head to head · open source
anime vs idraw
anime has 73,222 GitHub stars, 4,948 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. idraw has 1,101 stars, 92 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. anime leads on adoption by 6,550% (73,222 vs 1,101 stars). anime is written in JavaScript under MIT; idraw is written in TypeScript under MIT. anime has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, idraw 8%. anime was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (canvas), 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 | idraw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-21 | 2026-03-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 92 |
| 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 idraw if
- You want the idraw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and idraw 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 idraw
iDraw.js (published on npm as idraw ) is a simple TypeScript framework for drawing 2D graphics on the web, written for developers who want to add canvas based drawing to a browser application without starting from raw drawing primitives.
read the full idraw overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is anime or idraw more popular?
anime has 73,222 GitHub stars and idraw has 1,101. anime has the larger community by that measure.
Are anime and idraw free?
Both are open source. anime is licensed under MIT and idraw under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between anime and idraw?
anime is written in JavaScript and idraw 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 idraw?
Choose anime if you want the larger community (73,222 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose idraw if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.