framer motionvsmotion one

what happened to each one

Framer Motion was renamed to Motion and spun out as an independent project from Framer in 2025 — same api, new package name (motion instead of framer-motion), new home at motion.dev.

Motion One was then merged into Motion shortly after. Version 11.11.12 combined both codebases, with Framer Motion's conventions taking precedence (it had by far the larger user base), while Motion absorbed Motion One's lightweight, framework-agnostic core.

pricing, honestly

both were always free and open source, and Motion still is. nothing changed here — the merger was about consolidating two overlapping projects, not introducing monetization.

what it's actually like to use it now

if you were already using Framer Motion, the experience is almost identical — same declarative motion.div api, same layout animations and gestures, just installed from a different package name (motion instead of framer-motion, importing from motion/react).

if you were using Motion One for its small footprint outside React, you now have access to the same richer component api Framer Motion users had, while keeping the option to use Motion's lower-level vanilla JS functions if you don't need the full React layer.

who should use motion

• anyone starting a new project that needs animation, in React or otherwise — there's no reason to reach for an old, unmerged version of either library
• teams already on Framer Motion — upgrading is mostly a package-name change, not a rewrite
• teams already on Motion One who want access to layout animations and gesture handling they didn't have before

when this comparison stops mattering

it already has. there's no longer a meaningful "worst for" split between Framer Motion and Motion One, because choosing one no longer excludes the other's capabilities. the only real remaining decision is Motion vs. a heavier dedicated animation tool like GSAP for complex sequencing — see the gotchas below.

stuff that's easy to get wrong post-merger

• old tutorials and Stack Overflow answers will reference framer-motion or motion-one as separate installs — for new projects, install motion directly instead
• the import path for React changed to motion/react, not just the package name — copy-pasting old import statements without updating the path will fail
• the old package names (framer-motion, motion-one) still resolve on npm for backward compatibility, so existing projects won't break, but they won't get new features either
• Motion's vanilla JS apis (inherited from Motion One) and its React component api (inherited from Framer Motion) are both part of the same package now — pick the layer that matches your project, not a separate library
• if your project needs deep timeline sequencing beyond what Motion offers, that's still a real gap — GSAP remains the better tool for that specific case

the call

there isn't a call to make anymore — install Motion (motion.dev), full stop. the "Framer Motion vs Motion One" decision that used to matter has been resolved by the vendor merging both into one project.

if you're choosing between Motion and a heavier tool for genuinely complex animation sequencing, that's a real decision still worth making — see our Motion vs GSAP comparison for that.