head to head · open source
manim vs anime
manim has 94,045 GitHub stars, 7,724 forks, 500 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. anime has 72,899 stars, 4,929 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 29 days ago. manim leads on adoption by 29% (94,045 vs 72,899 stars). manim is written in Python under MIT; anime is written in JavaScript under MIT. manim has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, anime 7%. manim 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
| manim | anime | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 94K | ★ 73K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-08-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.7K | ⑂ 4.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick manim if
- You weight community size — 94K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick anime if
- You want the anime feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and anime fits your workflow better
About manim
Manim is a Python animation engine for precise, programmatic rendering of explanatory mathematics videos, built for educators, mathematicians, and developers who want frame accurate control over every element of a mathematical animation instead of editing on a timeline.
read the full manim overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is manim or anime more popular?
manim has 94,045 GitHub stars and anime has 72,899. manim has the larger community by that measure.
Are manim and anime free?
Both are open source. manim is licensed under MIT and anime under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between manim and anime?
manim is written in Python and anime 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, manim or anime?
Choose manim if you want the larger community (94,045 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose anime if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.