# Diagram engine versions

Diagrams are drawn by three different things: your browser, our rendering service, or a renderer you host yourself. Which one applies depends on the language.

Engine versions are pinned deliberately. An engine that upgrades itself would silently change how existing diagrams look, and a diagram that changes on its own is worse than one that is slightly out of date.

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## When you need this page

* A diagram that renders differently from the same source elsewhere.
* Planning a self-hosted renderer and needing compatibility details.
* Checking whether a syntax feature is available yet.

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## The detail

| **Field**            | **What it does**                                                     |
| -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Browser              | draw.io and Excalidraw draw entirely in your browser.                |
| Rendering service    | Every text language: Mermaid, PlantUML, Graphviz, D2 and the rest.   |
| BPMN and DMN editors | Browser-based modellers, rendering the standard files.               |
| Self-hosted          | Any Kroki-compatible server you point us at, for the text languages. |

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## What draws each language

| **Language**                                               | **Drawn by**                                              |
| ---------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- |
| draw.io, Excalidraw                                        | Your browser                                              |
| BPMN, DMN                                                  | Your browser, in the modeller                             |
| Mermaid, PlantUML, C4, Structurizr                         | Rendering service                                         |
| Graphviz, D2, Nomnoml, Pikchr                              | Rendering service                                         |
| DBML, ERD                                                  | Rendering service                                         |
| Vega, Vega-Lite                                            | Rendering service                                         |
| BlockDiag family, Bytefield, WaveDrom, WireViz, Symbolator | Rendering service                                         |
| Ditaa, Svgbob                                              | Rendering service                                         |
| TikZ                                                       | Rendering service, and disabled until an admin enables it |

📝

**The rendering service is Kroki-compatible.** That is what makes the self-hosted option possible: point us at your own Kroki server and the same source renders inside your network.

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## A few things that catch people out

* Pinned versions mean a syntax feature released upstream this week may not render yet.
* Browser-rendered languages behave differently for anonymous readers, who get a stored image instead.
* A self-hosted renderer must be Kroki-compatible. Setup is covered in [Administration](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/administration.html).

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## Related

[File types and extensionsWhat we recognise, and how the language is decided.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/file-types-and-extensions.html)

[Rendering limitsSizes, timeouts, and what anonymous readers see.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/rendering-limits.html)

[ExamplesWorking diagrams you can copy.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/examples.html)

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_The page you only need when something is odd._