Material vs Motion
Which should you use? A side-by-side look at what each one does, who it suits, what it costs, how hard it is to set up, and where each falls short.
Open source · MIT
A Swift UI framework for iOS apps with Material Design-style components and animations.
Open source · MIT
An open source animation library for JavaScript, React and Vue.
The short answer
Choose Material if you need…
- iOS developers who want Material Design-style components without building them from scratch
- Developers maintaining existing Swift projects that already use Material
- Projects that need Material's card, text field, or navigation drawer components
Choose Motion if you need…
- React developers who want to animate components with a simple API
- JavaScript developers animating elements on a web page
- Vue developers looking for an animation package
- Teams building interactive websites that need gestures, springs or scroll-linked effects
Side-by-side
| Material | Motion | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Library | Library |
| Price | Free and open source | Free and open source |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 12k | 34.8k |
| Setup difficulty | Intermediate | Intermediate |
| How you get it | Install with a package manager | Install with a package manager |
| Main language | Swift | TypeScript |
| Last code update | 4 years ago | 4 days ago |
What each one is
Material
Material is a UI/UX framework for building iOS apps in Swift. It provides ready-made interface components such as cards, text fields, navigation drawers, toolbars, and floating action menus, styled after Google's Material Design look. It also uses the separate Motion library to handle animations and transitions.
Motion
Motion is a code library that lets developers add movement to web pages and apps, such as sliding, fading, springy bounces, and layout changes. It offers packages for React, plain JavaScript and Vue, and its README says it uses browser APIs for smooth, GPU-accelerated animation. It was formerly known as Framer Motion.
Best for
Material
- iOS developers who want Material Design-style components without building them from scratch
- Developers maintaining existing Swift projects that already use Material
- Projects that need Material's card, text field, or navigation drawer components
Motion
- React developers who want to animate components with a simple API
- JavaScript developers animating elements on a web page
- Vue developers looking for an animation package
- Teams building interactive websites that need gestures, springs or scroll-linked effects
Strengths
Material
- Covers many common components (cards, drawers, tabs, search bar, snackbar) in one package
- Includes sample projects in a separate repository to learn from
- MIT license permits use in commercial projects
Motion
- The README lists first-class React, JavaScript and Vue packages under one name
- Released under the MIT license and tree-shakable, per the README
- Large official example library with 450+ examples and tutorials
Not ideal for
Material
- Teams starting a new app today, since the README lists iOS 8.0+ and Swift 4.0+ and the last push was in May 2022
- Android or cross-platform projects, since this is iOS-only
- Developers who need SwiftUI support, which the README does not mention
Motion
- People who want a visual tool with no coding: the README's visual editor, Motion Studio, is a separate product
- Projects that need only a few CSS transitions, where native CSS may be simpler (general judgment, not stated in the README)
Trade-offs
Material
- The README targets old tooling (iOS 8.0+, Xcode 8.0+) and the last push is from 2022
- Documentation is mostly sample links and GIFs; the README gives little API detail
- The latest release lists no binaries, so you install through a dependency manager or by copying source
Motion
- Some advanced features, including Motion+ content and the Transition editor, are paid
- The README does not describe bundle size or performance numbers beyond general claims
- Formerly Framer Motion; older projects need their imports updated to motion/react
Getting started
Material
Install CocoaPods
gem install cocoapodsInstall the pod (after adding pod 'Material', '~> 3.1.0' to your Podfile)
pod installMotion
React / JavaScript
npm install motionVue
npm install motion-vFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between Material and Motion?
Material: A Swift UI framework for iOS apps with Material Design-style components and animations. Motion: An open source animation library for JavaScript, React and Vue. Material suits ios developers who want material design-style components without building them from scratch, while Motion suits react developers who want to animate components with a simple api.
Are Material and Motion free?
Material: Free and open source. Motion: Free and open source.
Is Material or Motion more popular?
Motion has more GitHub stars (34.8k) than Material (12k). Popularity isn't the same as fit — check which one matches your use case above.
What are other alternatives to Material and Motion?
Other options people compare them with include SnapKit, Materialize, Material Design In XAML Toolkit, RAMAnimatedTabBarController, FoldingCell.
Keep comparing
Built from our catalogue entries for both products: open-source details come from each project's README (AI-assisted, refreshed weekly) and GitHub data; AI-tool details are editorial. Spotted something wrong? Let us know from either product's page.