head to head · open source
manim vs SkeletonView
manim has 94,156 GitHub stars, 7,734 forks, 500 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. SkeletonView has 12,891 stars, 1,122 forks, 97 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. manim leads on adoption by 630% (94,156 vs 12,891 stars). manim is written in Python under MIT; SkeletonView is written in Swift under MIT. manim has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, SkeletonView 9%. 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 | SkeletonView | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 94K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-06-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.7K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 SkeletonView if
- You want the SkeletonView feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and SkeletonView 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 SkeletonView
SkeletonView is an MIT licensed Swift library for iOS that replaces a generic loading view with animated skeleton placeholders, showing users both that something is happening and what shape the incoming content will take; it is aimed at iOS developers whose apps depend on asynchronous processes such as API requests.
read the full SkeletonView overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is manim or SkeletonView more popular?
manim has 94,156 GitHub stars and SkeletonView has 12,891. manim has the larger community by that measure.
Are manim and SkeletonView free?
Both are open source. manim is licensed under MIT and SkeletonView under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between manim and SkeletonView?
manim is written in Python and SkeletonView 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 SkeletonView?
Choose manim if you want the larger community (94,156 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose SkeletonView if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.