You’ve probably noticed that animation has become quite popular on the internet, especially in recent years. There’s no shortage of tutorials, case studies, and libraries tailored for those who love adding motion to screens. This is one of those aspects of digital technology that can intrigue, amaze, motivate, and impress both users and creators. Almost every site now features animations—either of specific elements or entire designs built with parallax effects. And we’re not talking about standard background videos, but animation of elements, icons, scenes, compositions, and logos.
In this article, we’ve selected several JavaScript animation libraries and analyzed their capabilities in terms of usability, both from a business perspective and from a development standpoint. Instead of asking, “What’s the best tool to build X?”, we’ll focus on questions like:
We’ll also highlight additional aspects that help ensure project and business goals are met—such as cost efficiency (features/learning curve/final output), open-source availability, extensions and plugins, and the current state of the community. These kinds of details typically help businesses or teams find the right software solution for their specific project needs.
What is an Animation Library?
An animation library is a set of tools that allows developers to create dynamic visuals. It also includes tools for controlling object motion and direction. Some offer support for interactive animations—those that respond to user actions (like hovering or scrolling).
Of course, our list might seem subjective to some, but what truly matters is what works for you. If a library fits your goals, business, and project, then that’s what counts.
GreenSock
GreenSock (GSAP) is one of the leading JavaScript libraries for web animators. You can create all kinds of stunning effects, including those that rely on SVG support.
Key features of GreenSock include its open-source foundation, and the ability to use libraries like TweenMax, TimelineLite, TimelineMax, and TweenLite to create animations of various complexity without major investments. Also, if your final animation file becomes too large, you might want to check out this article on their site.
GSAP also comes with a wide range of extensions and plugins. For example:
DrawSVG – progressively hide/reveal SVG strokes
MorphSVG – morph any SVG shape into another (hover over the button to see it change)
ScrollTo – scroll animation. Works with ScrollMagic
Bezier – animate along a Bézier curve
Here's the full list of all GreenSock extensions for further exploration. A few interactive animation examples: Example 1 (ball follows the cursor), Example 2 (click the colored squares), Example 3 (panoramic image follows the cursor).
In terms of popularity, GSAP is used on more than 4 million websites and has been around for a long time. What does that mean? Extensive documentation, a large community, countless tutorials, and an easy learning curve.
The GreenSock community is active on platforms like Slack, Animation At Work, Stack Overflow, the GSAP forums, and Twitter. The documentation is well-written, and the syntax is easy to grasp, expressive, and readable. Parts of GSAP are open source, while some plugins/utilities may come with a price—but not all.
Who is it best for?
If you need a single powerful library for a wide variety of animations, with strong community support, clear documentation, simple syntax, and up-to-date functionality.
Anime.js
Another open-source library, incredibly lightweight and compact. Anime.js works with CSS properties, any DOM attributes, JavaScript objects, SVGs, and transform properties. Notable features include keyframes, timelines, and built-in controls for playback management.
Its syntax will feel familiar to many web developers, as it’s widely used across animation libraries today. Working with timelines is easy, and properties are managed using an object-literal approach.
Anime.js is actively developed on GitHub, which is a plus. If you need support, it's best to check project issues on GitHub first before heading to Stack Overflow, as many links point back to GitHub anyway.
One of the most visually impressive examples is this interactive animation where elements change based on user actions.
As for documentation—expect to spend some time on it. Anime.js docs can feel challenging, lacking detailed explanations for demos. That said, event handling is not as complex as in some other libraries.
Since the library is relatively new, pay attention to browser support. It works great with IE10–11 and Edge. However, iOS and Android support isn’t clearly mentioned. There is a stress test that demonstrates its performance.
Who is Anime.js best for?
If you need a tiny library that supports simple timelines, SVG (strokes, morphing, transforms), has 100% open-source code, and uses a familiar syntax.
Velocity
If you're familiar with jQuery, then Velocity might be just right for you. It's an animation engine with the same API as the jQuery method $.animate(). However, it can work both with and without jQuery. Its features include color animations, transforms, SVG support, and scrolling animations.
If a web developer chooses to use jQuery with Velocity, it's essentially just a matter of replacing $.animate() with $.velocity. It's worth noting that the library is currently supported by nearly all browsers and mobile platforms—including IE8 and Android 2.3. There are also numerous plugins and extensions available.
Here’s a demo example of the library in action, showing its quality, speed, and ease of use.
The project is still under active development on GitHub. It’s been around for a long time, is widely used to this day, and is well known in the dev community. Velocity is all about convincing developers of how effective it can be, backed by performance test results. There are plenty of articles, video guides, and books for those who want to dive deeper. And if you're a ScrollMagic user, you’ll be pleased to know it works seamlessly with Velocity. SVG support is also excellent.
Who is Velocity best for?
If you need a library with clear documentation, friendly syntax, the flexibility to work with or without jQuery, a long track record, extensive learning resources, and strong community support.
Popmotion
The tiny Popmotion library, at around 11.5KB, lets developers think like they’re building with LEGO blocks. It comes with packages like blend, draggable, pose, react, and spinnable. Popmotion supports interactive animations with real physics and great performance. The author even claims it outperforms GSAP. However, the documentation may be a serious challenge to interpret.
The general syntax is confusing, and the documentation phrasing is complex—it requires deep knowledge of how the library works internally. So, you might need time to fully understand it and practice. It’s definitely not ideal for quick implementations.
A great example of animation beauty is this rainbow effect implementation.
And here's another example of a menu animation where the subtle jitters feel elegant rather than excessive.
The creator of Popmotion hopes that development of Pose will address the library’s major issues by offering a declarative API that simplifies animation drastically. Popmotion truly shines in mouse-position-based interactivity and time-independent animation scenarios.
Here’s what a Pose-based example looks like.
Most developers will find a "learning curve" that suits them. In theory, it sounds nice—but when you actually start coding, it can feel bulky and often requires manually implementing many features. But once you understand the docs, you’ll be able to create truly stunning effects.
You can find support in the Animation at Work Slack under the #popmotion channel, and also on GitHub.
Who is Popmotion best for?
If you want a library focused on interactive animations, 100% open-source, and you're committed to creating complex, advanced animations.
Mo.js
The Mo.js project is also open-source and can be installed via NPM or CDNJS. It offers reliability, performance, modularity, and a simple API—everything to help reduce file sizes.
However, the documentation might feel confusing to some developers. It doesn’t always explain the methods used in demos, so you may need to do your own research. Also, it can be unclear how to use it for basic motion animations (some parts aren’t straightforward for common tasks). That said, it does offer unique effects like this bubble animation. It looks original. Just hover and scroll with your mouse wheel.
On GitHub, you’ll notice that the number of contributors is small, and updates were last made between mid-2016 and mid-2017. There haven’t been significant changes since.
According to various discussions on forums and in public sources, the project's future seems uncertain, and the creator doesn’t appear to be actively developing it anymore. Whether you should use it or not is up to you—but if you do, it offers good features, a user-friendly interface, lots of possibilities, and integration potential.
Conclusion
While it’s important to think long-term when planning your project, it’s just as vital to consult your team (if you're not working solo) before making decisions. If you “fall in love” with a minimalistic library just because it works for today’s needs, you’re likely not planning for what might happen in six months (when, realistically, things start to evolve).
And that’s when you realize your past decision no longer fits modern web development realities. So, you’re forced to rewrite everything from scratch just to integrate something new.
If you use a library that lacks active development or support, it could lead to problems in the long run—especially when dealing with browser bugs or mobile system limitations. On the other hand, libraries that have been actively developed for a decade give companies peace of mind, thanks to great documentation, readable syntax, and strong support. That benefits developers, creators, and end users (who get to see the animations on all devices and browsers).
Ultimately, the final choice of an animation library is up to the developer—especially considering the vast number of options available today. If we tried to list them all, we’d inevitably miss something. So, here we’ve focused on the most notable, unique, and useful ones.