Choosing a JavaScript animation library depends on what you are animating. Three.js and Babylon.js render 3D scenes in the browser, PixiJS handles fast 2D graphics, Anime.js and Motion animate DOM and UI properties, and Motion Canvas, Remotion and Manim produce videos. This guide compares the open-source options in the Libraries & SDKs category, which is part of the wider developer tools catalog.

Criteria for choosing

Four questions narrow the field quickly:

  • Output target. Do you need interactive graphics on a web page, or a rendered video file?
  • Dimension. Is the scene 2D or 3D?
  • Ecosystem. Does your app use React, Vue or plain JavaScript?
  • License and maturity. Check the license and the community size. Star counts are a rough signal of adoption, not of fitness for your project.

3D rendering

Three.js

three.js is an MIT-licensed JavaScript 3D library for building WebGL and WebGPU scenes in the browser. It is the most widely referenced option in this group, with about 116,000 stars on GitHub, and it is known for a lightweight, easy-to-use API.

  • Strengths: low-level control over scenes, a small core, and broad adoption.
  • Trade-offs: you assemble more pieces yourself than with a full engine.

Babylon.js

Babylon.js is an Apache-2.0 JavaScript and TypeScript engine for 3D games and rendering. It targets WebGL, WebGPU and WebXR, so it fits interactive experiences that include virtual or augmented reality.

  • Strengths: a full engine with WebXR support in one package.
  • Trade-offs: a larger surface area than a rendering library when you only need a simple scene.

2D graphics and interactive canvas

PixiJS

PixiJS is an MIT-licensed HTML5 2D rendering library for fast, interactive graphics and games, using WebGL and WebGPU. Its focus is 2D performance on the web.

  • Strengths: speed for sprite-heavy and interactive 2D scenes.
  • Trade-offs: not designed for 3D.

UI and DOM animation

Motion

Motion is an open-source animation library for React, JavaScript and Vue. It offers smooth, GPU-accelerated animations for web interfaces through a simple API. It is the natural pick when the target is component transitions in a framework app.

Anime.js

anime is an MIT-licensed, lightweight library for animating CSS properties, SVG, DOM attributes and JavaScript objects. It is framework-agnostic and has about 73,000 stars.

  • Strengths: small, flexible, and works with any DOM or plain objects.
  • Trade-offs: you wire up component-level behavior yourself in framework projects.

dotLottie Web

dotlottie-web is an MIT-licensed Lottie and dotLottie player built on a Rust and WASM core. Choose it when your designers export animations from After Effects-style tools and you need to play them on the web. It is a player, not an authoring tool, and it is much newer in adoption than the others here.

Video and programmatic animation

These tools produce video output rather than live page content.

Motion Canvas

Motion Canvas is an MIT-licensed TypeScript library and editor for vector animations. Its generators can be synced to voice-overs, which suits explainer content.

Remotion

remotion is a React-based library for building and rendering videos with code. Its license is not stated in the catalog data, so check the repository before adopting it. It fits teams that already write React and want video templates generated from data.

Manim

manim is an MIT-licensed Python library for precise programmatic animations, built for explanatory math videos. It is not a web library, but it is the standard choice for mathematical visualizations.

Shotcut

Shotcut is a free, GPL-3.0 cross-platform video editor for Windows, macOS and Linux, built on MLT and Qt. It is a manual editor, not a code library, so it suits editing footage rather than generating animation in code. It is listed under Desktop Apps.

Who should pick what

  • Immersive 3D or WebXR: Babylon.js for an all-in-one engine, Three.js if you want a leaner rendering layer.
  • 2D games and interactive graphics: PixiJS.
  • Animating a React, Vue or JavaScript UI: Motion for framework components, Anime.js for DOM and SVG in any setup.
  • Playing designer-made Lottie files: dotlottie-web.
  • Programmatic explainer or data videos: Motion Canvas or Remotion for web-native teams, Manim for math content.

Recommendation

Start from the output: a live page, a 3D scene, or a video file. For most web UI work, Motion or Anime.js covers the need with little code. For 3D, begin with Three.js and move to Babylon.js if you need its engine features. Verify each license against your use case before shipping. Browse more options in the libraries catalog.