head to head · open source
manim vs lottie-ios
manim has 94,088 GitHub stars, 7,728 forks, 500 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. lottie-ios has 26,881 stars, 3,840 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped yesterday. manim leads on adoption by 250% (94,088 vs 26,881 stars). manim is written in Python under MIT; lottie-ios is written in Swift under Apache-2.0. manim has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, lottie-ios 14%. lottie-ios 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 | lottie-ios | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 94K | ★ 27K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.7K | ⑂ 3.8K |
| 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 lottie-ios if
- You want the lottie-ios feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and lottie-ios 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 lottie-ios
Lottie for iOS is an Apache 2.0 Swift library that natively renders After Effects and bodymovin JSON vector animations in realtime on iOS, macOS, tvOS, and visionOS, and it is aimed at Apple platform developers who want to ship designer authored motion without rebuilding it by hand in code.
read the full lottie-ios overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is manim or lottie-ios more popular?
manim has 94,088 GitHub stars and lottie-ios has 26,881. manim has the larger community by that measure.
Are manim and lottie-ios free?
Both are open source. manim is licensed under MIT and lottie-ios under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between manim and lottie-ios?
manim is written in Python and lottie-ios in Swift. 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 lottie-ios?
Choose manim if you want the larger community (94,088 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose lottie-ios if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.