Version 12.38.0
0
85
ExcellentA simple and powerful JavaScript animation library
- Weekly Downloads
- 39.6M
↑78%
- Bundle (gzip)
- 57.7 KB
- Updated
- Vulns
- 0
Health Score Breakdown
Maintenance
100
Popularity
100
Quality
50
Security
100
Stability
70
Framer-motion vs React-spring
Side-by-side NPM package comparison
Quick Verdict
Smallest Bundle
React-spring
2.4 KB gzipped
Most Popular
Framer-motion
39.6M weekly downloads
Best Maintained
Framer-motion
100/100 maintenance score
Highest Quality
React-spring
80/100 quality score
Overall Pick
Framer-motion
Best all-around based on popularity, size, maintenance & quality
Version 10.0.3
0
74
Good<p align="center"> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/QZownhg.png" width="240" /> </p>
- Weekly Downloads
- 1.0M
↑15%
- Bundle (gzip)
- 2.4 KB
- Updated
- Vulns
- 0
Health Score Breakdown
Maintenance
40
Popularity
100
Quality
80
Security
100
Stability
70
Choosing between Framer-motion and React-spring? Here's a data-driven comparison based on real npm data — downloads, bundle size, health scores, and more — to help you decide which package fits your project best.
Downloads & Popularity
Framer-motion leads with 39.6M weekly downloads — roughly 39.3x more. React-spring has 1.0M weekly downloads. Higher download counts generally indicate broader community adoption and a larger ecosystem of tutorials, plugins, and support.
Bundle Size
React-spring has the smallest gzipped bundle at 2.4 KB. Framer-motion comes in at 57.7 KB. A smaller bundle size means faster page loads, which improves user experience and Core Web Vitals scores.
Health Score Comparison
Framer-motion has an overall health score of 85/100 (very good), with strong maintenance, security, popularity scores. React-spring has an overall health score of 74/100 (good), with strong quality, security, popularity scores. Health scores are calculated from maintenance activity, code quality, security posture, popularity, and stability metrics.
When to Choose Each
Choose Framer-motion if you value massive community and ecosystem, actively maintained, strong security track record. Choose React-spring if you value large community support, minimal bundle footprint, strong security track record.
Our Verdict
Both Framer-motion and React-spring are solid choices for JavaScript development. Framer-motion has the edge in overall health score (85/100), while each package brings unique strengths to the table. Evaluate them based on your project's priorities — whether that's community size, bundle efficiency, or maintenance activity — and choose the one that aligns best with your requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is framer-motion better than react-spring?
- It depends on your needs. Framer-motion has a health score of 85/100 while React-spring scores 74/100. Framer-motion has more weekly downloads (39.6M), suggesting broader adoption. Consider your specific requirements — bundle size, community support, and feature set — to decide which is the better fit.
- Which has a smaller bundle size, framer-motion or react-spring?
- React-spring has the smaller gzipped bundle at 2.4 KB. A smaller bundle means faster load times for your users, which can positively impact SEO and user experience.
- How many developers use framer-motion vs react-spring?
- Based on npm download statistics, Framer-motion has approximately 39.6M weekly downloads and React-spring has approximately 1.0M weekly downloads. These numbers reflect package installations, not unique developers, but they indicate relative adoption levels.
- Which is better maintained, framer-motion or react-spring?
- Framer-motion currently has the higher overall health score at 85/100. Framer-motion has a maintenance score of 100/100 and React-spring scores 40/100 on maintenance.
Framer Motion vs React Spring: Bundle Size & Animation Performance
Framer Motion and React Spring are the two most popular animation libraries in the React ecosystem, and their gzipped bundle sizes reflect very different design philosophies. Framer Motion is a comprehensive animation toolkit that includes layout animations, gesture handling, scroll-triggered animations, and the AnimatePresence component for exit animations — all of which contribute to its larger bundle footprint. React Spring takes a physics-based approach with a more modular, tree-shakeable architecture, resulting in significantly smaller bundles when you only need basic spring animations.
For bundle-conscious applications — especially those targeting mobile users or optimizing Core Web Vitals — the gzipped size difference between these libraries directly impacts your Lighthouse performance score and Time to Interactive metric. React Spring's tree-shakeable API means you only ship the animation primitives you actually use (useSpring, useTransition, useTrail), keeping your production bundle lean. Framer Motion's declarative API is harder to tree-shake because its features are more interconnected, though the developer experience trade-off is significant: Framer Motion's animate prop and layout animations accomplish in 2-3 lines what might take 15-20 lines of React Spring configuration.
If bundle size is your primary constraint — you're building a performance-critical landing page, a lightweight embeddable widget, or targeting slow mobile connections — React Spring's smaller gzipped footprint makes it the better choice. If you need layout animations, gesture interactions, scroll-driven animations, or complex orchestrated sequences and can afford the extra kilobytes, Framer Motion's developer experience advantage is substantial. Many teams start with React Spring for simple transitions and move to Framer Motion when their animation requirements grow beyond basic enter/exit effects.
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