AnimeJs v4 Is Here

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Landing page and documentation

  • Many commenters are blown away by the interactive landing page and describe it as one of the best they’ve seen in years.
  • The scroll-driven 3D “engine” demo and the overall smoothness, even on some mobile and niche Android browsers, are repeatedly praised.
  • The docs themselves are praised as “a work of art”: clear API design, interactive examples, and especially good explanations for timers and breaking changes (shown as diffs).

Scroll-driven animation & UX

  • Several people normally dislike scroll-based “story” sites but find this implementation unusually smooth and appropriate as a product demo.
  • Some argue scroll should only move the page, not drive animations; others push back, saying the web should be “fun” and that this is a natural evolution of scroll.
  • It’s noted that the page doesn’t truly “hijack” scroll: body content scrolls normally while scroll position drives background animation, which helps usability.

Performance, compatibility, and crashes

  • A number of users see only a black page or WebGL errors (Lockdown Mode on iOS, Firefox ESR, some Linux/Chromium setups, webgl blocking).
  • Some Firefox + uBlock Origin users report reproducible tab crashes on specific docs pages.
  • Others report extreme CPU usage and lag on older/virtualized hardware or Ubuntu Firefox; some see nearly perfect performance even on phones.
  • Discussion centers on hardware acceleration: GPU availability, browser flags, and tradeoffs between client GPU usage vs bandwidth and energy efficiency.

Library design and integration

  • People like that it’s plain JavaScript with type annotations and small compiled bundles, and that it leans on efficient CSS transforms and WAAPI.
  • The API is perceived as thoughtfully designed and approachable; v3 users say v4 feels like a major refinement.
  • React integration is documented; it works “outside React” post-render, which makes some patterns (e.g., exit animations on component removal) harder.

Comparisons and alternatives

  • Mentioned peers include GSAP, Motion, Pixi, Lottie, WAAPI, Rive, Godot, and Flash/DHTML-era effects.
  • One commenter strongly favors Anime.js over GSAP on performance, size, and code quality; others ask for an explicit “brag page” vs GSAP/Pixi.
  • Some see this as a spiritual successor to Flash-era creative web experiments.

Authoring tools and learning

  • Multiple people ask for higher-level authoring tools akin to Lottie or a WYSIWYG for non-coders; some lament that Flash still lacks a true replacement.
  • The library author commits to creating a course on recreating the landing page, with a waitlist signup, which receives enthusiastic interest.
  • There are questions about how the 3D model was made and whether CAD-like workflows or CAD-to-web pipelines exist; this remains unclear.

Use cases and philosophy

  • Some see heavy visual UX as impractical for most professional work, but valuable for art, landing pages, crypto/marketing, and self-expression.
  • Others caution developers not to overuse such heavy animations due to accessibility, hardware, and energy concerns.
  • Several note this release as an example of how mature and polished modern web/JS libraries have become.