Lucidchart vs Mermaid Chart

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Free plan: Both have one
Public API: Lucidchart has one; not confirmed by us for Mermaid Chart
Best fit: Lucidchart: Engineering and ops teams documenting systems · Mermaid Chart: developers already writing Mermaid syntax who want a hosted editor
Platforms: Lucidchart: Web, iOS, Android · Mermaid Chart: Web, VS Code extension
Trust score: About even — Lucidchart 90, Mermaid Chart 92

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

LucidchartBrowser diagramming for flowcharts, org charts and architecture, with data-linked shapes and AI generation.

Mermaid ChartTurns text, code, or prompts into flowcharts, sequence diagrams, and Gantt charts, from the Mermaid.js team.

Side by side

Fact	Lucidchart	Mermaid Chart
Category	Diagramming & Whiteboards	Diagramming & Whiteboards
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starts at	—	$80/yr
Public API	Yes	Not confirmed
Trust score	90 / 100	92 / 100
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android, API	Web, VS Code extension
Company	Lucid Software Inc.	Mermaid Chart
Launched	—	2022
Last verified	Oct 15, 2026	Oct 15, 2026

What our research says

Lucidchart

The default choice for team diagramming: data-linked shapes and layers handle diagrams that outgrow a whiteboard tool, and the integration list means the diagram ends up where the work already happens. Per-seat pricing with a three-user minimum on Team makes it expensive for small groups, and Lucid keeps moving the product's URLs around.

Pros

Data-linked shapes with conditional formatting
Layers for managing dense diagrams
Lucid AI generates and summarises diagrams from prompts
Over 100 integrations including Jira, Confluence, Slack and AWS

Cons

Free tier caps editable documents to a handful
Team plan carries a three-seat minimum
Per-seat pricing, and published figures differ across Lucid's own pages

Mermaid Chart

Being built by the Mermaid.js maintainers themselves is the real edge here: diagrams-as-code that developers already write in markdown get a proper collaborative editor and AI-assisted generation on top, instead of a third party reverse-engineering the syntax. The free tier's five-diagram cap is tight, and the vendor's recent rebrand from mermaidchart.com to mermaid.ai makes some third-party pricing pages describing it look slightly out of date.

Pros

built and maintained by the original Mermaid.js open-source team
generates diagrams from plain text or AI prompts, or direct syntax editing
real-time multi-user collaboration
integrations with VS Code, Confluence, and similar developer tools

Cons

free plan is capped at five diagrams
recent domain move from mermaidchart.com to mermaid.ai has left some third-party listings referencing the old pricing page
per-user annual billing can add up for larger teams versus flat team pricing

Which one fits

Choose Lucidchart if you need

Engineering and ops teams documenting systems
Org charts driven from an HR spreadsheet
Companies already on Jira, Confluence or Teams

Choose Mermaid Chart if you need

developers already writing Mermaid syntax who want a hosted editor
teams wanting diagrams generated from text or code with light AI assistance