head to head · open source
manim vs charm
manim has 96,012 GitHub stars, 7,895 forks, 500 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. charm has 650 stars, 169 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. manim leads on adoption by 14,671% (96,012 vs 650 stars). manim is written in Python under MIT; charm is written in Python under LGPL-3.0. manim has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, charm 26%. charm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (python), 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 | charm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 650 |
| License | MIT | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.9K | ⑂ 169 |
| 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 charm if
- You want the charm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and charm 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 charm
Charm Crypto ============ Charm is a framework for rapidly prototyping advanced cryptosystems. Based on the Python language, it was designed from the ground up to minimize development time and code complexity while promoting the reuse of components. Charm uses a hybrid design: performance intensive mathematical operations are implemented in native C modules, while cryptosystems themselves are written in a readable, high level language. Charm additionally provides a number of new components to facilitate the rapid development of new schemes and protocols. Features Advanced Cryptographic Schemes Attribute Based…
read the full charm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is manim or charm more popular?
manim has 96,012 GitHub stars and charm has 650. manim has the larger community by that measure.
Are manim and charm free?
Both are open source. manim is licensed under MIT and charm under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between manim and charm?
manim is written in Python and charm in Python. 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 charm?
Choose manim if you want the larger community (96,012 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose charm if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.