head to head · open source
manim vs two.js
manim has 96,497 GitHub stars, 7,928 forks, 500 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. two.js has 8,709 stars, 469 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped yesterday. manim leads on adoption by 1,008% (96,497 vs 8,709 stars). manim is written in Python under MIT; two.js is written in JavaScript under MIT. manim has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, two.js 5%. two.js 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 | two.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 8.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-11-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.9K | ⑂ 469 |
| 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 two.js if
- You want the two.js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and two.js 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 two.js
Two.js [![NPM Package][npm]][npm url] [![Build Size][build size]][build size url] [![NPM Downloads][npm downloads]][npmtrends url] A two dimensional drawing api meant for modern browsers. It is renderer agnostic enabling the same api to render in multiple contexts: webgl, canvas2d, and svg. Home • Releases • Examples • Documentation • Changelog • Help Usage Download the latest minified library and include it in your html. It can also be installed via npm, Node Package Manager: Alternatively see how to build the library yourself. Here is boilerplate html in order to draw a spinning rectangle in two.js: Custom…
read the full two.js overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is manim or two.js more popular?
manim has 96,497 GitHub stars and two.js has 8,709. manim has the larger community by that measure.
Are manim and two.js free?
Both are open source. manim is licensed under MIT and two.js under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between manim and two.js?
manim is written in Python and two.js 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 two.js?
Choose manim if you want the larger community (96,497 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose two.js if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.