head to head · open source
echarts vs pixijs
echarts has 67,345 GitHub stars, 19,820 forks, 1,501 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. pixijs has 48,179 stars, 5,071 forks, 344 open issues and last shipped yesterday. echarts leads on adoption by 40% (67,345 vs 48,179 stars). echarts is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; pixijs is written in TypeScript under MIT. echarts has attracted 29% as many forks as stars, pixijs 11%. pixijs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (canvas, data-visualization), 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
| echarts | pixijs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 48K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 20K | ⑂ 5.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick echarts if
- You weight community size — 67K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pixijs if
- You want the pixijs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and pixijs fits your workflow better
About echarts
Apache ECharts is a free, interactive charting and data visualization library that runs in the browser. It is written in pure JavaScript and built on top of zrender, a lightweight canvas library that handles rendering and interaction under the hood. The project lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem, is distributed through npm as the echarts package, and is developed under the Apache Software Foundation with an Apache 2.0 license. Its source is written in TypeScript, and the repository has been maintained for more than a decade.
read the full echarts overview →
About pixijs
PixiJS is an open source 2D rendering library for the web, described in its README as the HTML5 Creation Engine. It ships WebGL and WebGPU renderers and is written in TypeScript, distributed under the MIT license from the pixijs/pixijs repository, which has been developed for fourteen years and holds roughly 48,000 stars across about 5,000 forks. The project lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem: it is installed through npm and driven from browser code, with GLSL shaders, canvas, canvas2d, and rendering engine listed among its topics. Its homepage is pixijs.com, and the repository carries the Data and …
read the full pixijs overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is echarts or pixijs more popular?
echarts has 67,345 GitHub stars and pixijs has 48,179. echarts has the larger community by that measure.
Are echarts and pixijs free?
Both are open source. echarts is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pixijs under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between echarts and pixijs?
echarts is written in TypeScript and pixijs 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, echarts or pixijs?
Choose echarts if you want the larger community (67,345 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pixijs if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.