Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

PixiJS VS GraphicsJS

Compare PixiJS VS GraphicsJS and see what are their differences

PixiJS logo PixiJS

Fast and flexible WebGL-based HTML5 game and app development library.

GraphicsJS logo GraphicsJS

Free open-source JavaScript library for easily drawing HTML5 graphics and animation.
  • PixiJS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-25
  • GraphicsJS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-12

PixiJS features and specs

  • Performance
    PixiJS provides high performance through the use of WebGL, offering fast rendering capabilities that can handle complex scenes and animations efficiently.
  • Cross-Platform
    PixiJS is compatible with various platforms, including desktops, tablets, and mobile devices, ensuring a consistent experience across different environments.
  • Rich Features
    It comes with a variety of built-in features such as sprites, filters, masks, and support for different shapes and textures, which makes it powerful for creating interactive graphics.
  • Ease of Use
    The library offers a user-friendly API and extensive documentation, making it easy to learn and integrate into projects, even for developers who are new to WebGL.
  • Community Support
    PixiJS has an active community and a wealth of resources including forums, tutorials, and GitHub repositories, which help users troubleshoot issues and improve their projects.

Possible disadvantages of PixiJS

  • Size
    PixiJS can be relatively large in terms of file size, which may affect load times and performance, particularly for users with slow internet connections or limited bandwidth.
  • Browser Compatibility
    Since PixiJS relies heavily on WebGL, it may face compatibility issues with older browsers or devices that do not support advanced WebGL features.
  • Complexity
    While powerful, PixiJS can become complex when building more advanced applications, requiring a deep understanding of 3D graphics and WebGL concepts.
  • Limited 3D Support
    PixiJS is primarily a 2D rendering engine and lacks comprehensive support for 3D graphics, which might be a limitation for projects requiring 3D rendering.
  • Memory Management
    Handling memory efficiently can be challenging, especially in complex scenes with many textures and sprites, leading to potential memory leaks or performance degradation.

GraphicsJS features and specs

  • High Performance
    GraphicsJS is optimized for performance and can handle complex graphics rendering efficiently.
  • Cross-browser Compatibility
    The library is designed to work seamlessly across all major web browsers, ensuring compatibility and consistent behavior.
  • SVG-based
    GraphicsJS is built on SVG, which allows for scalable and resolution-independent graphics that look sharp on any display.
  • Rich Features
    It offers a wide range of features such as smart layering, powerful transformations, and an event system for interactive graphics.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source project, GraphicsJS allows developers to modify and extend the library as needed for their projects.

Possible disadvantages of GraphicsJS

  • Limited Community Support
    Compared to more popular frameworks, GraphicsJS has a smaller community, which might limit the availability of third-party tutorials and resources.
  • Less Comprehensive Documentation
    While basic documentation is available, it may not be as comprehensive or detailed as that of more widely-used libraries, potentially leading to a steeper learning curve.
  • Niche Use Case
    GraphicsJS is particularly aimed at projects that require efficient and high-performance vector graphics, which might not appeal to developers looking for a more general-purpose library.
  • Lack of Built-in UI Components
    Unlike some other graphics libraries, GraphicsJS does not provide built-in UI components, requiring developers to construct these themselves.

Analysis of PixiJS

Overall verdict

  • PixiJS is an excellent choice for developers looking for a versatile and efficient 2D rendering engine. Its features and community support make it suitable for both beginners and experienced developers needing a reliable and performance-oriented solution.

Why this product is good

  • PixiJS is a popular 2D rendering engine for creating interactive and visually appealing graphics. It is highly efficient and built on WebGL, which allows for high-performance rendering. PixiJS is also valued for its simplicity, flexibility, and ease of integration with other libraries and frameworks. It has a large community and a wealth of documentation and tutorials available, making it easier for developers to learn and troubleshoot issues. Furthermore, PixiJS supports a variety of rendering needs, such as games, web applications, and other graphic-intensive projects.

Recommended for

  • Developers creating 2D games or interactive applications
  • Projects that require high-performance graphics rendering
  • Web applications needing complex animations and graphics
  • Developers looking for a library with extensive community support and resources

PixiJS videos

PixiJS Part 3: Renderer, Ticker, & Stage

More videos:

  • Review - Learn PixiJS in 20 Minutes

GraphicsJS videos

No GraphicsJS videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PixiJS and GraphicsJS)
Javascript UI Libraries
71 71%
29% 29
Flowcharts
83 83%
17% 17
Development
0 0%
100% 100
Game Engine
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, PixiJS seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 72 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

PixiJS mentions (72)

  • Trying to Replace the DOM with Canvas — And Failing
    To improve performance, another team built a POC replacing standard DOM elements with a canvas managed by a library called pixi.js. The idea was to boost rendering speed. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Building an AI Powered Camera for David Bowie
    We can now decide how we want to display the data.image result back to our user. You can simply throw it up in an tag or generate a reveal video on the fly like I’ve done using Pixi.JS and MediaRecorder. Perhaps a topic for another dev blog. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Tattooing The Black Keys Fans Using MediaDevices and PixiJS
    For this application, we gain access to the user’s camera using MediaDevices and then place it onto a PixiJS canvas as a video sprite. Then, we load the tattoo as an additional sprite and give it a bit of opacity and blending to bleed it into the user’s skin. Simple controls are added to allow the user to rotate, scale, and position the tattoo for the perfect inking. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Chapter 1: Boring SVG Manipulation
    And canvas felt almost natural and invoked heavy nostalgia from the first time I touched keyboard and wrote primitive program to draw a house out of lines utilizing Basic. Later on I had a chance to broaden my expertise, when I was doing my hobby game project with Pixi and small bits and pieces on FindLabs pages. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • JSON Canvas – An open file format for infinite canvas data
    The canvas in Obsidian is as the whole app very well made. I wondered what they are using as well. My guess is https://www.xyflow.com/, which is for drawing nodes. More general purpose would be http://fabricjs.com/. Or very low level https://pixijs.com/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
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GraphicsJS mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of GraphicsJS yet. Tracking of GraphicsJS recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing PixiJS and GraphicsJS, you can also consider the following products

Three.js - A JavaScript 3D library which makes WebGL simpler.

Paper.js - Open source vector graphics scripting framework that runs on top of the HTML5 Canvas.

Phaser - Desktop and Mobile HTML5 game framework. A fast, free and fun open source framework for Canvas and WebGL powered browser games.

GoJS - GoJS is a JavaScript library for building interactive diagrams on HTML web pages. Build apps with flowcharts, org charts, BPMN, UML, modeling, and other visual graph types.

p5.js - JS library for creating graphic and interactive experiences

Konva - Konva is 2d Canvas JavaScript framework for drawings shapes, animations, node nesting, layering, filtering, event handling, drag and drop and much more.