Perspective / 3 min read
Rive or Lottie? Start with the interaction.
A practical way to choose an animation tool: begin with your product’s behaviour, existing assets, and integration needs.
FROM MY DESK
What does the animation need to do?
Before choosing a file format, I write down the interaction. Is this a welcome animation that plays once? Does a character react to an error? Does the app supply text or a progress value? Those answers are more useful than a blanket claim that one tool is always better.
Why I use Rive for my product work
Rive lets me design motion alongside state machines and data-bound properties. In Granny AI, that means the character can respond to a success trigger or speak alongside text supplied by the app. As a former backend developer, I like being able to discuss behaviour with the team using explicit names and states.
Give the alternative a fair look
Lottie and dotLottie are worth evaluating when a team already has a compatible animation workflow. The current dotLottie web player also supports interactive state machines, runtime theming, and multi-animation files. Describing the comparison as ‘Rive is interactive, Lottie is not’ would miss those capabilities.
Measure your actual files
I would compare the actual export, the runtime needed by the application, supported features on the target platform, and performance on a real device. One small Rive file does not prove that every Rive implementation is smaller or faster. The best choice is the one that supports the experience and the team maintaining it.