head to head · open source
anime vs img2css
anime has 74,225 GitHub stars, 5,044 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. img2css has 2,500 stars, 187 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. anime leads on adoption by 2,869% (74,225 vs 2,500 stars). anime is written in JavaScript under MIT; img2css is written in JavaScript under BSD-3-Clause. anime has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, img2css 7%. img2css was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (css, javascript), 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 | img2css | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 74K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-21 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 187 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick anime if
- You weight community size — 74K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick img2css if
- You want the img2css feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and img2css fits your workflow better
About anime
Anime.js Anime.js is a fast, multipurpose and lightweight JavaScript animation library with a simple, yet powerful API. It works with CSS properties, SVG, DOM attributes and JavaScript Objects. Sponsors Anime.js is 100% free and is only made possible with the help of our sponsors. Help the project become sustainable by sponsoring us on GitHub Sponsors . Platinum sponsors Silver sponsors Get featured here by becoming a GitHub Sponsor . Usage Anime.js V4 works by importing ES modules like so: V4 Documentation The full documentation is available here. V3 Migration guide You can find the v3 to v4 migration guide…
read the full anime overview →
About img2css
img2css Convert any image to pure CSS. To use it go to Looking for a programmatic way to do this? See I also made a per pixel animation experiment, see How does it work? It has two different outputs, pure css shadow matrix [1] and base64 embedded image [2]. Pure CSS : This output was created by resizing and setting each pixel as a box shadow of a single pixel div, so no img tag or background image is needed. This can result in huge outputs, and the use of this output is not recommended for production unless there is no other option. Base64 : The entire image file is embedded inside the tag using base64, so no…
read the full img2css overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is anime or img2css more popular?
anime has 74,225 GitHub stars and img2css has 2,500. anime has the larger community by that measure.
Are anime and img2css free?
Both are open source. anime is licensed under MIT and img2css under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between anime and img2css?
anime is written in JavaScript and img2css in JavaScript. 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 img2css?
Choose anime if you want the larger community (74,225 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose img2css if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.