head to head · open source
anime vs Balloon
anime has 73,360 GitHub stars, 4,957 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Balloon has 4,011 stars, 310 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. anime leads on adoption by 1,729% (73,360 vs 4,011 stars). anime is written in JavaScript under MIT; Balloon is written in Kotlin under Apache-2.0. anime has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Balloon 8%. Balloon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (animation), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| anime | Balloon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-08-21 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 310 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick anime if
- You weight community size — 73K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Balloon if
- You want the Balloon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and Balloon fits your workflow better
About anime
Anime.js is a free, MIT licensed JavaScript animation engine for developers who need to animate CSS properties, SVG, DOM attributes, and plain JavaScript objects from a single lightweight API.
read the full anime overview →
About Balloon
Balloon is an open source Kotlin tooltip library for Compose Multiplatform that gives Android, iOS, desktop, and web developers fully customizable, animated tooltips through a single shared artifact.
read the full Balloon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is anime or Balloon more popular?
anime has 73,360 GitHub stars and Balloon has 4,011. anime has the larger community by that measure.
Are anime and Balloon free?
Both are open source. anime is licensed under MIT and Balloon under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between anime and Balloon?
anime is written in JavaScript and Balloon in Kotlin. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, anime or Balloon?
Choose anime if you want the larger community (73,360 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Balloon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.