Guides · · Maxwell Prehoda
11 Landing Page Animation Examples, and Exactly What Each One Animates
The landing pages people remember animate one or two things with purpose: a hero that explains the product before you read a word, a product that moves as you scroll, a demo you can poke. They do not animate everything. The best teams are explicit about it; Vercel's designers wrote that they skipped any animation that "didn't perform well, felt pompous, or out of rhythm" with the page.
Below are 11 landing pages and what each one actually animates, taken from the teams' own write-ups and from editorial teardowns by Framer and Awwwards rather than guesses. Each has the stack behind it, the trap it avoids or falls into, and where it fits, a live pure-CSS demo of the same pattern. Three entries are ours: building blocks for the parts you will most likely build first.
1. Vercel's homepage (October 2023 redesign): Best for developer tools that want motion without slowing first paint
Platform: Next.js, CSS, SVG, canvas and a progressive GLSL shader
Rauno Freiberg's essay on the redesign is the most detailed public account of a landing page's motion. The hero stacks a heading, an SVG triangle, CSS grid lines, SVG rays, a CSS rainbow gradient and a GLSL shader, and it "does not rely on any client side code to display the essence of it." The shader is code-split, fades in after load, and is skipped on low-powered devices. Framework icons are drawn as pixel matrices on canvas, and icons travel three orbit rings using CSS `offset-path: content-box`.
The rules are the lesson. Looping animations respect reduced motion by pausing with `animation-play-state` instead of snapping off, and high-motion sections are spaced so two never sit back to back.
Our Orbiting Planets Background below is a pure-CSS take on things circling rings at different speeds, built with rotation rather than offset-path.
Watch out for: The page you see today may differ from the 2023 version. Read the essay for the reasoning, not as a description of the live site.
2. Linear's mobile launch page: Best for product launches with a dark, cinematic hero
Platform: CSS animation, responsive images
A June 2025 teardown of Linear's mobile launch page on the Retros newsletter points out that the hero visual is "just an animation made with CSS" rather than a video, which keeps it sharp and responsive at every screen size, with a grain effect adding a dark, cinematic mood. Images are served through the picture element so each viewport gets the right size.
Choosing CSS over video for a hero is an underrated decision: no codec issues, no autoplay rules, a fraction of the bytes, and the motion scales with the layout.
Our Grainy Gradient Background below is a pure-CSS version of the moody, grain-textured look: two colour clouds drift over a deep gradient under a fixed layer of film grain made with an SVG feTurbulence filter.
Watch out for: Grain overlays sit on top of everything. Keep them pointer-events: none and test text contrast with the grain on, not off.
3. tinyPod's scroll story: Best for physical products that need a little explaining
Platform: Framer site
Framer's roundup of website animation highlights tinyPod: the product descends from the clouds on load and rotates through a series of scroll-based animations that call out features, before landing in a hand beside a message. Framer's reasoning is simple: the product "takes a little explaining," so the page turns the explanation into a sequence.
Scroll storytelling is the right tool when a product has three to five features that each need a moment. It is the wrong tool when visitors already know what you sell and want the price.
Our Rotate In On Scroll below is a pure-CSS version of the settle-into-place motion: it starts tilted and low, then straightens and rises as it scrolls into view.
Watch out for: Long scroll sequences push your call to action down the page. Put a buy or sign-up button in the header so nobody has to sit through the story to act.
4. GitBook's cursor-following product shots: Best for SaaS feature sections that need a second look
Platform: Framer site
In Framer's teardown, each section's product image on GitBook's site is 3D and "follows your cursor as you navigate the page." Framer credits that interactivity with drawing attention to each section and keeping people engaged as they scroll.
Cursor-reactive depth is a cheap way to make flat screenshots feel like objects. It also invites the pointer onto the product image, which is exactly where you want the visitor looking.
Our Cursor Tilt Card Hover below is a pure-CSS version: the corner under the pointer tips toward you with a glare that follows, using a 3x3 grid of invisible cells instead of JavaScript.
Watch out for: Cursor effects do nothing on phones, where most landing traffic often is. Make sure the static image sells the feature on its own.
5. Cradle's try-it-now mini demo: Best for technical products whose value is hard to describe
Platform: Framer site
Cradle, a protein engineering platform, puts a mock version of its product on the page: a sample protein sequence and a few variables. Click "Generate variants" and an animation simulates the process. Framer calls it a mini demo that explains the product and boosts trust within seconds.
An animated fake product beats a paragraph of copy for anything technical. The visitor performs the core action once and sees the result, which is the whole pitch.
Our Agent UI Preview below is a pure-CSS take on a product that assembles itself in front of you: a generated dashboard where the sidebar slides in, stat cards pop up and a chart draws.
Watch out for: A simulated demo must match what the real product does. If the animation promises a result in two seconds and the product takes two minutes, you have bought a support ticket.
6. Tellet's fade-up entrance and moving stats: Best for friendly brands with a few big numbers to show
Platform: Framer site
Framer's example of entrance animation done well: above the fold, the heading, image, description and call to action fade upwards on load; further down, graphics and statistics move right to left as you reach them. Each data point gets its own moment, so the numbers land one at a time instead of as a wall.
This is the most transferable pattern on the list. Nearly every landing page has a hero and a stats row, and a quiet staggered fade-up on both costs almost nothing.
Our Fade In Up Text below is a pure-CSS version of that entrance: the text rises a little as it fades in, quick and quiet.
Watch out for: Do not hide above-the-fold content until JavaScript runs. Animate from a visible starting state, or use CSS animations that play without script, so a slow script never leaves a blank hero.
7. Shopify Editions Winter '24: Best for product release pages with lots of features to show
Platform: Rive animations on the web
Shopify's twice-yearly Editions pages announce dozens of features at once. Rive lists the Winter '24 Edition as built with Rive and says it won two Webby Awards. Rive's appeal for this kind of page is its runtime: interactive vector animations with state machines, loaded from a single file per animation rather than a video per feature.
Release pages are where motion earns its keep, because each feature needs a quick visual of what changed. Small looping product animations do that faster than screenshots.
Watch out for: A page with dozens of animations needs lazy loading. Start each animation only when it scrolls near the viewport, and pause it when it leaves.
8. Igloo Inc: Best for brand-first sites where the experience is the pitch
Platform: WebGL 3D site by abeto and Bureaux
Igloo Inc, the parent company of Pudgy Penguins, has a site built by the studios abeto and Bureaux that won Awwwards Site of the Day on July 23, 2024. Awwwards tags it with 3D, animation, infinite scroll and transitions: it is an immersive scene first and a corporate page second.
This is the far end of the landing page spectrum. It works when the brand's audience comes to be impressed and stays to explore, and it is a reference for what a studio can do, not a template for a SaaS signup page.
Watch out for: Immersive 3D landing pages are heavy and can be hard to navigate with a keyboard or screen reader. If conversion matters more than awards, keep a plain HTML path to the essentials.
9. Our Line Mask Reveal headline: Best for the hero headline on any landing page
Platform: Motions directory, free Ours
Most landing pages animate one thing first: the headline. Our Line Mask Reveal slides each line up out of an invisible mask, one after another, the way editorial sites reveal headlines. It is HTML and CSS only, with a prefers-reduced-motion guard written in.
It plays without JavaScript, so it never waits on a bundle, and the text is real text the whole time, so it stays readable to search engines and screen readers. More entrances live in the Text Reveal Animations collection.
Watch out for: Keep the total reveal under about a second. A headline that takes three seconds to finish is a headline people scroll past.
10. Our Website Scroll Tour: Best for a launch video that shows off your landing page
Platform: Motions Animation Studio (video export) Ours
Once the page is live, you will want to show it off on social and in launch posts. Our Website Scroll Tour was made in the Animation Studio: a browser window scrolls a hiking company's landing page in human-feeling flicks while the hero hills part in parallax and the nav turns solid.
Describe your own page in the Studio, tune the scroll rhythm and eases on the timeline, and export MP4 or GIF for the launch.
Watch out for: A scroll-tour video is a promo, not a substitute for a fast page. Never autoplay it as the hero of the landing page itself.
11. Our Inspiration board: Best for finding a motion direction before you design
Platform: Motions, free to browse Ours
Before you pick techniques, pick a direction. Our Inspiration board is an endless board of motion pieces, made for you and Claude: hero ideas, product reveals, text treatments and backgrounds you can save and use as a reference.
Pair it with the pages above: choose the one landing page whose energy matches your brand, then pull two or three motion references that fit it, and you have a brief.
Watch out for: Inspiration boards make everything look possible at once. Choose one hero idea and one supporting pattern; the rest of the page should stay still.
How to choose landing page animations
Every example above animates a small number of things on purpose. Decide those things first.
Match it to the product
Physical products that need explaining suit a scroll story like tinyPod's. Technical products suit a mini demo like Cradle's. Developer tools suit a fast, layered hero like Vercel's. Feature-heavy releases suit small looping clips like Shopify Editions. Brands selling a feeling can go immersive like Igloo Inc. If your product is simple and your visitors are ready to buy, a fade-up hero and a still page will convert better than any of them.
Match it to the first second
Your hero must paint without waiting for JavaScript. Use CSS for the first motion (like Linear's CSS hero or our headline reveal), load heavier layers after the page is usable (like Vercel's code-split shader), and skip them on low-power devices. For more first-screen ideas, see our hero section animation examples and animated background examples.
Match it to the people
Space high-motion sections apart, as Vercel did. Pause loops under prefers-reduced-motion rather than deleting them. Make sure cursor-only effects have a static equivalent on phones, and keep scroll-pinned sections short. For the Apple-style scroll effects specifically, our Apple scroll animation guide covers the costs.
Animate your landing page in an afternoon
Pick three moments: the headline entrance, one hero visual, and the stats or feature row. Give each one animation, under a second, in CSS. Ship that, watch your page speed, and only then consider a scroll story or a 3D scene.
If you want those three written to match your design, paste your hero HTML or a screenshot into the creator and describe the moments. You get the CSS keyframes, staggered and reduced-motion safe.
Animate this landing page hero (HTML below). The headline reveals line by line from a mask, 600ms each, 80ms stagger, ease-out. The subhead and button fade up 12px after the headline, 400ms. The product screenshot tilts slightly toward the cursor on desktop only. Everything must work without JavaScript except the tilt, and under prefers-reduced-motion show the final state with no movement.
Common questions
What animations should a landing page have?
Usually three at most: an entrance for the hero headline, one hero visual that explains the product, and subtle reveals for key sections like stats or features. Everything else should stay still so the call to action stands out.
Do animations hurt landing page performance and SEO?
They can if they block rendering or hide content until JavaScript runs. Animate transform and opacity, use CSS for above-the-fold motion, keep real text in the HTML, and load heavy layers like WebGL after the page is usable, as Vercel's homepage does.
What tools are used to animate landing pages?
Plain CSS for entrances and loops, GSAP or Motion for scroll timelines, Rive or Lottie for illustrated product animations, Three.js or Spline for 3D, and site builders like Framer and Webflow that bundle their own animation tools. Many of the pages above mix two of these.
How do I add animation to a landing page without coding?
Site builders like Framer and Webflow have visual animation tools for scroll and hover effects. You can also copy ready-made CSS snippets from our directory or describe the motion you want in the creator and paste the CSS it writes.
Should landing page animations respect reduced motion?
Yes. Under prefers-reduced-motion, show final states, pause loops and drop scroll-linked movement. Vercel's team paused looping animations with animation-play-state rather than removing them abruptly, which keeps the page from jumping.