8 JavaScript Animation Libraries You should "MUST TRY"

If you're looking to grab your website visitor's attention, what can be better than animations.

You know, the first moments to hold the user's feet are very important. A boring, poor website can make users jump out of it right away.

Let's see some awesome JavaScript Animation Libraries that can help you to create amazing web animations.

⚡ Introduction

Animating with JavaScript libraries is more efficient and advanced compared to SVG and CSS. In today’s world, JavaScript is an essential language because of the magic it does while animating.

Animations using JavaScript is a complex task to perform. It needs an extensive amount of knowledge and skills.

🍀 Prerequisites

JavaScript Animation Libraries is an exciting and interactive topic. Therefore, I recommend the reader to have a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

🌟 JavaScript Animations

Animations on web applications are appealing and grab the user’s attention. JavaScript can animate what CSS can’t. JavaScript is the preferred tool of use because it handles more complex and advanced effects.

There are several JavaScript animation libraries. Here is a list of the best JavaScript animation libraries you can use in your project.

01. ANIME.JS

There are many JavaScript animation libraries out there, but Anime.js is one of the best. It’s easy to use, has a small and simple API, and offers everything you could want from a modern animation engine. The library has a small file size and supports all modern browsers, including IE/Edge 11+.

02. GSAP

GSAP is a robust JavaScript toolset that turns developers into animation superheroes. Build high-performance animations that work in every major browser. Animate CSS, SVG, canvas, React, Vue, WebGL, colors, strings, motion paths, generic objects...anything JavaScript can touch!

GSAP's ScrollTrigger plugin lets you create jaw-dropping scroll-based animations with minimal code. No other library delivers such advanced sequencing, reliability, and tight control while solving real-world problems on millions of sites. GSAP works around countless browser inconsistencies; your animations just work. At its core, GSAP is a high-speed property manipulator, updating values over time with extreme accuracy. It's up to 20x faster than jQuery!

03. MO.JS

mo.js is a javascript motion graphics library that is a fast, retina-ready, modular, and open source. In comparison to other libraries, it has a different syntax and code animation structure approach. The declarative API provides you complete control over the animation, making it customizable with ease.

The library provides built-in components to start animating from scratch like HTML, shape, swirl, burst, and stagger but also brings you tools to help craft your animation in a most natural way. Using mo.js on your site will enhance the user experience, enrich your content visually and create delightful animations precisely.

04. POPMOTION

Popmotion gives the power of JavaScript merged with the simplicity of CSS to make declarative animations easily on your HTML, SVG, and React projects. Its API implement semantics to make easier work with different JavaScript flavors and propose a library of custom animation to enhance your workflow pace.

05. THREE.JS

Three.js is a lightweight and user-friendly JavaScript 3D animation library. It makes it easy to come up with 3D content on a web page. Three.js uses WebGL (Web Graphics Library) to draw 3D animations.

WebGL is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D graphics. It creates a scene with a camera and a geometric cube. A WebGL renderer is created for the scene and the camera.

06. KUTE.JS

A modern JavaScript animation engine built on ES6+ standards with the most essential features for the web, delivering easy to use methods to set up high performance, cross-browser animations. The focus is code quality, flexibility, performance, and size.

KUTE.js packs a series of components for presentation attributes, SVG transform, draw SVG strokes, and path morphing, text string write up or number countdowns, plus additional CSS properties like colors, border-radius, or typographic properties.

07. SCROLL REVEAL

ScrollReveal is a JavaScript library for easily animating elements as they enter/leave the viewport. It was designed to be robust and flexible, but hopefully, you’ll be surprised below at how easy it is to pick up.

08. HOWLER.JS

Howler.js is an open-source JavaScript audio library. It’s used in game development and audio-related web apps. Howler.js makes coding easy while working with audio in JavaScript on web platforms.

It lays out a modern audio library supporting the Web Audio API and a fallback technique for HTML5 Audio.

Howler.js supports all browser-ready files from MP3, MP4, DOLBY, MPEG, WEBA, OGG to WAV. The library controls audio patterns by playing, pausing, looping, and seek to rate. Loaded audios are cached automatically, resulting in a more excellent performance.

Conclusion 👋

There are many JavaScript animation libraries that can be implemented on your projects. Those listed above are a few with the best combination of complexity, ease, and stability. Each animation library differs from others and each fit different situations.

Let’s suppose you are looking for a powerful animation. The best JavaScript library options to go for is Anime.js, Velocity.js, GreenSock.js, and Popmotion.js.

If you are looking for an audio library, the best option is Howler.js. If you want 3D animations, the best JavaScript animation to use is Three.js.

If you are looking for a JavaScript animation library great for creating typing animations used on webpages, then Type.js is the best option.

Although using a JavaScript animation library makes your web application stand out. Overdoing it beats the purpose and often confuses the user. Be careful and sensibly use animations.