Skip to content
TopicTracker
From HackerNewsView original
TranslationTranslation

Asciigraph: Go pkg to make lightweight ASCII graph in CLI with zero dependencies

Asciigraph is a Go package that creates lightweight ASCII line graphs for the command line, requiring no external dependencies.

Background

Asciigraph is a Go library that renders numerical data as simple line graphs using only ASCII characters (dashes, pipes, dots), meant to be displayed in a terminal/command-line interface. It has zero external dependencies, meaning it uses only Go's standard library. This is useful for developers who want to visualize server metrics, benchmark results, or real-time data directly in a terminal without needing a GUI, a browser, or a complex plotting tool like Gnuplot or Matplotlib. The library draws graphs horizontally, with Y-axis labels and a line that rises and falls with the data. It was created by Rohit Gupta and is hosted on GitHub under an open-source license.

Related stories

  • The article contrasts the open-source software model, where a single maintainer handles ten million weekly downloads for free, with the invisible hand of market economics, highlighting the sustainability challenges and unpaid labor behind widely used digital infrastructure.