PixiJS
A fast, lightweight 2D rendering library for the web (TypeScript, WebGL / WebGPU), MIT, ~47.4k★. Handles sprites, scene graphs, textures, masking, filters, blend modes, text, and SVG — and deliberately nothing else: no physics, no audio, no editor, no game loop. “The fastest, most lightweight 2D library for the web.”
Library, not engine — and the 2D anchor of the matrix
PixiJS is explicitly positioned as the 2D counterpart to Three.js: where Three.js is the dominant 3D-web rendering library, PixiJS is the dominant 2D-web rendering library. Its narrow scope is the point — it’s a renderer that fuller engines build on. Concretely, GDevelop uses PixiJS for its 2D rendering (and Three.js for 3D), so PixiJS sits underneath engines in this wiki rather than beside them.
Where it sits — the web-graphics library/engine matrix
With PixiJS the spoke’s web-graphics picture is a clean 2×2 of dimension × level:
- 2D library: PixiJS · 3D library: Three.js
- 2D/3D engines built atop libraries: Phaser (2D framework), Babylon.js / PlayCanvas (3D engines), and editor-based engines like gdevelop/superpowers that embed these renderers.
So “is it a game engine?” gets a sharper answer: PixiJS is the rendering substrate, not an engine — included here as the 2D-web foundation the browser engines stand on, the boundary case of the spoke’s framework-vs-library distinction.
Related
three-js · babylonjs · playcanvas · phaser · gdevelop · superpowers · synthesis