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Web animations have evolved from simple CSS transitions to complex, choreographed experiences that guide users through interfaces. GSAP (GreenSock Animation Platform) has emerged as the industry standard for professional web animations, offering unmatched performance and creative flexibility.
In this guide, we'll explore how to create stunning animations with GSAP while maintaining excellent Core Web Vitals scores—proving that beauty and performance can coexist.
CSS animations work well for simple transitions, but they hit limits quickly. Complex sequencing, scroll-triggered effects, and coordinated animations across multiple elements become unwieldy with pure CSS.
GSAP solves these problems with a powerful timeline system, intuitive easing functions, and plugins that handle common patterns. It's battle-tested on millions of websites and handles edge cases like browser inconsistencies that would take hours to debug yourself.
Performance is where GSAP truly shines. It uses requestAnimationFrame under the hood, batches DOM operations, and provides tools like GSAP.ticker for synchronized animations. The result is buttery-smooth 60fps animations even on mobile devices.
ScrollTrigger is GSAP's plugin for scroll-driven animations, and it's transformed how we build modern websites. Elements can animate as they enter the viewport, scrub through animations as users scroll, and pin in place for immersive effects.
The basic concept is simple: define a trigger element, set start and end points, and create your animation. ScrollTrigger handles all the scroll position calculations, resize handling, and performance optimizations.
A common pattern is reveal animations—elements fading or sliding into view as users scroll. With ScrollTrigger, this takes just a few lines of code while handling all edge cases like fast scrolling and browser resize.
GSAP timelines let you choreograph complex animation sequences. Instead of managing individual animations and delays, you create a timeline and add animations at specific points—or relative to other animations.
The position parameter is the key to timeline mastery. You can add animations at absolute times, relative to the previous animation ('+=0.5' for 0.5 seconds after), or at labeled points. This makes complex sequences maintainable and easy to modify.
Nested timelines take this further. A page transition might have timelines for the exit animation, loading state, and entrance animation—each self-contained but coordinated by a master timeline. Changes to one section don't ripple through the entire sequence.
Animation performance starts with what you animate. Transform and opacity are the gold standard—they don't trigger layout or paint operations. Properties like width, height, or top force the browser to recalculate layout, killing performance.
GSAP's will-change handling is intelligent, but for complex animations, explicit GPU acceleration helps. The force3D option ensures transforms use the GPU, and the lazy option defers rendering calculations until needed.
Loading GSAP efficiently matters too. Use dynamic imports to load GSAP only when needed, or load it after the initial paint. For critical-path animations, inline the minimum necessary GSAP code and load the rest asynchronously.
Motion can be problematic for users with vestibular disorders. The prefers-reduced-motion media query lets you disable or reduce animations for users who've requested it.
GSAP makes this easy with a matchMedia utility. You can define different animations for users with reduced motion preferences—perhaps using fade instead of movement, or disabling animations entirely.
Beyond reduced motion, consider animation speed and cognitive load. Animations should guide attention, not distract. A good rule: if you can't articulate why an animation helps the user, it probably shouldn't exist.
GSAP works excellently with React when you understand the integration patterns. The key is using refs to target elements and cleaning up animations when components unmount.
The useGSAP hook from @gsap/react handles this automatically. It provides a context for your animations that cleans up when the component unmounts, preventing memory leaks and zombie animations.
For Next.js specifically, be mindful of server rendering. GSAP animations should only run in the browser—use useEffect or useLayoutEffect to ensure animations initialize after hydration.
GSAP transforms web animation from a source of performance anxiety into a creative tool. With proper patterns—animating transforms, using ScrollTrigger for scroll effects, and respecting accessibility preferences—you can create memorable experiences without sacrificing Core Web Vitals.
The investment in learning GSAP pays dividends. Its patterns transfer to any project, its community provides extensive examples, and its performance is unmatched. Start small with basic tweens, graduate to timelines, and before long you'll be creating scroll-driven experiences that delight users.
Remember: the best animations are invisible. They guide users naturally, provide feedback, and make interfaces feel responsive. GSAP gives you the tools—use them in service of user experience.