Design and diagrams decision
Eraser
A small technical team can replicate the core AI-driven diagram generation and an editable canvas within a week of focused work and modest model costs; enterprise features and compliance are the main costly gaps to match Eraser fully.
Visit website↗Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Eraser alternatives, with the arithmetic →
Code Eraser publishes itself
Not a way out of the subscription - these are the vendor’s own repositories. Worth a look for how they build, and for anything you would have to integrate with.
What a replacement has to do
- Accept a text, code, or file prompt; call an LLM to produce diagram structure and layout instructions; render an editable canvas with the generated shapes and connections; persist files, versions, and export options; expose a minimal API to create diagrams programmatically.
What it still won’t have
- SOC 2 Type II certification and associated audits
- Built-in SAML SSO and enterprise billing/contract support
- MCP server and agent integrations shipped by Eraser
- Advanced team-style presets, template/branding locking, and enterprise-grade penetration testing
- Polish and scale of a mature multi-tenant SaaS product (UX, edge-case AI prompts, scaling)
What remains hard
- Compliance and regulation
SOC 2 type 2 certified
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 6 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal AI diagramming service using React for the frontend, Node.js/Express for the API, Postgres for metadata, S3-compatible object storage for exports, and OpenAI (or compatible) for LLM calls. Scope: accept text prompts and uploaded PDFs/PNG/Terraform snippets, call an LLM to produce nodes/edges + layout, render an editable SVG canvas with pan/zoom/undo, allow export to PNG/SVG/Markdown, store files and 30-day version history, and provide a /createDiagram API endpoint. Out of scope: SAML SSO, SOC2 compliance, enterprise billing, and large-scale multi-tenant isolation. Include proper error handling, retries for model/API failures, input validation, CI tests for API routes and core generation pipeline, and basic Docker-based deploy scripts.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Build verdict base78
- An open-source build was found+5
- 5 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- Hard moats found in the evidence-3
- Evidence score86
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 5
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productEraser – AI for diagrams that matter
- official pricingPricing – Eraser
- official docsAI documents – Eraser
- open sourcejgraph/drawio
- open sourcebpmn-io/diagram-js
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
