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Up to 4 tools, same rows for each: what it is, what it really costs, the trap, and how to wire it up. The URL carries your picks — send it to anyone.
Aceternity UIMagic UITailwind Plus
Quick read
- Free with no card: Magic UI.
- Editor's picks: Magic UI, Tailwind Plus.
- No logged gotchas: Magic UI.
| Field | Aceternity UIui.aceternity.com | Magic UImagicui.design | Tailwind Plustailwindcss.com |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | 200+ copy-paste animated components built with Tailwind and Motion — 3D cards, parallax scroll, spotlight glows, animated text reveals, particle backgrounds. Premium adds hero blocks, feature sections and full templates. | 150+ animated components built with React, TypeScript, Tailwind and Motion, explicitly designed as the companion to shadcn/ui. Installs with the exact same CLI you already use. No Three.js dependency; components stay under ~5 kB tree-shaken. | Formerly Tailwind UI, from Tailwind Labs. 500+ copy-paste blocks across Marketing, Application UI and Ecommerce, plus every site template (Catalyst, Spotlight, Salient, Studio, Keynote) and the Catalyst React kit. Built for Tailwind v4.3. |
| Category | UI component libraries | UI component libraries | UI component libraries |
| Cost tier | mixed | free | paid |
| Pricing | Free tier · $199/yr · $299 lifetime | Free · MIT · Pro ~$199 once | $299 one-time · $149 per pack |
| Why builders pick it | Genuinely hard-to-reproduce visual effects for a cover story or a launch page. Dark-mode-first aesthetic, so expect editing to match a lighter editorial palette. | Best stack fit of the animated libraries. Animated beams for a table-of-contents, number tickers for circulation stats, shimmer on a subscribe CTA, marquee for a sponsor row — polish without changing anything structural or blowing the image budget. | The one component purchase I would actually make for a content site. Marketing pages, article headers, pricing and subscribe flows are exactly where default shadcn output looks unfinished, and this is first-party Tailwind markup that pastes straight in. One-time, lifetime, 30-day refund. |
| Watch out for | The free components have no clearly published open-source licence — the licence page covers Pro terms only. For commercial project work that ambiguity is a real risk. Also: several components pull in Three.js, and the $199 tier is an annual subscription, not a one-time buy. | not logged | React blocks use Headless UI, so you end up with two primitive libraries alongside shadcn's Radix/Base UI. Licence bars repackaging blocks into anything you resell. No update mechanism once pasted. |
| How to wire it up | not logged | pnpm dlx shadcn@latest add @magicui/globe | not logged |
| Editor's pick | No | Yes | Yes |
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# Tool comparison — Aceternity UI vs Magic UI vs Tailwind Plus Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects. Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code. ## Aceternity UI (aceternity-ui) - URL: https://ui.aceternity.com/ - Category: UI component libraries - Cost: mixed — Free tier · $199/yr · $299 lifetime - What it is: 200+ copy-paste animated components built with Tailwind and Motion — 3D cards, parallax scroll, spotlight glows, animated text reveals, particle backgrounds. Premium adds hero blocks, feature sections and full templates. - Why builders pick it: Genuinely hard-to-reproduce visual effects for a cover story or a launch page. Dark-mode-first aesthetic, so expect editing to match a lighter editorial palette. - Trap: The free components have no clearly published open-source licence — the licence page covers Pro terms only. For commercial project work that ambiguity is a real risk. Also: several components pull in Three.js, and the $199 tier is an annual subscription, not a one-time buy. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/aceternity-ui ## Magic UI (magic-ui) - URL: https://magicui.design/ - Category: UI component libraries - Cost: free — Free · MIT · Pro ~$199 once - What it is: 150+ animated components built with React, TypeScript, Tailwind and Motion, explicitly designed as the companion to shadcn/ui. Installs with the exact same CLI you already use. No Three.js dependency; components stay under ~5 kB tree-shaken. - Why builders pick it: Best stack fit of the animated libraries. Animated beams for a table-of-contents, number tickers for circulation stats, shimmer on a subscribe CTA, marquee for a sponsor row — polish without changing anything structural or blowing the image budget. - Wiring: pnpm dlx shadcn@latest add @magicui/globe - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/magic-ui ## Tailwind Plus (tailwind-plus) - URL: https://tailwindcss.com/plus/ui-blocks - Category: UI component libraries - Cost: paid — $299 one-time · $149 per pack - What it is: Formerly Tailwind UI, from Tailwind Labs. 500+ copy-paste blocks across Marketing, Application UI and Ecommerce, plus every site template (Catalyst, Spotlight, Salient, Studio, Keynote) and the Catalyst React kit. Built for Tailwind v4.3. - Why builders pick it: The one component purchase I would actually make for a content site. Marketing pages, article headers, pricing and subscribe flows are exactly where default shadcn output looks unfinished, and this is first-party Tailwind markup that pastes straight in. One-time, lifetime, 30-day refund. - Trap: React blocks use Headless UI, so you end up with two primitive libraries alongside shadcn's Radix/Base UI. Licence bars repackaging blocks into anything you resell. No update mechanism once pasted. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/tailwind-plus ## Quick read - Free with no card: Magic UI. - Editor's picks: Magic UI, Tailwind Plus. - No logged gotchas: Magic UI. ## Rules 1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is. 2. Read the full dossier before integrating. 3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.
Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=aceternity-ui,magic-ui,tailwind-plus