Animation

React / general

• ★ Motion (formerly Framer Motion) — the default React animation library. Layout animations, gestures, scroll, springs. Now also ships Motion for Vanilla JS and Motion for Vue.
• GSAP — the gold standard for timeline-driven, marketing-quality animation. Free for almost all uses since the 2024 license change.
• AutoAnimate (FormKit) — one-line useAutoAnimate hook that animates child enter/exit/move. Incredibly low effort.
• React Spring — physics-based spring animations; flexible, mature.
• Theatre.js — visual editor for complex sequences and 3D scenes.

Lottie / vector

• Lottie React / lottie-web — render After Effects animations as JSON.
• dotlottie — modern Lottie successor with smaller files and built-in interactivity.

CSS-only / minimal

• tailwindcss-animate — preset of common animations as Tailwind classes (used by shadcn).
• Animate.css — drop-in CSS animations.

3D / WebGL

• Three.js — the foundation.
• react-three-fiber + drei — declarative React for Three.js.
• Threlte — Svelte wrapper for Three.js.
• TresJS — Vue wrapper for Three.js.

Pick this if…

• Default React app: Motion + AutoAnimate.
• Marketing site, hero animations: GSAP.
• Designer-driven animations: Lottie / dotlottie.
• 3D / interactive scenes: react-three-fiber + drei.