Busting the performance Myth: How is GSAP better than CSS3 and jQuery Animation

A simple fade-in and fade-out on a website is a long gone tradition. With rapid growth in technology, animation is breaking all the boundaries of creativity. Multiple platforms are being developed every fortnight to make the things more creative and inventive. From jQuery to GSAP, all the platforms are being implemented to optimize the overall experience.

But, how is GSAP different from others? Which are the attributes that are influencing the overall performance? Also, what are the shortcomings from either side that is making GSAP a better one? Well, before jumping into the bandwagon of discussion let us have an overview of both CSS3 and jQuery animations.

An overview

For a long time, the powerful jQuery ruled the world of animation, but with many shortcomings such as stuttering and low frame rates, gave its place to CSS. One of the main reasons that CSS was opted for was because of hardware acceleration, which is nothing but, for one it is the involvement of GPU and secondly, the usage of a totally different CPU thread for animation-related calculations. But, even then CSS became susceptible to overhead during complex state changes.

In spite of various drawbacks, CSS is still considered as one of the best options in supporting simple implementations.

What makes GSAP Different???

Functionality, overhead and lastly performance, the three principles are easily attained once GSAP is contemplated. Considered as a new standard for HTML5 animation, GSAP can add callback functions, alter the time scale and easily combine with other multimedia, whereas CSS fails to support these actions. The path breaking benefits of using GSAP are as follows,

• JavaScript based animation platform
• Compatible with older browsers
• Supports multiple actions- Scale, rotate and move independently
• Features rich callback system
• Immune to layout thrashing
• Supports all kinds of directional rotations and optimizations
• Unparalleled sequencing
• Intelligent overwriting and GC management

The Bottom Line

So, having these powerful features in a website can make it more cohesive and appealing, thus gaining more leads. Animation and web designing are becoming a trend with constructive effects on the overall performance. It is a revolution which is fast growing with newer implementations every day, every hour thus making it more reliable and inventive.