head to head · open source
manim vs watching-you
manim has 95,746 GitHub stars, 7,847 forks, 500 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. watching-you has 1,706 stars, 54 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. manim leads on adoption by 5,512% (95,746 vs 1,706 stars). manim is written in Python under MIT; watching-you is written in TypeScript under ISC. manim has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, watching-you 3%. 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 | watching-you | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | MIT | ISC |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-01-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.8K | ⑂ 54 |
| 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 watching-you if
- You want the watching-you feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the ISC license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and watching-you 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 watching-you
Features Be able to watch the mouse or another DOM, or even input values, watch anything you want! Because it is DOM based, it is easy to support RWD Supports multiple frameworks Zero dependency (every framework is!) Written in typescript The size of the core code is only 3kb after gzip compression If the element is not on the screen, it will automatically stop watching Example Login Form Iron Chain Cena is watching you Svg Path Watcher The source code can be found here Storybook watching you's storybook using react, but every framework can do the same thing! Documents ⚠️ The API is still subject to change until…
read the full watching-you overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is manim or watching-you more popular?
manim has 95,746 GitHub stars and watching-you has 1,706. manim has the larger community by that measure.
Are manim and watching-you free?
Both are open source. manim is licensed under MIT and watching-you under ISC. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between manim and watching-you?
manim is written in Python and watching-you in TypeScript. 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 watching-you?
Choose manim if you want the larger community (95,746 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose watching-you if its feature set, stack or ISC licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.