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About JSON Animation Viewer

What is JSON Animation Viewer?

JSON Animation Viewer is a browser-based tool for developers, designers, and animators who need to preview and inspect Lottie JSON animation files without installing desktop software. The hosted viewer currently has no account or paid feature gate.

Why We Built This

Lottie animations have become the standard for adding lightweight, scalable animations to digital products. However, previewing these JSON files typically requires dedicated software or complex development setups. We created JSON Animation Viewer to solve this problem — a simple drag-and-drop tool that works right in your browser.

Our goal is to provide a straightforward browser workflow for previewing Lottie animations. No sign-up or separate desktop app is required.

Key Features

  • Browser preview: Drop a JSON file to parse and render it with lottie-web. Load time depends on file complexity, assets, browser, and device.
  • Local JSON processing: The selected JSON file is parsed in your browser and is not intentionally uploaded to an application server or stored in a product database. Files with external asset references can still trigger browser requests.
  • Size Detection: Automatically detects and displays the original dimensions (width × height) of your animation, helping you plan your layout.
  • Inspectable analysis: Reviews metadata, layer structure, static complexity signals, optimization opportunities, platform-sensitive features, and starter integration code.
  • Drag & Drop: Simply drag your JSON file onto the viewer area, or click the button to select a file from your device.
  • Responsive interface: Designed for current desktop, tablet, and mobile browsers. Very large or complex files can still be constrained by device memory and browser performance.
  • Currently available without an account: The hosted tool currently has no paid feature gate, and its public repository can be inspected. No project license file is currently published.

What Are Lottie Animations?

Lottie is an open-source animation format created by Airbnb. It renders animations in real time using JSON data exported from tools like Adobe After Effects (via the Bodymovin plugin). Lottie animations are:

  • Structured: Vector and keyframe instructions can be compact, while embedded assets and dense data can still increase size
  • Scalable: Vector-focused content can scale cleanly, while raster assets and renderer limits still apply
  • Interactive: Can be controlled programmatically (play, pause, reverse, etc.)
  • Cross-Platform: Player libraries are available across major platforms, but feature support can differ

Technology

JSON Animation Viewer is built with modern web technologies:

  • Next.js 15 — React framework for production-grade web apps
  • React 19 — Latest version of the popular UI library
  • Lottie-web — Official Lottie rendering library by Airbnb
  • Tailwind CSS — Utility-first CSS framework
  • TypeScript — Static type checking for reliability

Transparent Analysis Method

Performance grades and compatibility results are static heuristics, not device benchmarks or guarantees. The exact inputs, weights, detection rules, privacy boundary, and known limitations are documented on the analysis methodology page.

Public Repository

You can inspect the source code and report issues on the GitHub repository. No project license file is currently published, so source availability should not be treated as permission to reuse or redistribute the code.

Contact

Have questions, feedback, or suggestions? Feel free to open an issue on our GitHub Issues page or reach out through the repository.

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