Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.

The grid says what these tools are. This says what builders did about it — one decision per person, changeable whenever you change your mind.

# Tool comparison — Motion (was Framer Motion) vs GSAP + ScrollTrigger vs Lenis

Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects.
Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code.

## Motion (was Framer Motion) (motion)
- URL: https://motion.dev/docs/react
- Category: Animation & motion
- Cost: free — Free MIT · Motion+ €299 once
- What it is: Renamed from Framer Motion and spun out as an independent MIT project at motion.dev. Declarative animation via props, AnimatePresence for exits, layout/layoutId for shared-element transitions, variants for staggering, useScroll for scroll-linked values.
- Why builders pick it: Page and route transitions between article and index, staggered card reveals on the issue grid, image-to-lightbox shared-element morphs. Composes cleanly with Tailwind and shadcn. Use LazyMotion + the m component to land near 18 kB instead of 38 kB.
- Trap: Do not build long scroll narratives with useScroll — once you need pinning and scrubbing you are rebuilding ScrollTrigger badly. Do not wrap hundreds of list items in motion.div.
- Wiring: npm install motion
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/motion

## GSAP + ScrollTrigger (gsap-scrolltrigger)
- URL: https://gsap.com/docs/v3/
- Category: Animation & motion
- Cost: free — Free — all plugins, since 2025
- What it is: Framework-agnostic animation engine whose differentiator is the timeline model: sequence, offset, nest, reverse and scrub complex choreography with precise control. ScrollTrigger handles scroll-driven and pinned animation; SplitText does per-character reveals.
- Why builders pick it: This is the scrolled-feature-article tool. Pinned photo sequences, a headline that assembles as you scroll, a timeline piece that scrubs — that is ScrollTrigger, and nothing else comes close. Webflow acquired GreenSock and made every formerly-paid plugin free in 2025. Core + ScrollTrigger + SplitText is ~49 kB gz.
- Trap: Free but not OSI open source — a custom Webflow-owned licence that bars using GSAP inside competing no-code animation builders. Building scroll-driven features with it is squarely permitted. Release cadence has slowed to 2–3/year under Webflow.
- Wiring: npm install gsap @gsap/react
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/gsap-scrolltrigger

## Lenis (lenis)
- URL: https://lenis.dev/
- Category: Animation & motion
- Cost: free — Free · MIT
- What it is: From Darkroom Engineering. Intercepts wheel and touch input and lerps scroll position for the weighted, inertial feel of award sites — something CSS scroll-behavior cannot do. 5.3 kB gz core, 1.6 kB for the React binding.
- Why builders pick it: My one 'do not use this' on your project. Hijacked scroll fights readers on long text, breaks trackpad muscle memory and scroll-anchoring, and is a real accessibility problem. Long-form reading is your entire product. If you ship it anyway, gate it behind prefers-reduced-motion.
- Trap: Adds a frame of latency and can interfere with browser lazy-loading heuristics. Wiring it to GSAP requires driving Lenis from GSAP's ticker or pinned sections jitter.
- Wiring: npm install lenis
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/lenis

## Quick read

- Editor's picks: Motion (was Framer Motion), GSAP + ScrollTrigger.

## 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=motion,gsap-scrolltrigger,lenis