# Mayavi vs napari

## Key differences

- napari has 2× as many GitHub stars as Mayavi (2.8K vs 1.4K).
- napari had more development activity over the last 12 months: 745 commits vs 45.
- napari is downloaded 19× as often on PyPI (34.7K vs 1.8K per week).
- Both are released under the BSD-3-Clause license.
- Mayavi is the older project: its repository was created in 2011, napari's in 2018.

| | Mayavi | napari |
|---|---|---|
| Description | Interactive scientific data visualization and 3D plotting in Python. | Fast, interactive viewer for multi-dimensional images in Python. |
| GitHub stars | 1,412 | 2,791 |
| Commits (12 months) | 45 | 745 |
| Contributors | 62 | 228 |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Python | Python |
| Status | Active | Active |
| Install | `pip install mayavi` | `pip install napari` |

Source: https://awesomedataviz.com/compare/mayavi-vs-napari/ · Data updated 2026-11-01 · Content: CC BY 4.0, Awesome Dataviz (https://awesomedataviz.com).