Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I recreated Jeffery Ventrella's "Particle Life"
This weekend's coding session was dedicated to recreating Jeffery Ventrella's "Particle Life". As you can imagine, I had a lot of fun with it. I recently saw this here on Hacker News and found it strange that I’d never come across it before. Source code: https://github.com/vnglst/particle-life The color palette is by Alex Cristache. https://twitter.com/AlexCristache/status/1791122643816431930
This is a recreation of Jeffery Ventrella's "Particle Life" simulation, a generative system where colored particles interact based on attraction and repulsion rules. Built as a weekend coding project, it simulates… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I recreated Jeffery Ventrella's "Particle Life" launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
Had some fun with shared array buffers over many months of free time. Skip to the end to play around with the final app. Open to ideas on how to simulate more whilst staying in js land.
2024 · dgerrells.com · its alternatives →
- 2
Took a break from the falling sand simulation blog posts this week to work on another small project. It's a little pixel world generator- each time you visit, you'll see a new little world. I really like this stuff and had a blast building it yesterday!
2022 · jason.today · its alternatives →
- 3SL
2022 · smooth-life.netlify.app · its alternatives →
- 4AS
I really like the look of the famous album art for Unknown Pleasures [1]. It was originally created by Harold Craft at the Arecibo Observatory from the signals of the first discovered radio pulsar [2]. I made a spectrogram that produces a similar look. It runs FFT in Rust and visualizes it with WebGL. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UnknownPleasuresVinyl.jpg [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1919%2B21
2024 · aestuans.github.io · its alternatives →
- 5
Genetic Algorithms, Mutation, Crossover, Mating, Particle Animation, Gaming, Learning, P5JS, Fun Project - dg92/ant_sugar
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6
This is a little toy project of mine that lets you simulate digital logic graphs. It was inspired by Minecraft's Redstone and the Piet esolang. It's got some serious drawbacks-- you write circuits as PNGs and simulate them with a Python interface. It's slow to run and slow to experiment with. And it is certainly difficult to use for people with any kind of color blindness. But despite that, I hope this can still be a fun toy!
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7AI
(space = reset) Fluid mechanics is an extremely interesting topic and I have been creative coding for a couple of months now. Therefore I started working on flow fields in processing. It had so much fun playing around with the different parameters in this project, I decided to rewrite in p5.js an added a control panel. You can change most of the parameters (within some constraints I thought to be reasonable), randomize the values and export and import settings. Hopefully some coders here get inspired and also join the great creative coding community.
2024 · synapse.nugatio.com · its alternatives →
- 8
particles.js▲113A lightweight JavaScript library for creating particles.
2014 · vincentgarreau.com · its alternatives →
- 9
Transform Static Images Into Dynamic Particle Experiences
Aug 2026 · particle-studios.vercel.app · its alternatives →
- 10
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 →
- 11
Neural CAs model self-organizing pattern formation on grids. Now the grid is gone. Each cell is an agentic particle that can move freely in space and change its state. While each particle follows a simple shared rule, many together can grow complex morphologies or form intricate patterns. The resulting particle system as a whole can regenerate from damage and exhibits surprising emergent behavior. Try cutting the lizard and watch it heal itself!
Jun 2026 · selforg-npa.github.io · its alternatives →
- 12HG
2014 · rgb.0-z-0.com · its alternatives →
- 13GA
2020 · amydyer.art · its alternatives →
- 14
Dots UI▲96A React library for morphable particle interfaces
19d ago · dotsui.dev · its alternatives →
- 15
Hi all, This is a generative art project I worked on over the past year or so consisting of about 100 little artworks generated using P5.js. I have an overview and technical write up here: https://dannyking.uk/artwork/colororbs You can play with my interactive demo and make your own here: https://dannyking.uk/artwork/colororbs/designer And the gallery is here: https://dannyking.uk/artwork/colororbs/gallery This project came about after reading a HN post about a year ago…
2022 · dannyking.uk · its alternatives →
- 16PW
2021 · observablehq.com · its alternatives →
- 17
A Rust implementation of John Conway’s Game of Life, using a zoomable infinite grid, and with access to a pattern library.
2021 · lifeee.netlify.app · its alternatives →
- 18
Chaotic Life. Contribute to OlegMazurov/Koyaanisqatsi development by creating an account on GitHub.
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19
This is a small particles simulation that can run either with WebGPU (GPU Compute) or with the CPU, and it can be changed in real time
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20
2023 · webgl-particle-life.netlify.app · its alternatives →
- 21
Hi HN, when learning Golang (and topology), I ported a simple GOL in C (https://github.com/Jeadie/GoL) into Go. I then added a bunch of features - Playing on other fundamental polygons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_polygon#Examples_o...) - Considering all possible update rules (of which, there are many). Looking to get back to this project soon. Would love some feedback + ideas.
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Hey HN, just wanted to share a fun, vibe-coded Friday night experiment: a little playground for writing cellular automata in a subset of Rust, which is then compiled into WGSL. Since it lets you dynamically change parameters while the simulation is running via a TUI, it's easy to discover weird behaviors without remembering how you got there. If you press "s", it will save the complete history to a JSON file (a timeline of the parameters that were changed at given ticks), so you can replay it and regenerate the discovery. You can pan/zoom, and while the main simulation window is in…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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- 24BI
Hello HN, Recently an amazingly beautiful explainer was shared on HN: https://explainers.blog/posts/why-is-the-sky-blue/ I loved it so much that I wished more topics were explained that way. So, I decided to stress-test today's frontier models (Opus 4.6 in Claude Code) to generate similar explainer on any given topic WITH (almost) one shot and minimal nudging. I'm launching with four topics: Fourier transformation, scaling laws in bio, cellular automata and LLMs. I would let you be the judge, but I'm quite liking them. Some things I learned: - Prompting CC to test…
Feb 2026 · paraschopra.github.io · its alternatives →
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- I made a little digital circuit simulator that operates on PNGs 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 →