State of Web Animation 2026

The headline numbers

• 91.7% of mobile pages use a CSS transition, but only 18.4% load a JavaScript animation library.

  Source: HTTP Archive Web Almanac, 2024

• GSAP runs on roughly 2.2% of all websites, and about 2.8% of sites whose JavaScript library is detectable.

  Source: w3techs.com, 2026

• Webflow made GSAP 100% free, all plugins and commercial use included, fully live on April 30, 2025.

  Source: webflow.com, 2024-2025

• Non-composited, jank-prone animations appear on 40% of mobile pages and 44% of desktop pages.

  Source: Web Almanac, 2025

• Only 48% of mobile origins pass all three Core Web Vitals; INP scores good on 77% of mobile vs 97% of desktop, a gap driven by heavier mobile JavaScript.

  Source: Web Almanac, 2025 (CrUX)

• React is used by 69.9% of developers vs Vue at 44.8%, and Vue is the #2 framework at about 19% of the framework market.

  Source: State of JS 2025; w3techs, 2026

• 84% of developers use or plan to use AI tools, yet trust fell to 29% and 66% are slowed by AI code that is almost right but not quite.

  Source: Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 2025

• prefers-reduced-motion adoption jumped from 34% of sites in 2022 to over 50% of mobile sites in 2024, the most-adopted user-preference query.

  Source: Web Almanac, 2024

What developers actually copy

Annnimate publishes 70 production GSAP components, and the library skews the way real brand sites do: toward scroll. Scroll-driven motion is the largest category by a wide margin, which tracks the broader shift to scroll storytelling now that CSS scroll-driven animations reached roughly 85% browser support (Safari 26, September 2025).

• Scroll22 components · 31%
• UI Components18 components · 26%
• Experimental8 components · 11%
• Buttons7 components · 10%
• Sections7 components · 10%
• Shaders4 components · 6%
• Menus4 components · 6%

Source: Annnimate library, 2026

The GSAP and React/Vue gap

GSAP went fully free in 2025 and runs framework-agnostic, but the overwhelming majority of component-driven sites are built in React (69.9% developer usage) and Vue (44.8%, the #2 framework). On npm, framer-motion pulls about 33.5M weekly downloads to GSAP's 2.15M, though framer-motion ships inside many React UI kits as a transitive dependency, so that count overstates hand-authored adoption. The result: production-ready, framework-idiomatic GSAP components for React and Vue remain structurally underserved.

Source: State of JS 2025, npmtrends 2026

Motion, performance, and AI

Performance is the tax on motion: non-composited animations hit 40% of mobile pages, and only 48% of mobile origins pass all three Core Web Vitals. Of those vitals, INP is the one animation most directly threatens, scoring good on 77% of mobile sites versus 97% of desktop. Meanwhile AI tooling has commoditized generic UI, yet developer trust in it fell to 29% and two-thirds are slowed by output that is almost right but not quite. The premium on motion that is actually crafted, debugged, and accessible is rising, not falling, and prefers-reduced-motion is now honored by over half of mobile sites.

Source: Web Almanac 2024-2025, Stack Overflow 2025