head to head · open source
anime vs Pow
anime has 73,360 GitHub stars, 4,957 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Pow has 4,411 stars, 200 forks, 20 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. anime leads on adoption by 1,563% (73,360 vs 4,411 stars). anime is written in JavaScript under MIT; Pow is written in Swift under MIT. anime has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Pow 5%. anime was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (animation), 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 | Pow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-08-21 | 2026-04-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 200 |
| 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 Pow if
- You want the Pow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and Pow 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 Pow
Pow is an open source Swift package of SwiftUI transitions and value change effects for iOS, macOS, Mac Catalyst and visionOS developers who want polished animation and haptics without writing them by hand.
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Frequently asked questions
Is anime or Pow more popular?
anime has 73,360 GitHub stars and Pow has 4,411. anime has the larger community by that measure.
Are anime and Pow free?
Both are open source. anime is licensed under MIT and Pow under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between anime and Pow?
anime is written in JavaScript and Pow in Swift. 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 Pow?
Choose anime if you want the larger community (73,360 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Pow if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.