head to head · open source
manim vs canvas-confetti
manim has 96,240 GitHub stars, 7,907 forks, 500 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. canvas-confetti has 12,850 stars, 470 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 1.0 years ago. manim leads on adoption by 649% (96,240 vs 12,850 stars). manim is written in Python under MIT; canvas-confetti is written in JavaScript under ISC. manim has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, canvas-confetti 4%. 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 | canvas-confetti | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | ISC |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2025-10-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.9K | ⑂ 470 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick manim if
- You weight community size — 96K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick canvas-confetti if
- You want the canvas-confetti feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the ISC license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and canvas-confetti fits your workflow better
About manim
Manim is an engine for precise programmatic animations, designed for creating explanatory math videos. Note, there are two versions of manim. This repository began as a personal project by the author of 3Blue1Brown for the purpose of animating those videos, with video specific code available here. In 2020 a group of developers forked it into what is now the community edition, with a goal of being more stable, better tested, quicker to respond to community contributions, and all around friendlier to get started with. See this page for more details. Installation [!Warning] WARNING: These instructions are for…
read the full manim overview →
About canvas-confetti
[![github actions ci][ci.svg]][ci.link] [![jsdelivr][jsdelivr.svg]][jsdelivr.link] [![npm downloads][npm downloads.svg]][npm.link] [![npm version][npm version.svg]][npm.link] [ci.svg]: [ci.link]: [jsdelivr.svg]: [jsdelivr.link]: [npm downloads.svg]: [npm.link]: [npm version.svg]: Demo catdad.github.io/canvas confetti Install You can install this module as a component from NPM: You can then require('canvas confetti'); to use it in your project build. Note: this is a client component, and will not run in Node. You will need to build your project with something like webpack in order to use this. You can also…
read the full canvas-confetti overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is manim or canvas-confetti more popular?
manim has 96,240 GitHub stars and canvas-confetti has 12,850. manim has the larger community by that measure.
Are manim and canvas-confetti free?
Both are open source. manim is licensed under MIT and canvas-confetti under ISC. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between manim and canvas-confetti?
manim is written in Python and canvas-confetti 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 canvas-confetti?
Choose manim if you want the larger community (96,240 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose canvas-confetti if its feature set, stack or ISC licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.