Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Asciimatics: a cross-platform terminal animation/drawing library

A cross platform package to do curses-like operations, plus higher level APIs and widgets to create text UIs and ASCII art animations - peterbrittain/asciimatics

Asciimatics is a cross-platform library that enables developers to create text-based user interfaces and ASCII art animations in the terminal. It provides low-level curses-like operations alongside higher-level APIs… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Asciimatics: a cross-platform terminal animation/drawing library launched in 2016; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1
   An ASCII 3D Rendering Engine▲211

   Render 3D models (OBJ, glTF, GLB, STL, .vox) as ASCII art — in the browser, in React or Vue, or straight in your terminal. A three.js-style API with no WebGL and no canvas: just text in a single <pre>.

   Jun 2026 · glyphcss.com · its alternatives →

2. 2
   Building terminal dashboards using ASCII/ANSI art and JavaScript▲305

   Build terminal dashboards using ascii/ansi art and javascript - yaronn/blessed-contrib

   2015 · github.com · its alternatives →

3. 3AA
   AsciiSketch a free browser-based ASCII art and diagram editor▲53

   Jan 2026 · files.littlebird.com.au · its alternatives →

4. 4
   useAnimations▲362

   An animated icon library for your projects

   2019 · useanimations.com · its alternatives →

5. 5AA
   ASCII Animals in Your Terminal▲62

   2012 · ivolo.me · its alternatives →

6. 6
   AsciiDots – a 2D esoteric language inspired by circuits▲148

   Esolang inspired by ASCII art. Contribute to aaronjanse/asciidots development by creating an account on GitHub.

   2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

7. 7
   Aseprite▲116

   Animated sprite editor and pixel art tool

   2017 · aseprite.org · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Animaticons▲365

   Beautiful, customizable animated GIF icons.

   2015 · its alternatives →

9. 9
   Image to ASCII▲105

   Make ASCII art for READMEs, Discord & creative visuals

   Sep 2026 · imagetoascii.art · its alternatives →

10. 10TM
    Typograms, Markdown-like renderer for ASCII diagrams▲140

    2022 · code.sgo.to · its alternatives →

11. 11
    ASCIImator▲79

    A simple photo app that converts images into ASCII art

    2015 · its alternatives →

12. 12
    Terminal-Rendered ASCII Shaders▲46

    CPU rendered ASCII art shader writing tool with hot reloading. - danthedaniel/js-shaders

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

13. 13
    Monodraw, an ASCII Art Editor for Mac▲141

    2015 · monodraw.com · its alternatives →

14. 14
    ASCII Art Paint▲150

    Surprise your readers with an original post using text art

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

15. 15AA
    ASCII Automata▲103

    ASCII AUTOMATA is a tool to analyze the visual connectivity of characters in textmode fonts. It works by scoring edge connectivity of each piece and finding the best matching neighbour piece. Every time it places a piece, it "grows" towards the edges it touches by placing a matching piece. The red heatmap shows how frequently each character is used, useful for analyzing the fonts. I initially made it as a tool for myself. When I design textmode art fonts it is sometimes difficult to figure out if a specific character would actually be useful for drawing or not. I wanted a tool which would…

    2025 · hlnet.neocities.org · its alternatives →

16. 16CA
    Collaborative ASCII Drawing with Telnet▲101

    2024 · jott.live · its alternatives →

17. 17
    ASCII Art with Overstrike▲77

    Using a Teletype Model 33 electromechanical terminal (https://twitch.tv/33asr) - ASR33/asciiart/README.md at master · hughpyle/ASR33

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Monodraw▲160

    Powerful ASCII art editor designed for the Mac

    2015 · monodraw.helftone.com · its alternatives →

19. 19TA
    Tattoy – a text-based terminal compositor▲200

    Whereas this is mostly a terminal eye-candy project to get you street cred, it does have some serious aspects. Firstly it solves the age-old problem of low-contrast text, like when you `ls` a broken symlink and the red background colour is too near your current theme's foreground colour. Tattoy solves this by using none other than the web's WCAG 2.1 contrast algorithm for accessible text. Secondly, an explicit design goal is that Tattoy should be able to polyfill new terminal protocols, the `xwayland` of the TTY if you will. Say if we want to experiment with completely deprecating ANSI…

    2025 · tattoy.sh · its alternatives →

20. 20
    ASCII Prints▲169

    ASCII art on your wall ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    2016 · its alternatives →

21. 21MA
    Mermaid ASCII Diagrams▲234

    2024 · mermaid-ascii.art · its alternatives →

22. 22
    ASCII pixel art editor for the terminal▲9

    feast your eyes

    May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

23. 23
    I built an interactive plotter art exhibit for SIGGRAPH▲167

    I'm enthralled with using pen plotters to make generative art. Last August at SIGGRAPH, I built an interactive experience for others to see how code can be used to make visual art. The linked blog post is my trials and tribulations of linking a MIDI controller to one of these algorithms and sending its output to a plotter, so that people may witness the end-to-end experience.

    2024 · lostpixels.io · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Screensavers for your terminal (Bevy/Ratatui)▲119

    Screensavers for your terminal. Contribute to cxreiff/ttysvr development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →