What is Matrix rain?

Matrix rain (also called digital rain) is the cascading-character visual effect popularized by The Matrix films: columns of glowing characters stream down a black background, fading out as they fall. It has since become a popular screensaver, coding demo, and desktop background style.

Tool description

This tool renders a customizable digital rain animation directly in your browser using the HTML canvas element. You can choose the character set (Katakana, Latin letters, numbers, binary, symbols, or your own custom words), pick the text and background colors, and tune the font size, fall speed, and trail fade to get the exact look you want.

Switch the character set to "Custom Words" to make the rain spell out your own text — enter one or more words or phrases separated by commas, and each column randomly picks one and scrolls through its letters instead of showing random noise.

Click the fullscreen button to turn the effect into a distraction-free, screensaver-style display that fills your entire screen. Click anywhere on the canvas to toggle fullscreen instantly.

Features

  • Six character sets: Katakana, Latin letters, numbers, binary, symbols, and your own custom words or phrases
  • Adjustable text color and background color
  • Font size, animation speed, and trail fade controls
  • Optional glow effect, bold characters, and a highlighted leading character per column
  • Falling or rising rain direction
  • One-click fullscreen for a full-screen screensaver effect