qodesign vs Animate UI
Animate UI adds motion to the components you already have. You install @animate-ui/react and Motion, and its CLI finds your shadcn/ui components and swaps their Radix UI, Base UI or React Aria imports for animated versions, so dialogs, menus, tabs and toasts move without a rewrite. It's free, under MIT with a Commons Clause condition, and ships Skills and a shadcn MCP setup for AI assistants. qodesign works one level up: finished, animated flows like a login, a tab bar or a checkout, sold one at a time as a single HTML file and a React + Tailwind version.
| qodesign | Animate UI | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3 each, or $29 once for all of them (the Shelf) | Free. No paid plan is listed on animate-ui.com |
| Free | 1 free component, no account needed | The animated primitives, plus backgrounds, animated icons and styled pieces like the Liquid, Flip and Theme Toggler buttons |
| Size | 17 components, more added as they ship | Animated versions of everyday parts such as Accordion, Dialog, Drawer, Dropdown Menu, Select, Sheet, Sidebar, Tabs, Toast and Tooltip, plus button and text effects |
| What's in a download | React + Tailwind (TSX), PROMPT.md, HTML file | See their site |
| Licence | Personal, commercial and client projects; no reselling the source | MIT with a Commons Clause condition (LICENSE.md on GitHub): free in your own apps and sites, commercial ones included, but the components themselves can't be sold or redistributed |
| Stack | React + TypeScript, Tailwind (most also use Framer Motion), HTML version included | React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS and Motion (npm install @animate-ui/react motion), on top of the primitive library you already use: Radix UI, Base UI or React Aria. Its CLI finds your shadcn/ui components through components.json and swaps their imports for animated ones. Docs include Skills for Claude Code, Cursor and Codex, and the shadcn MCP server |
| Best for | One memorable animated moment in your app (login, checkout, nav, dashboard) | Apps already built on shadcn/ui that want the existing menus, dialogs and tabs to move, without rewriting them |
Which one to pick
- Pick Animate UI if
- Your app already runs on shadcn/ui and you want its existing parts to animate with one command and one shared timing.
- Pick qodesign if
- You want a whole screen that already looks and moves like a finished product, with a PROMPT.md your AI editor can follow, not just livelier menus.
qodesign pieces to look at first
Related reading: How to choose a React + Tailwind component library in 2026