framer-motion vs jotai — pkgdocs

pkgdocs/compare/framer-motion vs jotai

Comparing

npm

framer-motion

Production-ready animations and gestures for React — declarative, physics-based, with layout animations and exit transitions.

7.0M/ wk

v12.6.2

npm

jotai

Primitive and flexible state management for React based on atomic state units.

900K/ wk

v2.9.3

Metric	framer-motion	jotai
Ecosystem	npm	npm
Difficulty	Intermediate	Beginner ✓
Weekly downloads	7.0M↑	900K
Latest version	v12.6.2	v2.9.3
Recipes	2	2

When to use each

framer-motion

React apps needing UI animations: page transitions, list reordering, drag-and-drop, hover effects, scroll-triggered reveals, and exit animations.

jotai

React apps needing shared state without prop drilling, derived/computed state that updates automatically, fine-grained re-render control, per-route or per-feature isolated state.

When to skip each

framer-motion

Non-React projects, performance-critical animations running at 120fps with many particles (use CSS or WebGL), or very simple opacity/transform transitions where CSS is sufficient.

jotai

Non-React environments (Jotai is React-only). Complex state machines (use XState). Apps already committed to Redux with large middleware ecosystems.

Sample recipes

framer-motion

Fade and slide in on mount
Stagger-animate a list of items

jotai

Replace useState with a shared atom
Derived atom for computed state

framer-motion

jotai

Tags

When to use each

When to skip each

Sample recipes