February 12, 2026
Cue the license flamethrowers
Show HN: Inamate – Open-source 2D animation tool (alternative to Adobe Animate)
Adobe drama spawns Inamate: hope for animators, license fights, and a Rust vs Go scuffle
TLDR: After Adobe wavered on killing Animate, Inamate arrived as a pro-minded alternative. Commenters loved the timing but blasted the Business Source License as not truly open, sparred over Go vs Rust, and bristled at a perceived dig at Synfig—demanding clarity before they commit.
Adobe nearly pulled the plug on Adobe Animate, then backpedaled, leaving animators nervous about being one corporate memo away from chaos. Enter Inamate, a self-described open-source 2D animation tool aiming to be a real studio workhorse, not a weekend toy. The devs showed off a browser-based setup with a Go-powered engine and snappy playback, promising pro features and asking the crowd what hurts most. One engineer broke down the guts in plain terms: the app decides what to draw, the browser does the drawing, and a server handles saving, teamwork, and video exports. Fans cheered the ambition and the timing.
But the comments lit up with drama. The hottest thread? Licensing. A file labeled “Business Source License” set off alarms, with skeptics calling it “source-available, not open source.” Others poked at a missing ‘change date’ and asked what the rules actually are. Meanwhile, the ritual chant of software threads appeared: “Why not Rust?” Cue eye-rolls and flame emojis. Then came a spicy side quest: someone read ‘not a toy’ as a jab at Synfig, an older free tool, and fired back, “Synfig is a toy?” The vibe: massive hope, real skepticism, and an audience eager to test—after the license dust settles. Try the repo here: github.com/17twenty/inamate
Key Points
- •Inamate is presented as an open-source 2D animation tool positioned as an alternative to Adobe Animate.
- •The project was motivated by Adobe’s end-of-life announcement for Adobe Animate, later reversed after backlash.
- •A professional animator is involved to guide feature priorities toward real production workflows.
- •The team invites community feedback on desired features, workflow pain points, and the value of real-time collaboration.
- •The tool’s tech stack includes Go, TypeScript, React, WebAssembly, PostgreSQL, WebSocket, and ffmpeg, with a GitHub repo available for testing.