head to head · open source
manim vs durdraw
manim has 95,660 GitHub stars, 7,842 forks, 500 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. durdraw has 1,849 stars, 56 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. manim leads on adoption by 5,074% (95,660 vs 1,849 stars). manim is written in Python under MIT; durdraw is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. manim has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, durdraw 3%. durdraw 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 | durdraw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.8K | ⑂ 56 |
| 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 durdraw if
- You want the durdraw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and durdraw 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 durdraw
Durdraw ======= / \ / \ \ \ v 0.31.1 Overview Durdraw is an ASCII, Unicode and ANSI art editor for UNIX like systems (Linux, macOS, etc). It runs in modern Utf 8 terminals and supports frame based animation, custom themes, 256 and 16 color modes, terminal mouse input, DOS ANSI art viewing, CP437 and Unicode mixing and conversion, HTML output, mIRC color output, and other interesting features. Durdraw is heavily inspired by classic ANSI editing software for MS DOS and Windows, such as TheDraw, Aciddraw and Pablodraw, but with a modern Unix twist. Overview Requirements Installation Gallery Usage Command Line…
read the full durdraw overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is manim or durdraw more popular?
manim has 95,660 GitHub stars and durdraw has 1,849. manim has the larger community by that measure.
Are manim and durdraw free?
Both are open source. manim is licensed under MIT and durdraw under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between manim and durdraw?
manim is written in Python and durdraw 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 durdraw?
Choose manim if you want the larger community (95,660 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose durdraw if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.