Fact-Checking Lottie Comparisons in Rive vs. Lottie

by hermet on 4/4/2025, 2:44:36 AM with 2 comments
I happened to come across the following page recently: https://rive.app/blog/rive-as-a-lottie-alternative I found it interesting that Rive officially compared itself to Lottie based on fairly recent information. However, I was quite surprised by the many vague or inaccurate statements made about Lottie. As a developer familiar with Lottie, I'd like to offer a different perspective on a few key points.

1. Responsiveness

The claim that Lottie "regenerate animations" to scale for different screen sizes is puzzling. In most GUI environments, responsiveness is handled by standard layout and scrolling systems. Since Lottie animations are vector-based, they naturally scale according to their aspect ratio within the assigned layout. There is no need to regenerate the animation—rendering scalable vector graphics in real time is already built into the design.

2. Dynamic Data Integration

It’s inaccurate to describe Lottie as strictly static. Event Lottie supports scripting and allows runtime updates of animation properties, enabling dynamic behavior driven by external data or user interaction.

3. Blurs and Shadows

Lottie fully supports vector-based effects such as Gaussian blur and drop shadows. These are rendered as scalable vector effects— How this specifically increases file size. Doesn't make sense.

4. Masking

Lottie has multiple types of masking, including at least four distinct modes. One of the most powerful is the Matte feature, which goes well beyond basic alpha masking and allows for advanced compositing techniques.

5. File Size and Rendering

Relying solely on a binary format for production use can be limiting in terms of flexibility. Lottie's text-based JSON format is easily readable, editable, and compressible during the build or packaging process. It allows for streamlined workflows where designers and developers can collaborate effectively before optionally converting to a binary format for optimization.

6. GPU-Accelerated Rendering

GPU acceleration is available in many Lottie runtimes, moreover, Lottie's lightweight and flexible architecture enables it to run on a wide range of devices, including low-power IoT hardware. This level of adaptability is a key strength, not a weakness.

7. Asset Management

Whether to embed assets or link to them externally is entirely up to the developer. Lottie offers flexibility in this regard—it is not restricted to embedded assets only.

8. Platform Support

Lottie already supports a broad range of platforms. There are 3rd-party user plugins integrated into major engines like Unity and even Godot has upcoming support for Lottie integration officially. Even Lottie is is capable on on MCU-based chipsets, IoT, or RTOS devices.

IMHO, Publishing incorrect or false information as if it were true on an official company page is something that should be approached with caution.

  • by Riskofrain on 4/12/2025, 9:01:10 AM

    I think that Lottie is much more flexible than Rive, at least as a format.. But I believe that neither Rive nor Lottie have really proven to be useful for games in cases of extensive use-I would love to see something like that. Even Rive's performance did not seem to live up to what they promise. Not in Flutter.

  • by yorwba on 4/4/2025, 7:48:39 AM

    This should've been a link to your blog, not a Hacker News text post.

    And you may need to become familiar with Rive as well before you can judge whether the comparison is fair. Most of your criticisms seem to boil down to "Lottie is already great, how could Rive be better?" Try it and find out.