head to head · open source
anime vs design-tokens
anime has 73,180 GitHub stars, 4,945 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. design-tokens has 1,126 stars, 149 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. anime leads on adoption by 6,399% (73,180 vs 1,126 stars). anime is written in JavaScript under MIT; design-tokens is written in TypeScript under MIT. anime has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, design-tokens 13%. anime 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 | design-tokens | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-21 | 2026-02-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 149 |
| 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 design-tokens if
- You want the design-tokens feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and design-tokens 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 design-tokens
Design Tokens is a TypeScript authored Figma plugin, released under the MIT licence, that exports the design tokens defined in a Figma document as JSON in an Amazon Style Dictionary compatible format, for design system teams that need token values to flow from Figma into web, iOS, and Android builds.
read the full design-tokens overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is anime or design-tokens more popular?
anime has 73,180 GitHub stars and design-tokens has 1,126. anime has the larger community by that measure.
Are anime and design-tokens free?
Both are open source. anime is licensed under MIT and design-tokens under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between anime and design-tokens?
anime is written in JavaScript and design-tokens in TypeScript. 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 design-tokens?
Choose anime if you want the larger community (73,180 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose design-tokens if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.