head to head · open source
anime vs watching-you
anime has 73,967 GitHub stars, 5,009 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. watching-you has 1,706 stars, 54 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. anime leads on adoption by 4,236% (73,967 vs 1,706 stars). anime is written in JavaScript under MIT; watching-you is written in TypeScript under ISC. anime has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, watching-you 3%. anime was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (animation, javascript, javascript-library), 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 | watching-you | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 74K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | MIT | ISC |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-21 | 2026-01-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 54 |
| 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 watching-you if
- You want the watching-you feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the ISC license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and watching-you 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…
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About watching-you
Features Be able to watch the mouse or another DOM, or even input values, watch anything you want! Because it is DOM based, it is easy to support RWD Supports multiple frameworks Zero dependency (every framework is!) Written in typescript The size of the core code is only 3kb after gzip compression If the element is not on the screen, it will automatically stop watching Example Login Form Iron Chain Cena is watching you Svg Path Watcher The source code can be found here Storybook watching you's storybook using react, but every framework can do the same thing! Documents ⚠️ The API is still subject to change until…
read the full watching-you overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is anime or watching-you more popular?
anime has 73,967 GitHub stars and watching-you has 1,706. anime has the larger community by that measure.
Are anime and watching-you free?
Both are open source. anime is licensed under MIT and watching-you under ISC. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between anime and watching-you?
anime is written in JavaScript and watching-you 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 watching-you?
Choose anime if you want the larger community (73,967 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose watching-you if its feature set, stack or ISC licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.