brew / rank 159

Install graphviz with Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman, zypper, chocolatey, scoop, winget

Graph visualization software from AT&T and Bell Labs. Version 15.1.0 via Homebrew; verified 2026-07-02. Also installable with debian: sudo apt install graphviz.

Install command Security notes

install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%

brew install graphviz

local Homebrew formula metadata

MacPortsverified · 94%

sudo port install graphviz

MacPorts ports tree · graphics/graphviz/Portfile · source: api.github.com

Linux

Alpine Linux apkverified · 92%

sudo apk add graphviz

Alpine Linux edge package indexes · graphviz · source: dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org

Debian aptverified · 92%

sudo apt install graphviz

Debian stable package indexes · graphviz · source: deb.debian.org

Fedora dnfverified · 92%

sudo dnf install graphviz

Fedora Rawhide package metadata · graphviz · source: dl.fedoraproject.org

Nixverified · 92%

nix profile install nixpkgs#graphviz

nixpkgs package indexes · pkgs/by-name/gr/graphviz/package.nix · source: api.github.com

Arch Linux pacmanverified · 92%

sudo pacman -S graphviz

Arch Linux sync databases · graphviz · source: geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com

openSUSE zypperverified · 92%

sudo zypper install graphviz

openSUSE Tumbleweed package metadata · graphviz · source: download.opensuse.org

Windows

Chocolateyverified · 92%

choco install Graphviz

Chocolatey community package catalog · Graphviz · source: community.chocolatey.org

Scoopverified · 92%

scoop install main/graphviz

Scoop official bucket manifest trees · bucket/graphviz.json · source: api.github.com

Windows Package Managerverified · 92%

winget install --id Graphviz.Graphviz -e

Windows Package Manager source index · Graphviz.Graphviz · source: cdn.winget.microsoft.com

overview

Package summary

Graph visualization software from AT&T and Bell Labs

Project links

Homepage

Commands and aliases

acyclic
bcomps
ccomps
circo
cluster
dijkstra
dot
dot2gxl
dot_builtins
dot_sandbox
edgepaint
fdp
gc
gml2gv
graphml2gv
gv2gml
gv2gxl
gvcolor
gvgen
gvmap
gvmap.sh
gvpack
gvpr
gxl2dot
gxl2gv
mm2gv
neato
nop
osage
patchwork
prune
sccmap

history

Project history and usage

Graphviz is one of the durable command-line graph drawing toolkits from the Bell Labs and AT&T research tradition. Its center of gravity is the DOT language and a family of layout engines, especially dot for ranked directed graphs and neato for undirected layouts.

For package-manager users, Graphviz matters because it is both an end-user CLI suite and a system dependency. Many documentation generators, static analysis tools, build systems, notebook workflows, and language bindings call out to dot or link against Graphviz libraries rather than implementing graph layout themselves.

Project history

The project's roots go back to research on drawing directed graphs for software engineering and structured data. The Graphviz history discussion by project participants describes the initial kernel as an attempt to draw software-engineering graphs, with ranking via network simplex becoming central to directed graph layout.

AT&T Bell Laboratories research papers from the early 1990s formalized the dot approach. The 1993 directed-graph drawing paper describes a four-pass algorithm for rank assignment, crossing reduction, coordinate assignment, and spline edge routing, and the later Graphviz toolkit paper frames the project as a set of stream-oriented filters, libraries, and interactive front ends.

By the early 2000s, Graphviz had expanded from dot into a family of engines and tools: neato, twopi, circo, fdp, sfdp, gvpr, sccmap, unflatten, and others. The official credits page records the long-running roles of Emden Gansner, Stephen North, John Ellson, Yifan Hu, Eleftherios Koutsofios, Gordon Woodhull, and later maintainers.

Adoption history

Graphviz spread because it fit Unix package culture: users could write a small DOT file, pipe it through a renderer, and get PostScript, SVG, PDF, PNG, image maps, or other output without a heavyweight diagram editor. Its stream model made it easy for other tools to emit DOT as an interchange format.

The official download page documents broad operating-system packaging, including Debian and Ubuntu apt, Fedora and related dnf packages, Windows installers, and GitLab-hosted release artifacts. Homebrew, MacPorts, Nix, Scoop, Chocolatey, distro packages, and language-specific wrappers made Graphviz a common transitive dependency in developer environments.

How it is used

Typical CLI usage is to save a graph in DOT syntax and run an engine such as dot, neato, fdp, sfdp, circo, or twopi to produce a rendered artifact. Supporting commands such as tred, unflatten, sccmap, gvpack, gvpr, and ccomps make Graphviz useful as a graph-processing toolkit, not only as a renderer.

Graphviz is often installed so other tools can find the dot executable. Python, R, JavaScript, documentation, modeling, reverse-engineering, and CI workflows commonly generate DOT and delegate layout to the packaged Graphviz binary or libraries.

Why package nerds care

Graphviz is a classic example of a small CLI surface hiding a large native dependency stack: C libraries, plugins, font and image handling, multiple layout engines, and platform-specific packaging decisions. Its formulae and distro packages are watched because many higher-level packages fail in surprising ways when dot is missing.

The package is also a useful test case for long-lived open-source infrastructure moving from research lab origins into modern forge hosting. The official GitLab repository records a project imported into GitLab in 2017, while the documented algorithms and manpages preserve a much older Bell Labs lineage.

Timeline

1988: The DAG directed-graph drawing program appears in the research lineage cited by Graphviz papers.
1993: The directed graph drawing algorithm behind dot is published in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.
1999: The Graphviz toolkit paper describes libraries, layout tools, graph filters, and stream-oriented design.
2003: Graphviz and Dynagraph are presented as static and dynamic graph drawing tools from AT&T Labs Research.
2017: The official Graphviz source repository is created on GitLab.
2024: The official credits page still records the multi-decade contributor base behind dot, neato, plugins, build work, and related tools.

Related projects

DOT language: the textual graph description language consumed by Graphviz layout engines.
Dynagraph: a related AT&T Labs project for dynamic and incremental graph layout.
graphviz2drawio, pydot, PyGraphviz, d3-graphviz, and many language bindings depend on Graphviz concepts, binaries, or libraries.

Sources

security posture

Risk level: orange

infrastructure mutation or orchestration signal.

Risk classifier

orange risk · medium confidence · infrastructure

Why

infrastructure mutation or orchestration signal

Signals

text:cluster

Install behavior

No Homebrew bottle metadata was recorded.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

executables

Installed executables

Command	Kind	Exposure	Note
`acyclic`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`bcomps`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`ccomps`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`circo`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`cluster`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`dijkstra`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`dot`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`dot2gxl`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`dot_builtins`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`dot_sandbox`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`edgepaint`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`fdp`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gc`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gml2gv`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`graphml2gv`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gv2gml`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gv2gxl`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gvcolor`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gvgen`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gvmap`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gvmap.sh`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gvpack`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gvpr`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gxl2dot`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`gxl2gv`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`mm2gv`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`neato`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`nop`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`osage`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`patchwork`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`prune`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`sccmap`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`sfdp`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`tred`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`twopi`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`unflatten`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-08-03

manager version15.1.0

manager updated2026-07-02

local dataunknown

upstreamnot available

latest detectednot detected

okNo freshness warnings were generated.

install metadata

Package metadata

Package key	brew:graphviz
Version	15.1.0
Package manager	Homebrew
Homepage	https://graphviz.org/
Last updated	2026-07-02T04:55:06Z
Pulse	updated
Bottle	not recorded
Service	none declared

source database matches

Other package-manager records

Matches are pulled from external package-manager indexes and kept separate from local Automic Vault package links.

Debian apt95%

graphviz 2.42.4-3

rich set of graph drawing tools