Crates / Compare / anstream vs yansi
Rust crates side by side · data Oct 24, 2026
anstream vs yansi
Short answerBy steady daily use, anstream is bigger: 2,459,829 real downloads a day against 737,990 for yansi (3.3x). 428 crates depend on anstream and 312 on yansi. anstream last shipped 8 months ago, yansi 2.6 years ago.
anstream
EstablishedEstablished and steady.
428 crates depend on it; no release in the last 90 days, so its count is all steady use.
IO stream adapters for writing colored text that will gracefully degrade according to your terminal's capabilities.
yansi
EstablishedEstablished and quiet for years.
312 crates depend on it; no release in the last 90 days, so its count is all steady use.
A dead simple ANSI terminal color painting library.
anstreamyansi · 100% = that crate's normal quiet day, so a spike to 300% is triple its usual traffic
Every number, side by side
| Same window, same method | anstream | yansi |
|---|---|---|
| Real downloads a day | 2,459,829 | 737,990 |
| Crates that depend on it | 428 | 312 |
| Last release | 1.0.0, 8 months ago | 1.0.1, 2.6 years ago |
| Trend vs the field | -9% | -7% |
| Release-window share | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Downloads in the window | 207,273,094 | 62,709,104 |
| All-time downloads | 781,023,958 | 287,731,195 |
| Versions published | 32 | 17 |
| License | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| MSRV | 1.66.0 | 1.63 |
| First published | Mar 16, 2023 | Jun 2, 2017 |
Which to pick
- Downloads tell you what is common, not what fits. Each crate's own description above says what it is for; when the jobs differ, pick by the job.
- When both fit, prefer the one more crates depend on (anstream, 428 dependents): more eyes, more answered questions, and you may already have it in your tree.
- Check the release dates against your own pace: anstream 8 months ago, yansi 2.6 years ago.
Also in this space
Method
Real downloads = the median day with no release that day or the day before, from the crates.io API (Jul 27, 2026 to Oct 23, 2026). Raw crates.io counts include CI and bots and run high (why); the method is from our 90-day study.
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