Pele – Mermaid diagrams as themeable SVG
- ID
- 36742
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 17 Oct 2026, 11:55 PM
- Fetched
- 18 Oct 2026, 11:41 AM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://pele.run/
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 7.5
- Created
- 18 Oct 2026, 11:42 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coders
What happened
Pele is a new zero-dependency open source library that renders Mermaid syntax directly to SVG, themeable through CSS custom properties (--pele-bg, --pele-fg, --pele-line, etc.) so colour changes apply without re-rendering. Its README claims 230 kB gzip versus Mermaid.js's 1.6 MB, render times of 0.05–0.3 ms versus 6–82 ms, and support for every diagram type in Mermaid 12.1.0; it was built for Obsidian to render diagrams quickly and match themes. The Hacker News thread drew 266 points and 26 comments.
Why it matters
If you render Mermaid in a docs site, note-taking plugin, or any client-side editor, the claimed size difference (230 kB vs 1.6 MB gzip) and per-diagram render cost (sub-millisecond vs 6–82 ms) decide whether diagrams can redraw on every keystroke instead of being debounced or server-rendered — and CSS-variable theming means dark/light switching costs no re-render. Treat the numbers as the author's own claims, not independent measurement: benchmark Pele against your actual diagram corpus before swapping out Mermaid.js, especially for the less common diagram types.
Discussion angle
Reproduce the benchmark live: take a real sequence or class diagram from your project, render it in both Pele and Mermaid.js, and check whether the 500× speed claim and 'every Mermaid 12.1.0 diagram type' hold up — plus what breaks if you need Mermaid's interactive features that a static SVG drops.