head to head · open source
anime vs cadcraft
anime has 73,498 GitHub stars, 4,967 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. cadcraft has 2,508 stars, 1,150 forks, 90 open issues and last shipped yesterday. anime leads on adoption by 2,831% (73,498 vs 2,508 stars). anime is written in JavaScript under MIT; cadcraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. anime has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, cadcraft 46%. cadcraft was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | cadcraft | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-21 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 cadcraft if
- You want the cadcraft feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and cadcraft 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 cadcraft
CADCraft is an open source, clean room reimplementation of Autodesk AutoCAD written in pure Rust, aimed at drafters and developers who want the familiar CAD command line workflow without a commercial licence.
read the full cadcraft overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is anime or cadcraft more popular?
anime has 73,498 GitHub stars and cadcraft has 2,508. anime has the larger community by that measure.
Are anime and cadcraft free?
Both are open source. anime is licensed under MIT and cadcraft under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between anime and cadcraft?
anime is written in JavaScript and cadcraft in Rust. 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 cadcraft?
Choose anime if you want the larger community (73,498 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cadcraft if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.