head to head · open source
anime vs pencil
anime has 74,225 GitHub stars, 5,044 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. pencil has 9,894 stars, 794 forks, 533 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. anime leads on adoption by 650% (74,225 vs 9,894 stars). anime is written in JavaScript under MIT; pencil is written in JavaScript under GPL-2.0. anime has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, pencil 8%. pencil was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | pencil | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 74K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-21 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 794 |
| 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 pencil if
- You want the pencil feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and pencil 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 pencil
About The Next Version ========== Pencil V3 is a rewrite of Pencil that aims to fix major performance and scalability issues of the application. The new version is under heavy development and we are expecting GA builds in June. The following list summarizes important changes in the new version: Pencil V3 uses Electron instead of Mozilla XULRunner as the runtime. We expect that by moving into this Nodejs based environment, the Pencil source code can be much easier for all fellow developers to play with. The fact that Mozilla XULRunner is outdated is also a reason for the movement. A new, zip based file format was…
read the full pencil overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is anime or pencil more popular?
anime has 74,225 GitHub stars and pencil has 9,894. anime has the larger community by that measure.
Are anime and pencil free?
Both are open source. anime is licensed under MIT and pencil under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between anime and pencil?
anime is written in JavaScript and pencil 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 pencil?
Choose anime if you want the larger community (74,225 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pencil if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.