head to head · open source
anime vs two.js
anime has 73,180 GitHub stars, 4,945 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. two.js has 8,662 stars, 463 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped today. anime leads on adoption by 745% (73,180 vs 8,662 stars). anime is written in JavaScript under MIT; two.js is written in JavaScript under MIT. anime has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, two.js 5%. two.js was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (animation, canvas, javascript, svg), 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 | two.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 8.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-21 | 2026-09-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 463 |
| 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 two.js if
- You want the two.js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and two.js 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 two.js
Two.js is a renderer agnostic two dimensional drawing API for the web, published as the npm package two.js under the MIT licence, for JavaScript developers who want one API to draw and animate the same scene in WebGL, Canvas2D, or SVG.
read the full two.js overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is anime or two.js more popular?
anime has 73,180 GitHub stars and two.js has 8,662. anime has the larger community by that measure.
Are anime and two.js free?
Both are open source. anime is licensed under MIT and two.js under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between anime and two.js?
anime is written in JavaScript and two.js 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 two.js?
Choose anime if you want the larger community (73,180 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose two.js if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.