Lottie is great for icons.
It’s a bad choice for characters.
If you’ve ever tried to ship an interactive character using Lottie, you already know the pain:
Multiple animation files
Awkward transitions
Growing bundle size
Hard-to-maintain logic
That’s not a design problem.
It’s a tooling problem.
Lottie Animations Are Timelines, Not Systems
Lottie was built to play predefined animations.
That’s perfect for:
Loading spinners
Button micro-interactions
Decorative motion
But characters aren’t decorative.
A character needs to:
React instantly to user input
Switch emotional states
Interrupt animations cleanly
Reuse the same rig across many behaviors
With Lottie, every one of those becomes a workaround.
The “Happy → Sad” Problem
Let’s say your character needs to switch from Happy to Sad when an API call fails.
With Lottie, you usually end up with:
Separate JSON files per emotion, or
One massive file with hard cuts between timelines
Either way:
Transitions snap or crossfade awkwardly
Animations restart unnaturally
Asset size grows fast
It works — but it never feels right.
Rive Uses State Machines (Developers Feel at Home Here)
Rive treats animation like code.
Instead of timelines, you get:
States: idle, happy, sad, loading
Inputs: booleans, numbers, triggers
Transitions: conditional, interruptible, blended
This is the same mental model you already use in app logic.
Example
State: Happy
Input: isError = true
→ Transition to: Sad (blended, instant, no cut)
The character doesn’t restart.
It responds.
Why This Is a Big Deal for Performance
If you care about performance budgets, this matters.
📦 File Size
For characters, Rive files are often 5–10x smaller than Lottie equivalents.
Why?
One rig shared across all animations
No duplicated vector paths
Optimized runtime format
⚡ Runtime Cost
Less JSON parsing
Lower memory usage
Faster load times
🧩 Maintenance
One asset instead of many
Clear animation logic
Easier iteration without breaking behavior
Animation stops being a liability.
Characters Are Interactive UI Components
Once you add a character to your app, it becomes part of the UI state.
It should:
React to success and failure
Signal progress
Acknowledge user actions
Lottie can’t do that without hacks.
Rive was built for it.
When Lottie Is Still the Right Tool
To be fair, Lottie still makes sense for:
Icons
One-shot transitions
Non-interactive visuals
But if your animation needs:
Logic
Emotion
Real-time control
You’ve outgrown it.
The Direction App Animation Is Moving
Modern apps are:
Event-driven
State-based
Highly interactive
Animation tools are catching up.
Rive fits modern app architecture.
Lottie doesn’t — at least not for characters.
Final Takeaway
If you’re using Lottie for characters, you’re forcing a timeline tool to behave like a state machine.
Rive already is one.
That’s why it’s the future of app animation.
Need Help Switching from Lottie to Rive?
I help teams:
Replace Lottie characters with Rive state machines
Design performance-friendly interactive mascots
Integrate animations cleanly into real app logic
Contact
Praneeth Kawya Thathsara
Full-Time Rive Animator
📱 WhatsApp: +94 717 000 999
💬 Send me your Rive Mascot Animation Creation Brief — or message me if you need help planning your character system.