A --> C
    B --> D
    C --> D

text

digraph G {
  rankdir=LR;
  A -> B; A -> C;
  B -> D; C -> D;
}

Pick Graphviz for very large generated graphs (dependency graphs, call graphs). Pick Mermaid for human-written documentation diagrams that need to render on GitHub and in docs tools.

Frequently asked questions

Can Mermaid render DOT files?

No, Mermaid has its own syntax. You can ask MermaidViewer's AI to convert simple DOT graphs into Mermaid flowcharts.

Mermaid vs Graphviz (DOT): Which Should You Use?

At a glance

Same graph, two syntaxes

Frequently asked questions

Can Mermaid render DOT files?

Other comparisons