{"slug": "motion-canvas", "name": "Motion Canvas", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 3.173, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-12-20", "latest": "2026-10-23", "why": "We also have animation libraries like Motion Canvas that run in the browser natively", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 4, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "We also have animation libraries like Motion Canvas that run in the browser natively", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "motioncanvas.io", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://motioncanvas.io/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Motion Canvas"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 785508912, "item_id": 49094307, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49094307", "by": "prathje", "date": "2026-07-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We also have animation libraries like Motion Canvas that run in the browser natively", "excerpt": "Just FYI: We also have animation libraries like Motion Canvas that run in the browser natively: https://motion-canvas.io/ , which can also be used by AI agents with the right AI skills (e.g., https://github.com/VideoZero/skills )", "context": "", "use_case": "browser animations", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Manim (3Blue1Brown's animation engine) in the browser via WebGPU"}, {"id": 755057888, "item_id": 47191118, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47191118", "by": "jasonjmcghee", "date": "2026-02-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's a great library and widely used on YouTube and elsewhere.", "excerpt": "Afaik it's considered \"stable\". There's 2800+ people in the discord. And the community made a backup of the site https://archive.canvascommons.io/ Update: sounds like the author had some life changes and had to stop his YouTube channel which was the primary motivator for the library- but there are forks popping up (https://github.com/canvas-commons/canvas-commons). --- This notion that an open source library is \"dead", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I ported Manim to TypeScript (run 3b1B math animations in the browser)"}, {"id": 755056688, "item_id": 47191043, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47191043", "by": "jasonjmcghee", "date": "2026-02-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Motion Canvas is a mature / popular solution", "excerpt": "Motion Canvas is a mature / popular solution in the \"manim but typescript\" space for those unfamiliar. It can be used for interactive blog posts and embedded animations etc as well. It also has a built in animation editor / timeline. https://github.com/motion-canvas/motion-canvas", "context": "", "use_case": "Programmatic animation for video and web", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I ported Manim to TypeScript (run 3b1B math animations in the browser)"}, {"id": 741355200, "item_id": 46334700, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46334700", "by": "dleeftink", "date": "2025-12-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Motioncanvas may also be of interest then!", "excerpt": "Motioncanvas may also be of interest then! [0]: https://motioncanvas.io/blog", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Build Your Own React"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 753939024, "item_id": 47121189, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47121189", "by": "prathje", "date": "2026-02-23", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "the project is not actively maintained at the moment", "excerpt": "If you have worked with MotionCanvas or wanted to give 2D canvas animations it a try, you might notice that the website is currently not reachable and that the repo has not received any updates in over a year, suggesting that the project is not actively maintained at the moment. However, you will also find that the community is still active and that, for example, Canvas Commons is an active fork of the original repo:", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Is MotionCanvas abandoned? motioncanvas.io returns NXDOMAIN; repo looks stale"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["browser animations", "programmatic animation", "programmatic animation for video and web", "programmatic video animation"], "compared": [{"slug": "canvas-commons", "name": "Canvas Commons", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "manim", "name": "Manim", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47155375", "title": "Show HN: I ported Manim to TypeScript (run 3b1B math animations in the browser)", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50212124", "title": "Animations for System Builders", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49091703", "title": "Show HN: Manim (3Blue1Brown's animation engine) in the browser via WebGPU", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47950131", "title": "item 47950131", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47170174", "title": "Launch HN: Cardboard (YC W26) \u2013 Agentic video editor", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47121188", "title": "Is MotionCanvas abandoned? motioncanvas.io returns NXDOMAIN; repo looks stale", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {"warn": 1, "neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 803418512, "item_id": 50213657, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50213657", "by": "0x696C6961", "date": "2026-10-23", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've doing the exact same thing with https://motioncanvas.io/", "excerpt": "I've doing the exact same thing with https://motioncanvas.io/ edit: this is the actively maintained fork https://canvascommons.io/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Animations for System Builders"}, {"id": 785508912, "item_id": 49094307, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49094307", "by": "prathje", "date": "2026-07-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We also have animation libraries like Motion Canvas that run in the browser natively", "excerpt": "Just FYI: We also have animation libraries like Motion Canvas that run in the browser natively: https://motion-canvas.io/ , which can also be used by AI agents with the right AI skills (e.g., https://github.com/VideoZero/skills )", "context": "", "use_case": "browser animations", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Manim (3Blue1Brown's animation engine) in the browser via WebGPU"}, {"id": 767202113, "item_id": 47950132, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47950132", "by": "prathje", "date": "2026-04-29", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "benchmarks showcasing the quality of different models for Motion Canvas-based animation", "excerpt": "Hey HN! I planning to run some benchmarks showcasing the quality of different models for Motion Canvas-based animation. I thought it would be funny to include the pelicans on bicycles as well (you know, https://github.com/simonw/pelican-bicycle ). The linked animation is Opus 4.7 and it did a great job. It even added a little jump! Do you think it makes sense to include them or would you think I am just testing the S", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 755085009, "item_id": 47192813, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47192813", "by": "prathje", "date": "2026-02-28", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Canvas Commons is an active fork of the original repo: https://github.com/canvas-commons/canvas-commons Docs for Canvas Commons: https://canvascommons.io/ Furthermore, the old docs for Motion Canvas can be found here: https://archive.canvascommons.io/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I ported Manim to TypeScript (run 3b1B math animations in the browser)"}, {"id": 755057888, "item_id": 47191118, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47191118", "by": "jasonjmcghee", "date": "2026-02-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's a great library and widely used on YouTube and elsewhere.", "excerpt": "Afaik it's considered \"stable\". There's 2800+ people in the discord. And the community made a backup of the site https://archive.canvascommons.io/ Update: sounds like the author had some life changes and had to stop his YouTube channel which was the primary motivator for the library- but there are forks popping up (https://github.com/canvas-commons/canvas-commons). --- This notion that an open source library is \"dead", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I ported Manim to TypeScript (run 3b1B math animations in the browser)"}, {"id": 755057680, "item_id": 47191105, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47191105", "by": "jasonjmcghee", "date": "2026-02-27", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "probably reasonably simple, if you mean the \"writing\" style of manim.", "excerpt": "Someone wrote a blog about their journey https://slama.dev/motion-canvas/introduction/ But- probably reasonably simple, if you mean the \"writing\" style of manim. That's just animating an SVG stroke. And then colors and typography", "context": "", "use_case": "Programmatic animation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I ported Manim to TypeScript (run 3b1B math animations in the browser)"}, {"id": 755056688, "item_id": 47191043, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47191043", "by": "jasonjmcghee", "date": "2026-02-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Motion Canvas is a mature / popular solution", "excerpt": "Motion Canvas is a mature / popular solution in the \"manim but typescript\" space for those unfamiliar. It can be used for interactive blog posts and embedded animations etc as well. It also has a built in animation editor / timeline. https://github.com/motion-canvas/motion-canvas", "context": "", "use_case": "Programmatic animation for video and web", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I ported Manim to TypeScript (run 3b1B math animations in the browser)"}, {"id": 754877264, "item_id": 47179829, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47179829", "by": "njoyablpnting", "date": "2026-02-27", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm using my own fork of", "excerpt": "I'm using my own fork of https://github.com/motion-canvas/motion-canvas It's not really designed for the animation code to be dynamically changed on the fly, but I've hacked together this feature in my fork.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Cardboard (YC W26) \u2013 Agentic video editor"}, {"id": 753939024, "item_id": 47121189, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47121189", "by": "prathje", "date": "2026-02-23", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "the project is not actively maintained at the moment", "excerpt": "If you have worked with MotionCanvas or wanted to give 2D canvas animations it a try, you might notice that the website is currently not reachable and that the repo has not received any updates in over a year, suggesting that the project is not actively maintained at the moment. However, you will also find that the community is still active and that, for example, Canvas Commons is an active fork of the original repo:", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Is MotionCanvas abandoned? motioncanvas.io returns NXDOMAIN; repo looks stale"}, {"id": 745444689, "item_id": 46590293, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46590293", "by": "prathje", "date": "2026-01-12", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "we leverage Motion Canvas to create the video elements", "excerpt": "I work as a freelancer, but I have been wanting to start something of my own. A couple of months ago, I started working on VideoZero.ai with the vision of generating videos that feature text, formulas, and graph elements without breaking after 10 seconds or weird artifacts. Instead of generating raw pixel values, we leverage Motion Canvas to create the video elements. Some results are quite cool, but some videos are ", "context": "", "use_case": "Programmatic video animation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (January 2026)"}, {"id": 741355200, "item_id": 46334700, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46334700", "by": "dleeftink", "date": "2025-12-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Motioncanvas may also be of interest then!", "excerpt": "Motioncanvas may also be of interest then! [0]: https://motioncanvas.io/blog", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Build Your Own React"}]}