Crates / owo-colors / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to owo-colors
Short answerThe closest alternatives to owo-colors on crates.io data are colorchoice (2.4M real downloads a day), anstyle-query (2.3M real downloads a day), crossterm (583K real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is anstyle, and 6 shipped a release in the last year. owo-colors itself gets 481,334 a day with 1,465 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs owo-colors | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| colorchoice Pulled in | 2,364,472 | 4.91x | 14 | 7mo | category Command-line interface, keyword "cli", keyword "color" | compare |
| anstyle-query Pulled in | 2,326,326 | 4.83x | 26 | 11mo | category Command-line interface, keyword "cli", keyword "color" | compare |
| crossterm Widely used | 583,388 | 1.21x | 8,320 | 19mo | category Command-line interface, keyword "cli", keyword "color" | compare |
| anstyle Established | 2,632,269 | 5.47x | 607 | 7mo | category Command-line interface, keyword "color", keyword "terminal" | compare |
| anstream Established | 2,459,829 | 5.11x | 428 | 8mo | category Command-line interface, keyword "color", keyword "terminal" | compare |
| anstyle-parse Pulled in | 2,444,259 | 5.08x | 27 | 8mo | category Command-line interface, keyword "color", keyword "terminal" | compare |
| anstyle-wincon Pulled in | 1,260,142 | 2.62x | 3 | 11mo | category Command-line interface, keyword "color", keyword "terminal" | compare |
| yansi Established | 737,990 | 1.53x | 312 | 2.6y | category Command-line interface, keyword "color", keyword "terminal" | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with owo-colors; read its description before you swap.
- More dependents means more answered questions and a smaller chance it disappears.
- Check the last release against how fast you need fixes. For owo-colors: is it still maintained?
Rules
Alternatives = tracked crates (top 1000 by downloads) that share a specific crates.io category (2 points each) or keyword (3 points each) with owo-colors, most similar first; its own parts (same name prefix) and crates it depends on or that depend on it are left out, because those are companions, not substitutes. Real downloads = quiet-day median, crates.io data Oct 24, 2026. Built when we find 3 or more.
Up next
The closest alternative: Few direct dependents and steady. 2,364,472 real downloads a day.colorchoiceRust crate. Global override of color control. Real use: 2.4M downloads a day on quiet days; 14 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time