Show HN: Inamate – Open-source 2D animation tool (alternative to Adobe Animate)

[hactually]

Adobe recently announced the end-of-life for Adobe Animate, then walked it back after community backlash.

Regardless of what Adobe decides next, the message was clear: animators who depend on proprietary tools are one corporate decision away from losing their workflow.

2D animation deserves an open-source option that isn't a toy. We've been working with a professional animator to guide feature priorities and ensure we're building something that actually fits real production workflows - not just a tech demo.

Github Repo: https://github.com/17twenty/inamate

We're at the stage where community feedback shapes the direction. If you're an animator, motion designer, or just someone who's been frustrated by the state of 2D animation tools — we'd love to hear:

- What features would make you switch from your current tool?

- What's the biggest pain point in your animation workflow?

- Is real-time collaboration actually useful for animation, or is it a gimmick?

Try it out, break it, and tell us what you think.

Built with Go, TS & React, WebAssembly, PostgreSQL, WebSocket, ffmpeg (for video exports).

[mcphage]

> 2D animation deserves an open-source option that isn't a toy. We've been working with a professional animator to guide feature priorities and ensure we're building something that actually fits real production workflows - not just a tech demo.

If you want people to understand that it's a real production tool and not a tech demo, your example animation in your readme should show a real production animation. Currently, what you're showing makes it look like a toy.

[hactually]

The architecture was designed for determinism and performance:

- Go WASM engineowns the scene graph, evaluates timelines, compiles draw commands

- Canvas2D frontend executes the command buffer (GPU-accelerated by the browser)

- Go backend handles collaboration, persistence, and video encoding via ffmpeg

- Operation-based document model - every mutation is an operation that supports undo/redo and real-time sync

We chose a command buffer architecture (engine emits draw commands, browser rasterizes) over Figma-style pixel rendering in WASM. Canvas2D is already GPU-accelerated, and Go's WASM ecosystem doesn't have a battle-tested software rasterizer. This gives us hardware rendering for free while keeping the engine deterministic.

[otherflavors]

The BSL is not considered open source, so this is a "source-available 2D animation tool"

[singpolyma3]

BSL is eventually open source. Which is not the same as open source now but not quite the same as source available either IMHO

[denismurphy]

Does the engine support 'Merge Drawing' mode (destructive vector editing where overlapping shapes flatten, combine, or cut into each other), or is it strictly object-based?

[bsimpson]

What's the Business Source License?

The attached file doesn't have terms, and references an undefined "change date."

[otherflavors]

The default change date for BSL is " four years after the first publicly available distribution of a specific version"

[hexo]

> - What features would make you switch from your current tool?

Native software. Certainly not anything browser based. No electron. No react. Software that understands color management. And actual animation tools, not onion strips - it is not 1970 anymore.

> Try it out, break it, and tell us what you think.

Sorry i'm not even trying stuff that needs browser. I'm so very tired of it.

[q2dg]

Synfig is a toy?

[ttdownsite]

wonderful

[grougnax]

Why not Rust?

[taklimakan]

Why Rust?