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pencil2d/pencil

★ 1,879C++GPL-2.077

Pencil2D is an easy, intuitive tool to make 2D hand-drawn animations. Pencil2D is open source and cross-platform.

What it is

Pencil2D is a free and open source animation/drawing software for Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD. It lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics. Pencil2D is a community-driven project developed entirely by volunteers and we are always looking for more helping hands! There are many different ways to contribute, so anyone can help regardless of their background. For more information, please see the Contributing section below.

When to use it

Reach for pencil when you want your app to look great fast — components, icons, motion, charts or rich editors — it's written in C++ and fits stacks tagged animation, bitmap, cartoon, cplusplus.

Category
UI & Design
Also in
—
Stars
1,879
Forks
329
Last push
yesterday
Created
2013-06-26
Open issues
208
Website
pencil2d.org
#animation#bitmap#cartoon#cplusplus#drawing#graphics2d#linux#macos#multi-platform#onion-skin#pencil2d#qt5#cpp

Quick start

$ git clone https://github.com/pencil2d/pencil.git

Hand it to your AI

Read https://ideas.asveas.com/r/pencil2d/pencil.md and help me add pencil2d/pencil to my project. Explain the setup steps for my stack and show the minimal code to get it working.
UI & DesignMarkdown .mdOpen on GitHub ↵

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FAQ

What is pencil?

pencil2d/pencil is an UI library on GitHub: Pencil2D is an easy, intuitive tool to make 2D hand-drawn animations. Pencil2D is open source and cross-platform. Pencil2D is a free and open source animation/drawing software for Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD.

When should I use pencil?

Reach for pencil when you want your app to look great fast — components, icons, motion, charts or rich editors — it's written in C++ and fits stacks tagged animation, bitmap, cartoon, cplusplus.

What are the best alternatives to pencil?

Popular alternatives in UI & Design: excalidraw/excalidraw (136k★), shadcn-ui/ui (128k★), mrdoob/three.js (118k★), tailwindlabs/tailwindcss (98.6k★), tldraw/tldraw (51.4k★).

Is pencil actively maintained?

pencil2d/pencil looks very actively maintained: the last push was yesterday (2026-11-10), with 1,879 stars and 208 open issues.

What license does pencil use?

pencil2d/pencil is published under the GPL-2.0 license. Check the repository's LICENSE file before commercial use.