FAQs

General

Is there a license applied on the generated content?

In summary: public diagrams are MIT Licensed, while private diagrams remain your intellectual property without an implicit license. For more details, read on.

If your diagram is private...

ZenUML does not impose any license on the diagrams generated from text; they are entirely your property. You have the option to apply a license to your diagrams if you choose. To do this, we suggest including a comment in the diagram's description or accompanying documentation to state the license. Keep in mind that private diagrams can also be shared as you see fit. For instance, you could share a private diagram on Confluence, Slack or other platforms, and that diagram remains your intellectual property. Unlike content that is MIT licensed, they cannot use it without your explicit permission.

If your diagram is public...

Public diagrams are automatically granted an MIT license. The license covers the diagram regardless of where it is viewed. Here is the text of the license:

The essence of this is promoting open sharing. Any diagram you post on ZenUML under this license allows free use, but it must also carry this same license. This encourages the open exchange of ideas and resources. Remember, any diagrams you post on ZenUML should be compatible with this license, or they may be subject to removal.

Is ZenUML open source?

Yes, partially. ZenUML's core renderer is open source and is licensed under the MIT License, which is a key aspect many users are interested in. This open-source component forms the foundation of several products developed using ZenUML.

Open Source Products:

• Confluence Plugin
• JetBrains Plugin
• Chrome Extension

These products are freely available and their source code is accessible, promoting collaboration and modification under the terms of the MIT License.

Non-Open Source Products:

• Web Application
• Desktop Application

These are proprietary offerings of ZenUML and are not open source. They are built on top of the open-source core renderer but have additional features and functionalities that are under proprietary licensing.

Tools

What is the difference between ZenUML, PlantUML, Mermaid and other similar tools?

There are couple of tools that do a similar job to convert text to sequence diagrams.

Feature/Tool	ZenUML	Mermaid	SequenceDiagram.org	PlantUML	Websequencediagrams.com
Rendering Location	In-browser	In-browser	In-browser	Server-side	Server-side
User Interaction	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
Theming/Styling Support	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes

Most importantly, they have different syntax. (TBC)