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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

I've been working on an ANSI art editor off and on for a while. It works like a traditional ANSI text editor, except it supports 256 colors, Unicode and CP437 encoding, frame-based animation, custom UI themes, terminal mouse input, HTML and IRC color output, and runs in Utf-8 terminals. It's written in Python and curses, and is fairly portable across Unix systems. If you have ever used TheDraw or Aciddraw, the user interface is similar. It can also load/convert, view, edit and save most CP437 (MS-DOS style) ANSI art in a Utf-8 terminal, so you can view ANSI artscene packs in the comfort…

Durdraw is a modern ANSI art editor for Unix terminals that recreates the experience of classic tools like TheDraw and Aciddraw. It supports 256 colors, Unicode, CP437 encoding, frame-based animation, custom themes… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1AA
  2. 2

    Hi, I've been working on something I've been thinking for long time but since I had no experience with macOS screen savers I always posponed. Now thanks to Claude I was able to create a screensaver that scroll ANSI files while your computer is idle. It allow to use local ANS files or packs directly from 16colo.rs. Repo: https://github.com/lardissone/ansi-saver

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    A tool that lets you render beautiful graphics in both modern and classic terminal environments; this is the version 1.0 release announcement.

    2019 · hpjansson.org · its alternatives →

  4. 4WB

    My love letter to ANSI art. Full width rendering, scrolling by baud rate, text is selectable, and more. There are some example links at the top if you're feeling lucky.

    Mar 2026 · sure.is · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    A modern BBS. Contribute to ansiwave/ansiwave development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6
  7. 7

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

    2015 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    I made this tool to add support for custom ANSI palettes to kubetail (https://github.com/kubetail-org/kubetail). Maybe you'll find it useful too. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9
    Monodraw▲160

    Powerful ASCII art editor designed for the Mac

    2015 · monodraw.helftone.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    It requires no registration, no installation, and no configuration. Just run it on any computer and start drawing freely.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    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 →

  12. 12

    I set about coding my own version of the classic MS-DOS EDIT.COM for GNU&#x2F;Linux systems four years ago and it this is where the project is at... still rough around the edges but works well with Termux! :) Demo: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=H7bneUX_kVA

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Small C++ program to display images in a (modern) terminal using RGB ANSI codes and unicode block graphics characters - stefanhaustein/TerminalImageViewer

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Surprise your readers with an original post using text art

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Ferrite: Fast Markdown&#x2F;Text&#x2F;Code editor in Rust with native Mermaid diagrams Built a Markdown editor using Rust + egui. v0.2.1 just dropped with major Mermaid improvements: → Native Mermaid diagrams - Flowcharts, sequence, state, ER, git graphs - pure Rust, no JS → Split view - Raw + rendered side-by-side with sync scrolling → Syntax highlighting - 40+ languages with large file optimization → JSON&#x2F;YAML&#x2F;TOML tree viewer - Structured editing with expand&#x2F;collapse → Git integration - File tree shows modified&#x2F;staged&#x2F;untracked status Also: minimap, zen mode,…

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Hello HN, I'm Fares A. Bakhit a junior CS student at Cairo University and I'm happy to announce my latest project, "Ayin" is an open-source photo editing software available on Windows, Linux, and MacOS (Only a Windows build is available now on GitHub but you can compile it yourself to other platforms) with an interactive real-time graphical user interface. Feel free to use and study the source code of Ayin, it's available on GitHub under the GPLv3 open-source license. I've made this project in part of the Winged Dragon Competition at the Faculty of Computers and Artificial Intelligence…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Print your name in style. Contribute to arsham/figurine development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18TA

    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 →

  19. 19CP

    2012 · dchang.mit.edu · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Artpacks act as an archive of the BBS, ANSI and ASCII art scenes, from 1990 to present. Artpacks are recognized as one of the primary reasons that the early computer art scene is so well preserved and documented in relation to other underground computer scenes at the time.

    2015 · artpacks.org · its alternatives →

  21. 21IM

    I made a website for drawing ascii art with other people https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ascii-collab.app&#x2F; It's been online for a little over a year so there's a fair bit of stuff to browse if you want to look around (so much that I even made a poster https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ascii-collab.app&#x2F;poster.png) There are other websites like yourworldoftext that do this but ascii-collab has some extra features like per-user undo&#x2F;redo, box selection, a color highlight mode to see who made particular changes, and there's admin tools so I can remove spam. The code is open sourced here…

    2021 · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    A liminal brush-based CSG editor and game engine with unified (forward) renderer inspired by Radiant and Worldcraft&#x2F;Hammer Compact and lightweight (target: Snapdragon 8CX, OpenGL 3.3) Real-time lighting with stencil shadows without the need for pre-baked compilation

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    This tool turns videos into ASCII pixel art. You can use your webcam feed or upload a video, then use the controls to adjust the colors, resolution, text style, etc. Github repo: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;collidingScopes&#x2F;ascii It's built with javascript &#x2F; html canvas. I'll be continuing to work on this, with the goal of improving performance (it can be laggy at high resolutions) and to also allow image input (turn an image into animated ASCII art). Please let me know of any feedback or suggestions!

    2024 · collidingscopes.github.io · its alternatives →

  24. 24AA

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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 →