Cairo alternatives

Free 7 alternatives

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Cairo is an open-source 2D graphics library released under the GNU Lesser General Public License with support for several output devices. As of now, it supports many output targets like SVG file output, X Window System, PostScript, Quartz, PDF, Win32, and image buffers. You can use it with any of these targets without any restrictions or limitations. The Library also offers Experimental backends such as DirectFB, OpenGL, OS/2, and BeOS.

It is developed to generate constant output on each and every output media while leveraging the presence of display hardware acceleration. The API delivers functionalities that are the same as offered by PDF and PostScript. Some of the operations include filling and stroking cubic Bezier splines, antialiased text rendering, and compositing translucent images. You can take the drawing operations to the next level using affine transformations like shear, scale, rotation, and more. The 2D graphics library is coded in C and offers bindings in various programming languages.

Ranked alternatives

1
PlotDeviceFree
PlotDevice is a graphics language for tinkerers, designers, developers and is written in Python. It can be sued on Mac and gives you the ability to write Python scripts for the purpose of generating 2D graphics with basic and easy-to-understand drawing commands. At the back, the code uses the Quartz imaging engine, providing your scripts with the exact graphical sheerness as a powerful Cocoa app.
Your code can consist of simple geometric shapes, freeform Bezier curves, typography, and more. This facility presents PlotDevice as the perfect tool for everyday assignments like image processing and complex scenarios such as data visualization and procedural texture generation. The best feature is all the created graphics can be exported in multiple formats like GIF, PNG, TIFF, or JPEG, as well as scalable vector images such as EPS or PDF.
Besides static images, the scripts you create can also produce multi-frame animations. You can export movies in H.264-encoded QuickTimes, PDF’ flipbooks’, and animated GIFs. The solution enables everyone to concentrate their energy on designs without fretting over production details. The app comes with all the tools required for writing programs that draw to a virtual canvas. It is composed of a text editor with excellent features like tab completion and syntax highlighting, along with a zoomable graphics viewer.
PlotDevice alternatives
2
Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG)Free
Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG) is an open-source 2D graphics library that provides you with tools to create multiple shapes and also comes with detailed documentation for explaining all the important concepts. It is developed by Maxim Shemanarev using C++, and it doesn’t rely on any technology or Graphic API. You can consider it as a full-fledged rendering engine that generates pixel images in memory by using vectorial data. The graphics library comes with a wide variety of features like a Dashed line generator, Anti-Aliasing, High performance, Lightweight design, Alpha-masking, Flexibility and extensibility, Platform independence and compatibility, High-quality, and Markers like arrow tails/arrowheads. It also supports Boolean polygon operations like Sub, And, Xor, Or, which are based on the General Polygon Clipper by Alan Murta.
Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG) alternatives
3
BgfxFree
Bgfx is an open-source, high-performance, and cross-platform graphics API agnostic style rendering library that gives you the tools to create high-profile video games without limitations. The best feature is its support for a vast array of rendering backends like WebGPU/Dawn, Direct3D 9, WebGL 2.0, WebGL 1.0, Vulkan, OpenGL ES 3.1, Metal, Direct3D 12, GNM, and OpenGL 2.1. It also supports multiple platforms, including popular ones like UWP, Android, Linux, PlayStation 4, Raspberry PI, Linux, MIPS Creator CI20, FreeBSD, and OSX. The compatible languages include Rust Language API bindings, Beef API bindings, Haskell language API bindings, Nim language API bindings, and Pascal language API bindings.
Bgfx alternatives
4
RaphaëlFree
Raphaël is a lightweight and flexible JS library that allows you to remove complexities while working with vector graphics on the web. It gives you the freedom to build custom image crops or charts and rotate widgets. You can do lots of amazing things by using this library. It utilizes the VML and SVG W3C recommendation for the purpose of creating graphics.
This implies that every created graphical object also serves as a DOM object to help you link JS event handlers or edit them in the future. The goal of the library is to offer an adapter to simplify the drawing of vector art across different browsers, and it is compatible with multiple web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera.
Raphaël alternatives
5
Aspose.Drawing for .NET
Aspose.Drawing for .NET is a full-fledged, comprehensive, and cross-platform 2D graphics library that gives everyone the tools to draw basic geometric shapes as well as text and images with great ease. It offers you a System.Drawing compatible API, simplifying the code you already use. You can easily convert it to cross-platform with System.Drawing. The library is based on Apose, .NET Standard 2.0, and you can use it on different platforms, including cloud, web, desktop, as well as mobile. The library also provides a few tools for usage in IoT situations. The drawing engine is the perfect fit for the rendering of vector graphics like figures, lines, and curves. It supports texts of several fonts, styles, and sizes and lets you apply them to raster images in major graphic file formats.
Aspose.Drawing for .NET alternatives
6
SkiaFree
Skia is an easy-to-use and user-friendly 2D Graphics Library that comes with many prominent APIs for usage in software and hardware platforms. Developers can use it as a graphics engine for a variety of platforms like Flutter, Chrome OS, Google Chrome, and Android. Besides these, it also works perfectly well with other products. The best feature is that it’s open-source, and you can review the whole codebase and make changes as required. You can also contribute to its development. The 2D Graphics Library provides detailed documentation to help you on getting knowledge on how everything works together.
Skia alternatives
7
SkiaSharpFree
SkiaSharp is a simple yet robust, cross-platform 2D graphics API designed from scratch for .NET platforms based on Google’s Skia Graphics Library. It is released under the MIT License and offers you a full-fledged 2D API capable of being used on desktop, server, and mobile models for rendering images. The offered bindings include Uno platform, macOS, .NET Standard 1.3, iOS, Tizen, Android, watchOS, Mac Catalyst, and Web Assembly. You can take a look at the provided documentation to check how everything performs. The detailed documentation can be read on any web browser.
SkiaSharp alternatives