Bring Your React Apps to Life with Animation

Animations can greatly enhance user experience in React applications when done right. Subtle animations guide users, provide feedback and add delight without being distracting. More complex animated transitions and components help reinforce branding and personality.

However, coding custom animations from scratch is complex. Animation libraries abstract away low-level details so you can efficiently add animated components using a declarative API.

This guide covers the top animation libraries for React. For each library, you‘ll find:

• Key features – What does this library excel at?
• Use cases – When is this a good fit?
• Code examples – See the library in action.

By the end, you‘ll have the knowledge to choose the right animation tool for your next React project.

Why Use a React Animation Library?

Before jumping into specific libraries, let‘s cover the benefits of using an animation library instead of coding from scratch:

Saves implementation time: You can achieve complex sequenced animations by calling pre-built components instead of starting from scratch.

Handles cross-browser inconsistencies: Libraries account for differences in how browsers handle animations.

Encapsulates animation logic: Abstracts away low-level details like manually managing animation states.

Provides presets and defaults: Tweak and customize versus defining everything yourself.

Optimized performance: Advanced libraries use techniques like batching to optimize the DOM and avoid jank.

Easier maintenance: Contained systems prevent cascading issues when making future changes.

Type safety: Libraries like React Spring enforce types for simpler debugging.

Now let‘s explore libraries that excel at different animation use cases.

Framer Motion: Production-Ready Animations

Framer Motion focuses on flexibility for real apps with constraints like bundle size and performance. It‘s likely the best fit if you want rock-solid production animations.

Key Features

• Small and fast: Weighing at ~7kB gzipped, Framer Motion is blazing fast by default.
• Gesture support: Drag, pan, pinch and more with intuitive APIs.
• Varied transitions: Choose default presets or define custom transitions.
• Render optimization: Built-in batching and use of React APIs like useCallback.
• SSR friendly: Works smoothly for server-side rendered React apps.

Use Cases

Framer Motion shines when you want:

• Complex gesture-based UIs
• Production apps where performance matters
• Mix of spring, timing and keyframes transitions
• Server rendered pages with client-side interactivity

Code Example

Here‘s a drawer component with drag gesture support:

import { motion } from "framer-motion"

function Drawer() {
  return (
    <motion.div 
      drag
      dragConstraints={{ left: 0, right: 250 }}
      transition={{ bounce: 0 }}
      style={{ width: 250 }}
    >
      {/* Drawer contents */}
    </motion.div>  
  )
}

The component handles dragging naturally without needing manual state management in our code. Sweet!

React Spring: Physics-Based Animation

React Spring focuses on modeling real-world physics for ultra-smooth animations in React. Expect natural motions that would be tedious to implement from scratch.

Key Features

• Physics-based: Simulate mass, friction, tension, decay, etc.
• Gesture support: Pan, zoom and drag seamlessly.
• Interoperability: Works across React Native, React Native Web and Web.
• Small and fast: Bundle size around 10kB gzipped.
• Strict typing: 100% TypeScript support.

Use Cases

React Spring excels when you need:

• Complex gestures with inertia and momentum
• Real-world physics modeled in components
• Reuse animations across platforms
• Type safety and IDE auto-complete

Code Example

Here‘s a playful card that bounces on hover:

import { useSpring, animated } from ‘react-spring‘

function Card() {
  const [animatedProps, set] = useSpring(() => ({
    scale: 1, 
  }))

  return (
    <animated.div
      style={animatedProps}
      onMouseEnter={() => set({ scale: 1.1 })} 
      onMouseLeave={() => set({ scale: 1 })}    
    >
      {/* Card contents */}
    </animated.div>
  )  
}

The physics-based spring creates an organic, playful effect perfect for engaging users.

Lottie: Designer-Friendly Animations

Lottie is unique in rendering animations as JSON exported from After Effects. This empowers collaboration between developers and motion designers.

Key Features

• After Effects integration: Exports animations as JSON.
• Lightweight: Renders animations performantly with minimal code.
• Interactive: Control speed, direction and more at runtime.
• Active ecosystem: Plugs into React, React Native and more.

Use Cases

Lottie stands out when you:

• Have animations already designed in After Effects
• Need frame-perfect animation export
• Work closely with animators and designers
• Want to animate complex illustrations

Code Example

Here‘s an example using the Lottie React Component:

import Lottie from ‘react-lottie-player‘

function Celebration() {
  return (
    <Lottie 
      loop  
      animationData={celebrationAnimation} 
      play  
    />
  )
}

By separating animation design from implementation, both disciplines can focus on their strengths.

React Move: Sequence-Based Animation

React Move sequences choreographed animations using a declarative syntax. It focuses on animated list reorderings and grid layout changes.

Key Features

• Sequenced transitions: Orchestrate animations declaratively.
• List reordering: Animate adding, removing and reordering.
• Grid transitions: Animate grid layout changes smoothly.
• Component abstraction: Define transitions separately from components.

Use Cases

React Move shines for:

• Multi-step sequenced transitions
• Animated list reorderings
• Page transitions through sequence changes
• Grid layout change animations

Code Example

Here‘s an animated Todo list with removal animations:

import { TransitionMotion } from ‘react-move‘

function TodoList({ todos }) {
  return (
    <TransitionMotion
      styles={todos.map(todo => ({
        key: todo.id,
        style: { opacity: 1, x: 0 }, 
      }))}
    >
      {interpolatedStyles => 
        todos.map(todo => (
          <animated.div
            key={todo.id} 
            style={interpolatedStyles[todo.id]}          
          />
        ))
      }
    </TransitionMotion>
  )
}

When removing a todo, React Move automatically animates it smoothly upwards with a fade out.

React Spring Web: Web-Focused Animation

React Spring Web is a web-focused fork of React Spring, concentrated purely on browser interaction. It offers some advantages for web specifically at the cost of React Native support.

Key Features

• Ultra performance: Faster even than main React Spring branch.
• Tiny size: Under 3kB gzipped bundle size.
• Gestures: Drag, pinch, hover and more supported out of box.
• Interpolation: Animate any value, not just numbers.

Use Cases

React Spring Web is great when:

• Bundle size and performance are critical
• You only target web, not native platforms
• You want maximum interpolation flexibility

For example, animating an SVG path string instead of transforms.

Code Example

Here is a card with a wobbly drag effect:

import { animated, useSpring } from ‘@react-spring/web‘

function Card() {
  const [props, set] = useSpring(() => ({ 
    x: 0,
    y: 0,
    scale: 1,
  })) 

  return (
    <animated.div
      style={{
        transform: props.xy.to(trans),  
        scale: props.scale
      }}  
      {...bind} 
    >
     {/* Contents */}
    </animated.div>
  )
} 

The spring physics and interpolation capabilities make wobbly draggable objects a breeze.

React Pose: Simple Animation Sequences

React Pose offers a straightforward API for sequencing animated states on components. It‘s ideal for simple transition flows between elements.

Key Features

• State sequences: Orchestrate state changes with a fluent API.
• Easy start: Simple syntax with minimal boilerplate code.
• Lightweight: Only 2kB gzipped bundle.
• SVG support: Animate SVG attributes directly.

Use Cases

React Pose is great when you need:

• Simple two-way animated transitions
• Hover and focus states with ease-in-out
• Orchestrating state changes visually
• An unopinionated starting point

Code Example

The following implements an expandable FAQ item:

import { posed } from ‘react-pose‘

const Question = posed.li({
  open: { height: ‘100px‘ },
  closed: { height: ‘30px‘ }  
})

function FAQ({ open, question, answer }) {
  return (
    <Question pose={open ? ‘open‘ : ‘closed‘}> 
      {question}
      {open && answer}   
    </Question>
  )
}

No need to manually track heights or handle transitions. React Pose does the heavy lifting!

Honorable Mentions

While the above libraries are likely your best bets, here are a few honorable mentions worth checking out:

• Animate.css: Simply inject ready-made animations from classes. Ultra easy for prototypes.
• AnimXYZ: Huge library of premade React spring animations. Drag and drop implementation.
• React Transition Group: Light abstraction for transition stages. Use with GSAP or Animate.css.
• React Reveal: High level animated reveal components. Fade, slide, zoom and more.
• RC Drawer: Robust lower level drawer component with drags, parallaxes and more.

Conclusion

I hope this tour of animation capabilities in React has sparked some ideas!

As a brief recap:

Framer Motion is likely the best all-around production animation library. It brings smooth performance, gesture support and robust features for real mobile and web apps.

React Spring delivers ultra-smooth animations and physics you won‘t find elsewhere. Perfect when you want natural motions faithful to real-life.

Lottie brings designer workflow integration via After Effects animations exported as JSON. Great for complex illustrations.

React Move makes choreographing animation sequences simple through its declarative API. Awesome for multi-step transitions.

The remaining libraries have similar capabilities but with different UX slants. Pose focuses on simplicity, while React Spring Web and React Native Reanimated target their respective platforms.

I encourage you to try a few! Animation can elevate the best looking apps into truly delightful experiences.

What animation capabilities do you want to see in React next? I‘d love to hear your thoughts! @Username