Reladraw
Dev tools
diagram language
SHOW HN2026
How HN took it
22 positive, 21 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 15 critical, out of 59 comments about the project. Thread score +0.17.
Idea: 9 for, 5 againstExecution: 0 for, 6 againstDesign: 3 for, 3 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Fills a gap left by Mermaid and Graphviz for flowcharts
From 3 comments
Mermaid works great for fixed layouts like sequence diagrams and Gantts. For flowcharts, where position is king, it's bad. I've tried using svg in my MD files but they get…
HeavyStorm on HNThis is a wonderful idea that fills a gap that has caused me much pain! When it's more stable I'll be looking for (or creating) an Obsidian plugin, a VS Code extension, etc.…
shellerik on HNThis genuinely fucks. Thank you Fighting with mermaid is so frustraiting, especially when it comes to normal vs github formatting. This is going to replace several ad-hoc half…
monster_truck on HN
Useful for agent-driven diagramming
From 2 comments
This is very needed in the AI coding age! I find diagramming is one of the best ways for high bandwidth alignment between my mental model and the agent’s. I have been working on…
apinstein on HNI love it, and I wish it was part of Mermaid. I've always struggled with the presentation and agents tend to hack or just straight use SVG lol
kinduff on HN
Objections
Bugs in edge routing and themes
From 2 comments
Seems a little buggy, I added this line: edge parser -> renderer "test edge" from: left to: right and it wasn't smart enough to make a curved arrow
recroad on HNI’m excited to see this, but switching many of the examples from “dark” to “light” or “print” theme leaves the boxes black and the text unreadable.
s1mon on HN
No multi-line strings or line continuation in syntax
From 1 comment
That's an interesting idea, and an unexplored design space. Graphviz's dot has rank and head/tail ports, and Plantuml's class diagram has some support for relative position, but…
tonnydourado on HN
Requires Node runtime
From 1 comment
If this were implemented in a language with fewer dependencies, it'd be great.
einpoklum on HN
Requests
Themes
From 1 comment
I was looking for something like this. I wish it had different themes, the will prob be the best improvement.
patriciobcs on HN
Multi-line strings and line continuation
From 1 comment
That's an interesting idea, and an unexplored design space. Graphviz's dot has rank and head/tail ports, and Plantuml's class diagram has some support for relative position, but…
tonnydourado on HN
Editor and plugin integrations
From 2 comments
This is a wonderful idea that fills a gap that has caused me much pain! When it's more stable I'll be looking for (or creating) an Obsidian plugin, a VS Code extension, etc.…
shellerik on HNLove it! I created a VSCode extension to render it in markdown files and highlight its syntax: https://github.com/volkanunsal/relative-diagrams-vscode/
picardo on HN
Import from or export to Draw.io
From 1 comment
That's a cool idea. I'll add it to my todo list. Going from reladraw -> drawio is probably the easier direction. drawio -> reladraw is probably the more challenging piece,…
jpwalsh234 on HN
Questions
How conflicting placement statements are resolved
From 1 comment
This is basically tikz's positioning library (right=of, below left=of) without having to touch LaTeX. With tikz it was never the nodes that hurt me, it was the edges. Once two…
lastscattering on HN
Whether it does edge routing
From 1 comment
This is basically tikz's positioning library (right=of, below left=of) without having to touch LaTeX. With tikz it was never the nodes that hurt me, it was the edges. Once two…
lastscattering on HN
Alternatives named
Mermaid
From 2 comments
Mermaid works great for fixed layouts like sequence diagrams and Gantts. For flowcharts, where position is king, it's bad. I've tried using svg in my MD files but they get…
HeavyStorm on HNI love it, and I wish it was part of Mermaid. I've always struggled with the presentation and agents tend to hack or just straight use SVG lol
kinduff on HN
Graphviz
From 1 comment
Thanks very much! Yea, with .dot, the layout engine decides where things go. So, the agent doesn't know what the result looks like, leading to render, look, fiddle loops. And,…
jpwalsh234 on HN
Draw.io
From 1 comment
Pikchr
From 1 comment
Great! Reminds me of Pikchr a bit https://pikchr.org/home/doc/trunk/homepage.md
v9v on HN
D2
From 1 comment
https://d2lang.com/ works well?
zikohh on HN
TALA
From 1 comment
Thanks for mentioning TALA. I feel like TALA does add more control than Mermaid, but in spirit sits closer to Mermaid than Reladraw. It keeps the auto layout, but with extra ways…
jpwalsh234 on HN
TikZ
From 1 comment
This is basically tikz's positioning library (right=of, below left=of) without having to touch LaTeX. With tikz it was never the nodes that hurt me, it was the edges. Once two…
lastscattering on HN