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Note: This page was created for GSAP version 2. We have since released GSAP 3 with many improvements. While it is backward compatible with most GSAP 2 features, some parts may need to be updated to work properly. Please see the GSAP 3 release notes for details. Update: don't miss our guest post on css-tricks.com, Myth Busting: CSS Animations vs. JavaScript which provides some additional data, visual examples, and a speed test focused on this topic. jQuery is the 700-pound gorilla that has been driving lots of animation on the web for years, but let's see how it fares when it steps into the ring with the feisty GSAP (GreenSock Animation Platform) which gained its fame in the Flash world and is now flexing its greased-up muscles in JavaScript. Before we put the gloves on, we need to make it clear that we've got the utmost respect for jQuery, its authors, and its community of users (to which we belong). It's a fantastic tool that we highly recommend for non-animation tasks. This tongue-in-cheek "cage match" is solely focused on animation. Performance Performance is paramount, especially on mobile devices with sluggish processors. Silky smooth animation is the hallmark of any animation platform worth its weight. This round wasn't even close. GSAP was up to 20 TIMES faster than jQuery under heavy stress. See a speed comparison for yourself or make your own. Performance winner: GSAP Controls With jQuery, you can stop an animation but that's about it. Some 3rd party plugins add resume capability, but jQuery takes a pounding in this round. GSAP's object oriented architecture allows you to pause, resume, reverse, restart, or jump to any spot in any tween. Even adjust timeScale on the fly for slow motion or fastforward effects. Place tweens in a timeline with precise scheduling (including overlaps or gaps) and then control the whole thing just like it's a single tween. All of the easing and effects remain perfectly intact as you reverse, pause, adjust timeScale, etc. And you can even kill individual portions of a tween anytime (like if a tween is controlling both "top" and "left" properties, you can kill "left" while "top" continues). Put labels in a timeline to mark important spots and seek() to them anytime. Imagine trying to build the example below using jQuery. It would be virtually impossible. With GSAP, it's easy. In fact, all of the animation is done with 2 lines of code. Drag the slider, click the buttons below, and see how easy it is to control the sequenced animation. See the Pen Impossible with jQuery: controls (used in jquery cagematch) by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. Controls winner: GSAP Tweenable Properties jQuery.animate() works with basic numeric properties, but that's about it. If you want to do more, you'll need to rely on lots of 3rd party plugins which may have spotty support or unresolved bugs. GSAP's CSSPlugin handles almost anything you throw at it while protecting you from various browser bugs and prefix requirements. GSAP jQuery  = supported    = supported with 3rd party plugins    = partially supported with 3rd party plugins Basic numeric css properties like left, top, opacity, fontSize, etc. Supported Supported Colors like backgroundColor, borderColor, etc. Supported Supported with 3rd party plugins backgroundPosition Supported Supported with 3rd party plugins boxShadow Supported Supported with 3rd party plugins clip Supported Supported with 3rd party plugins textShadow (including multiple text shadows) Supported Partially supported with 3rd party plugins 2D transforms like rotation, scaleX, scaleY, x, y, skewX, and skewY, including 2D transformOrigin and directional rotation functionality Supported Partially supported with 3rd party plugins 3D transforms like rotationY rotationX, z, and perspective, including 3D transformOrigin and directional rotation functionality Supported Partially supported wiht 3rd party plugins borderRadius (without the need to define each corner and use browser prefixes) Supported Partially supported with 3rd party plugins className allows you to define a className (or use "+=" or "-=" to add/remove a class) and have the engine figure out which properties are different and animate the differences using whatever ease and duration you want. Supported Partially supported with 3rd party plugins Tweenable properties winner: GSAP Workflow When you're creating fun and interesting animations, workflow is critical. You need to be able to quickly build sequences, stagger start times, overlap tweens, experiment with eases, leverage various callbacks and labels, and create concise code. You need to be able to modularize your code by creating functions that each spit back an animation object (tween or timeline) which can be inserted into another timeline at a precise time. You need a flexible, powerful system that lets you experiment without wasting hours wrestling with a limited tool set. jQuery has some nice simple convenience methods like show(), hide(), fadeIn(), and fadeOut(), but GSAP bloodies its nose in this round: GSAP jQuery  = supported    = unsupported Easily create sequences (even with overlapping animations) that can be controlled as a whole Supported Unupported Flexible object-oriented architecture that allows animations to be nested inside other animations as deeply as you want Supported Unupported Animate things into place (backwards) with convenience methods like from() and staggerFrom() Supported Unupported Accommodate virtually any ease including Bounce, Elastic, SlowMo, RoughEase, SteppedEase, etc. Supported Unupported Create a staggered animation effect for an array of objects using one method call (like staggerTo(), staggerFrom(), or staggerFromTo()) Supported Unupported Easily repeat and/or yoyo a tween a specific number of times (or indefinitely) without resorting to callbacks or redundant code Supported Unupported Callbacks for when a tween or timeline starts, updates, completes, repeats, and finishes reversing, plus optionally pass any number of parameters to those callbacks Supported Unupported Place labels at specific times in a sequence so that you can seek() to them and/or insert animations there. Supported Unupported Animate any numeric property of any JavaScript object, not just DOM elements Supported Unupported Call a function whenever the entire platform finishes updating on each frame (like for a game loop) Supported Unupported Workflow winner: GSAP Compatibility Browser inconsistencies and bugs are the bane of our existence as developers. Whether it's the way Internet Explorer 8 implements opacity or Safari's transformOrigin bug that wreaks havok on 3D transforms or the fact that browser prefixes are required to enable many of the more modern browser features, you want your animations to "just work" without having to learn all the annoying hacks. jQuery does a great job of delivering cross-browser consistency overall, but when it comes to animation it falls a bit short mainly because it doesn't even attempt to handle the more modern CSS properties. No JavaScript framework can work miracles and suddenly make IE8 do fluid 3D transforms, for example, but GSAP implements a bunch of workarounds under the hood to solve problems wherever possible. It can do 2D transforms like rotation, scaleX, scaleY, x, y, skewX, and skewY all the way back to IE6 including transformOrigin and directional rotation functionality! Plus it works around scores of other browser issues so that you can focus on the important stuff. Compatibility winner: GSAP Popularity jQuery has been around for a long time and has gained incredible popularity because it does many things well. It's like the Swiss Army knife of JavaScript. There probably isn't a single JavaScript tool that's more popular than jQuery, and GSAP is no exception. As the new kid on the block, GSAP is gonna have to prove itself in the JavaScript community just like it did in the Flash community before it's crowned the undisputed champion. Popularity winner: jQuery Conflict management What happens if there's already a tween running that's controlling a particular object's property and a competing tween begins? jQuery does nothing to manage the conflict - the original tween keeps running. For example, let's say you're animating an element's "top" to 100px and that tween still has 2 seconds left before it's done, and another tween starts running that animates the same element's "top" to 0px over the course of 1 second. It would tween to 0px and then immediately jump to almost 100px and finish that [first] tween. Yuck. GSAP automatically senses these conflicts and handles them behind the scenes. In this case, it would kill the "top" portion of the first tween as soon as the second tween begins. Plus there are several other overwrite modes you can choose from if that's not the behavior you want. Conflict management winner: GSAP Support Both jQuery and GSAP have thriving support forums, but since right now jQuery has a massive user base, you're very likely to find someone with an answer to your question. Even though the GreenSock forums rarely have a question that remains unanswered for more than 24 hours, jQuery's pervasiveness gives it an edge here. On the other hand, GreenSock's forums are manned by paid staff (including the author of the platform), so you're quite likely to get solid answers there. Add to that the fact that GreenSock has a track record of being much more agile in terms of squashing bugs and releasing updates than jQuery, so we'll call this round a tie. Support winner: tie Expandability jQuery and GSAP both offer a plugin architecture, but since jQuery has been out much longer and gained so much popularity, there are numerous plugins available. Some are good, some are not, but there is a thriving community of plugin developers out there. Even though technically they're both equally expandable, the sheer number of plugins currently available for jQuery give it the advantage in this round. Expandability winner: jQuery Learning resources Again, jQuery's popularity trumps anything GSAP could throw at it right now. There are lots of tutorials, videos, and articles about jQuery whereas GSAP is new to the game. GreenSock is being aggressive about putting together solid resources (like the Jump Start tour) and the community is crankin' out some great articles and videos too, but jQuery scores the win in this round. Learning resources winner: jQuery Price & license Both jQuery and GSAP are completely free for almost every type of usage and both allow you to edit the raw source code to fix bugs (if that's something you need to do). If you plan to use GSAP in a product/app/site/game for which a fee is collected from multiple customers, you need the commercial license that comes with "Business Green" Club GreenSock memberships (one-off commercial projects don't need the special license). It's actually a more business-friendly license in many ways than a typical open source license that offers no warranties or backing of any kind or imposes code sharing or credit requirements. GreenSock's licensing model provides a small funding mechanism that benefits the entire user base because it empowers continued innovation and support, keeping it free for the vast majority of users. See the licensing page for details. jQuery employs an MIT license and is free for virtually all uses. As much as we all like "free" software, there's always a cost somewhere. jQuery has a few large corporate sponsors that have helped keep it viable. Both jQuery and GreenSock have long track records of delivering updates, bug fixes, and new features (GreenSock is newer to JavaScript, but served the Flash community since around 2006). Both count some of the largest companies in the world among their user base. Although there are some clear benefits of GreenSocks' license over jQuery's, we'll give this round to jQuery because it is technically "free" in more scenarios than GSAP. Price & license winner: jQuery File size jQuery weighs in at about 32kb gzipped and minified whereas GSAP's TweenLite and CSSPlugin are about half that combined. So in half the size, you're getting significantly more animation capabilities and speed. GSAP is built in a modular fashion that allows you to use just the parts that you need. Of course jQuery serves many other purposes beyond animation, but in this cage match we're focused on animation. Even if you add up TweenLite, TimelineLite, TimelineMax, TweenMax, EasePack, CSSPlugin, BezierPlugin, AttrPlugin, DirectionalRotationPlugin, and RoundPropsPlugin, it's still almost 20% less than jQuery. File size winner: GSAP Flexibility Let's face it: any tweening engine can handle the basics of animating one value to another, but it's really the details and advanced features that make a robust platform shine. GSAP crushes jQuery when it comes to delivering a refined, professional-grade tool set that's truly flexible. All these conveniences are baked into GSAP (no 3rd party plugins required): Tween any numeric property of any object. Optionally round values to the nearest integer to make sure they're always landing on whole pixels/values. Animate along Bezier curves, even rotating along with the path or plotting a smoothly curved Bezier through a set of points you provide (including 3D!). GSAP's Bezier system is super flexible in that it's not just for x/y/z coordinates - it can handle ANY set of properties. Plus it will automatically adjust the movement so that it's correctly proportioned the entire way, avoiding a common problem that plagues Bezier animation systems. You can define Bezier data as Cubic or Quadratic or raw anchor points. Animate any color property of any JavaScript object (not just DOM elements). Define colors in any of the common formats like #F00 or #FF0000 or rgb(255,0,0) or rgba(255,0,0,1) or hsl(30, 50%, 80%) or hsla(30, 50%, 80%, 0.5) or "red". Set a custom fps (frames per second) for the entire engine. The default is 60fps. All tweens are perfectly synchronized (unlike many other tweening engines). Use the modern requestAnimationFrame API to drive refreshes or a standard setTimeout (default is requestAnimationFrame with a fallback to setTimeout) Tons of easing options including proprietary SlowMo, RoughEase and SteppedEase along with all the industry standards Animate css style sheet rules themselves with CSSRulePlugin Animate the rotation of an object in a specific direction (clockwise, counter-clockwise, or whichever is shortest) by appending "_cw", "_ccw", and "_short" to the value. You can tween getter/setter methods, not just properties. For example, myObject.getProp() and myObject.setProp() can be tweened like TweenLite.to(myObject, 1, {setProp:10}); and it will automatically recognize that it's a method and call getProp() to get the current value when the tween starts. Same for jQuery-style getters/setters that use a shared method like myObject.prop(). You can even tween another tween or timeline! For example, TweenLite.to(otherTween, 1, {timeScale:0.5}) would animate otherTween.timeScale to 0.5 over the course of 1 second. You can even scrub the virtual playhead of one tween/timeine with another tween by animating its "time". Use plugins like ThrowPropsPlugin for momentum-based motion, and RaphaelPlugin, EaselPlugin, and KineticPlugin for those [canvas or svg] libraries (Raphael, EaselJS, and KineticJS). Plus there are physics-based plugins like Phyics2DPlugin and PhysicsPropsPlugin as well as a fun ScrambleTextPlugin for Club GreenSock members. Flexibility winner: GSAP Conclusion jQuery eeked out a few decent rounds, but ultimately GSAP left it lying on the mat in a pool of its own blood. Of course we're slightly biased, but check out the facts for yourself. Kick the tires. Audition GSAP on your next project. See how it feels. If you only need simple fades or very basic animation, jQuery is probably just fine. In fact, its fadeIn() and fadeOut() methods are quite convenient. However, what happens when your client wants to do something more expressive? Or what if they start complaining that animation isn't smooth on mobile devices? Why not build on a solid foundation to begin with so that you don't find yourself having to rewrite all your animation code? If you want professional-grade scripted animation, look no further. To get started fast, check out our Jump Start tour. Update: there's now a jquery.gsap.js plugin that allows you to continue using jQuery.animate() but have GSAP drive the animations under the hood, thus delivering much better speed plus a bunch of new properties that you can tween (like colors, 2D and 3D transforms, boxShadow, textShadow, borderRadius, clip, etc.). Read more about the plugin here. Recommended reading: Main GSAP JS page jQuery.animate() with GSAP: get the jquery.gsap.js plugin! Why GSAP? A practical guide for developers Jump Start: GSAP JS CSS3 transitions vs GSAP: cage match Speed comparison 3D Transforms & More CSS3 Goodies Arrive in GSAP JS

Note: This page was created for GSAP version 2. We have since released GSAP 3 with many improvements. While it is backward compatible with most GSAP 2 features, some parts may need to be updated to work properly. We encourage you to use the updated "Getting Started" page . The GreenSock Animation Platform (GSAP) animates anything JavaScript can touch (CSS properties, SVG, React, canvas, generic objects, whatever) and solves countless browser inconsistencies, all with blazing speed (up to 20x faster than jQuery). See "Why GSAP?" to learn why it's used by over 8,000,000 sites and every major brand. Hang in there through the learning curve and you'll discover how addictive animating with code can be. We promise it's worth your time. Quick links Loading GSAP Tweening Basics CSSPlugin 2D and 3D transforms Easing Callbacks Sequencing with Timelines Timeline control Getter / Setter methods Club GreenSock We'll cover the most popular features here but keep the GSAP docs handy for all the details. First, let's talk about what GSAP actually does... GSAP as a property manipulator Animation ultimately boils down to changing property values many times per second, making something appear to move, fade, spin, etc. GSAP snags a starting value, an ending value and then interpolates between them 60 times per second. For example, changing the x coordinate of an object from 0 to 1000 over the course of 1 second makes it move quickly to the right. Gradually changing opacity from 1 to 0 makes an element fade out. Your job as an animator is to decide which properties to change, how quickly, and the motion's "style" (known as easing - we'll get to that later). To be technically accurate we could have named GSAP the "GreenSock Property Manipulator" (GSPM) but that doesn't have the same ring. DOM, SVG, <canvas>, and beyond GSAP doesn't have a pre-defined list of properties it can handle. It's super flexible, adjusting to almost anything you throw at it. GSAP can animate all of the following: CSS: 2D and 3D transforms, colors, width, opacity, border-radius, margin, and almost every CSS value (with the help of CSSPlugin). SVG attributes: viewBox, width, height, fill, stroke, cx, r, opacity, etc. Plugins like MorphSVG and DrawSVG can be used for advanced effects. Any numeric value For example, an object that gets rendered to an HTML5 <canvas>. Animate the camera position in a 3D scene or filter values. GSAP is often used with Three.js and Pixi.js. Once you learn the basic syntax you'll be able to use GSAP anywhere JavaScript runs. This guide will focus on the most popular use case: animating CSS properties of DOM elements. (Note: if you're using React, read this too.) If you're using any of the following frameworks, these articles may help: React Vue Angular What's GSAP Exactly? GSAP is a suite of tools for scripted animation. It includes: TweenLite - the lightweight core of the engine which animates any property of any object. It can be expanded using optional plugins. TweenMax - the most feature-packed (and popular) tool in the arsenal. For convenience and loading efficiency, it includes TweenLite, TimelineLite, TimelineMax, CSSPlugin, AttrPlugin, RoundPropsPlugin, BezierPlugin, and EasePack (all in one file). TimelineLite & TimelineMax - sequencing tools that act as containers for tweens, making it simple to control entire groups and precisely manage relative timing (more on this later). Extras like easing tools, plugins, utilities like Draggable, and more Loading GSAP CDN The simplest way to load GSAP is from the CDN with a <script> tag. TweenMax (and all publicly available GSAP files) are hosted on Cloudfare's super-fast and reliable cdnjs.com. <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/gsap/2.1.3/TweenMax.min.js"></script> Banner Ad CDNs Every major ad network excludes GSAP from file size limits when you load it from their CDN! Contact your ad network for their URLs. For example, Google hosts TweenMax at: //AdWords and DoubleClick ads only "https://s0.2mdn.net/ads/studio/cached_libs/tweenmax_2.1.2_min.js" NPM npm install gsap See the NPM Usage page in the docs for a full guide including how to import things (ES modules or UMD format), tree shaking, Webpack, how to get bonus plugins into a build system, etc. Downloading GSAP Download a zip directly from our home page or your account dashboard. If you're logged in as a Club GreenSock member this zip will include your bonus plugins. GitHub View the source code on GitHub. Tweening Basics Let's start with TweenMax, GSAP's most popular tool. We'll use CodePen demos so that you can easily fork and edit each example right in your browser. TweenMax.to() To create an animation, TweenMax.to() needs 3 things: target - the object you are animating. This can be a raw object, an array of objects, or selector text like ".myClass". duration (in seconds) vars - an object with property/value pairs that you're animating to (like opacity:0.5, rotation:45, etc.) and other optional special properties like onComplete. For example, to move an element with an id of "logo" to an x position of 100 (same as transform: translateX(100px)) over the course of 1 second: TweenMax.to("#logo", 1, {x:100}); Note: Remember that GSAP isn't just for DOM elements, so you could even animate custom properties of a raw object like this: var obj = {prop:10}; TweenMax.to(obj, 1, { prop:200, //onUpdate fires each time the tween updates; we'll explain callbacks later. onUpdate:function() { console.log(obj.prop); //logs the value on each update. } }); Demo: TweenMax.to() Basic Usage See the Pen TweenMax.to() Basic Usage by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. If you would like to edit the code and experiment with your own properties and values, just hit the Edit on CodePen button. Notice that the opacity, scale, rotation and x values are all being animated in the demo above but DOM elements don't actually have those properties! In other words, there's no such thing as element.scale or element.opacity. How'd that work then? It's the magic of CSSPlugin. Before we talk about that, let's explain how plugins work in general. Plugins Think of plugins like special properties that get dynamically added to GSAP in order to inject extra abilities. This keeps the core engine small and efficient, yet allows for unlimited expansion. Each plugin is associated with a specific property name. Among the most popular plugins are: CSSPlugin*: animates CSS values AttrPlugin*: animates attributes of DOM nodes including SVG BezierPlugin*: animates along a curved Bezier path MorphSVGPlugin: smooth morphing of complex SVG paths DrawSVGPlugin: animates the length and position of SVG strokes *loaded with TweenMax CSSPlugin In the previous example, CSSPlugin automatically noticed that the target is a DOM element, so it intercepted the values and did some extra work behind the scenes, applying them as inline styles (element.style.transform and element.style.opacity in that case). Be sure to watch the "Getting Started" video at the top of this article to see it in action. CSSPlugin Features: normalizes behavior across browsers and works around various browser bugs and inconsistencies optimizes performance by auto-layerizing, caching transform components, preventing layout thrashing, etc. controls 2D and 3D transform components (x, y, rotation, scaleX, scaleY, skewX, etc.) independently (eliminating order-of-operation woes) reads computed values so you don't have to manually define starting values animates complex values like borderRadius:"50% 50%" and boxShadow:"0px 0px 20px 20px red" applies vendor-specific prefixes (-moz-, -ms-, -webkit-, etc.) when necessary animates CSS Variables handles color interpolation (rgb, rgba, hsl, hsla, hex) normalizes behavior between SVG and DOM elements (particularly useful with transforms) ...and lots more Basically, CSSPlugin saves you a ton of headaches. Because animating CSS properties is so common, GSAP automatically senses when the target is a DOM element and adds a css:{} wrapper. So internally, for example, {x:100, opacity:0.5, onComplete:myFunc} becomes {css:{x:100, opacity:0.5}, onComplete:myFunc}. That way, CSS-related values get routed to the plugin properly and you don't have to do any extra typing. You're welcome. ? To understand the advanced capabilities of the CSSPlugin read the full CSSPlugin documentation. 2D and 3D transforms CSSPlugin recognizes a number of short codes for transform-related properties: GSAP CSS x: 100 transform: translateX(100px) y: 100 transform: translateY(100px) rotation: 360 transform: rotate(360deg) rotationX: 360 transform: rotateX(360deg) rotationY: 360 transform: rotateY(360deg) skewX: 45 transform: skewX(45deg) skewY: 45 transform: skewY(45deg) scale: 2 transform: scale(2, 2) scaleX: 2 transform: scaleX(2) scaleY: 2 transform: scaleY(2) xPercent: 50 transform: translateX(50%) yPercent: 50 transform: translateY(50%) GSAP can animate any "transform" value but we strongly recommend using the shortcuts above because they're faster and more accurate (GSAP can skip parsing computed matrix values which are inherently ambiguous for rotational values beyond 180 degrees). The other major convenience GSAP affords is independent control of each component while delivering a consistent order-of-operation. Performance note: it's much easier for browsers to update x and y (transforms) rather than top and left which affect document flow. So to move something, we recommend animating x and y. Demo: Multiple 2D and 3D transforms See the Pen Multiple 2D and 3D Transforms by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. Additional CSSPlugin notes Be sure to camelCase all hyphenated properties. font-size should be fontSize, background-color should be backgroundColor. When animating positional properties such as left and top, its imperative that the elements you are trying to move also have a css position value of absolute, relative or fixed. vw/vh units aren't currently supported natively, but it's pretty easy to mimic using some JS like x: window.innerWidth * (50 / 100) where 50 is the vw. Just ask in the forums for some help. from() tweens Sometimes it's amazingly convenient to set up your elements where they should end up (after an intro animation, for example) and then animate from other values. That's exactly what TweenMax.from() is for. For example, perhaps your "#logo" element currently has its natural x position at 0 and you create the following tween: TweenMax.from("#logo", 1, {x:100}); The #logo will immediately jump to an x of 100 and animate to an x of 0 (or whatever it was when the tween started). In other words, it's animating FROM the values you provide to whatever they currently are. Demo: TweenMax.from() with multiple properties See the Pen TweenMax.from() tween by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. There is also a fromTo() method that allows you to define the starting values and the ending values: //tweens from width 0 to 100 and height 0 to 200 TweenMax.fromTo("#logo", 1.5, {width:0, height:0}, {width:100, height:200}); Special properties (like onComplete) A special property is like a reserved keyword that GSAP handles differently than a normal (animated) property. Special properties are used to define callbacks, delays, easing and more. A basic example of a special property is delay: TweenMax.to("#logo", 1, {x:100, delay:3}); This animation will have a 3-second delay before starting. Other common special properties are: onComplete - a callback that should be triggered when the animation finishes. onUpdate - a callback that should be triggered every time the animation updates/renders ease - the ease that should be used (like Power2.easeInOut) Easing If your animation had a voice, what would it sound like? Should it look playful? Robotic? Slick? Realistic? To become an animation rock star, you must develop a keen sense of easing because it determines the style of movement between point A and point B. The video below illustrates the basics. An "ease" controls the rate of change during a tween. Below is an interactive tool that allows you to visually explore various eases. Note: you can click on the underlined parts of the code at the bottom to change things.