Lottie
A cross-platform library for iOS, macOS, tvOS, and visionOS that natively renders After Effects animations from JSON.
What is Lottie?
Lottie is an iOS library that natively renders vector-based animations exported from After Effects in the bodymovin JSON format. It solves the problem of engineers painstakingly recreating complex animations by hand, allowing designers to directly ship their work. The library enables real-time playback with full control over animation properties like speed, looping, and runtime modifications.
iOS, macOS, tvOS, and visionOS developers who need to integrate high-quality, designer-created animations into their applications efficiently.
Developers choose Lottie because it drastically reduces the engineering effort required to implement complex animations, ensures pixel-perfect fidelity to the original design, and provides extensive runtime control. Its JSON-based approach results in small file sizes and seamless integration across Apple platforms.
Overview
An iOS library to natively render After Effects vector animations
Use Cases
Best For
- Adding complex UI animations exported from After Effects to iOS apps
- Implementing interactive animations that can be scrubbed or controlled at runtime
- Reducing animation file sizes while maintaining visual quality
- Enabling designers to ship animations without developer recreation
- Building cross-platform apps that require consistent animations on iOS, macOS, and tvOS
- Creating dynamic interfaces where animation properties change based on user interaction
Not Ideal For
- Projects requiring only simple, programmatic UIKit or SwiftUI animations
- High-performance games needing real-time 3D graphics or physics-based animations
- Teams without access to After Effects or designer collaboration tools
Pros & Cons
Pros
Enables designers to export animations directly from After Effects via bodymovin JSON, eliminating manual recreation and speeding up integration.
Supports playing, looping, scrubbing, reversing, and modifying animations at runtime, including dynamic changes to colors and positions.
Works natively across iOS, macOS, tvOS, and visionOS, with sibling libraries for Android and Web, ensuring uniform animations.
JSON-based animations are small even for complex designs, reducing app bundle footprint without sacrificing quality.
Cons
The main lottie-ios repo is over 300 MB, making Swift Package Manager downloads slow; a separate lottie-spm repo is needed for efficient integration.
Requires designers to use After Effects with the bodymovin plugin, which may not fit all teams' workflows or resources.
Rendering complex vector animations can be resource-intensive on older or low-end devices, potentially affecting app smoothness.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
SpringA library to simplify iOS animations in Swift.
IBAnimatableDesign and prototype customized UI, interaction, navigation, transition and animation for App Store ready Apps in Interface Builder with IBAnimatable.
ViewAnimatorViewAnimator brings your UI to life with just one line
AnimatedCollectionViewLayoutA UICollectionViewLayout subclass that adds custom transitions/animations to the UICollectionView without effecting your existing code.
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