React motion UI catalog: 6 criteria to compare and how to check

You want an animated hero on a Next.js landing page, so you search for React motion UI. Registries, paid UI kits, and personal galleries all show up. Every demo looks good, and you cannot tell where to start.

Pick one and install it, and new problems appear.

• A missing npm dependency breaks the build

• Custom CSS fights your existing Tailwind CSS

• You are not sure commercial use is allowed

Soon you have spent the time it would have taken to write it yourself.

This guide lays out six criteria for comparing React motion UI catalogs, and what to actually check for each one.

Most people compare demos first. That is natural, but motion UI has a trap here.

First, screenshots and GIFs hide the quality of motion. Easing, delay spacing, and scroll response can only be judged running.

Second, a beautiful component is useless if it does not fit your stack. A mismatch with the App Router, TypeScript, or Tailwind CSS can cost half a day of porting.

What matters more than taste is how little rework you face after install. The next sections cover the criteria that predict it.

Motion UI lives in roughly four kinds of places. None is better overall; each suits a different goal.

• Registries: components from many authors in one place. Large and searchable, but quality and dependencies vary by author

• UI kits: a full design system from buttons to modals. Very consistent, but heavy when you need one landing page section

• Internal Storybooks: your own components. On brand, but new motion has to be built in-house first

• Live catalogs: finished sections you can watch running in the browser. Suited to dropping a section into a landing page

Copying code into your own repo, the way shadcn/ui works, is now common across all four. Once copied, it is your code, so the six criteria below map directly to post-install effort.

The six are preview, output format, dependencies, license, agent packaging, and free tier. With several candidates, check them in this order.

The weighting depends on what you are building.

• Adding one hero or pricing block this week: weight 1 (preview), 2 (output), and 3 (deps). A live catalog of finished sections fits

• Building a design system from scratch: weight consistency and component count. A UI kit fits

• Exploring a wide range of new motion components: weight volume and search. A registry fits

• Rolling out to a team: check 4 (license), 5 (agent packaging), and 6 (free tier) first

For adding one landing page section, 1 and 2 matter most. Picking motion you have seen running, and getting code that drops into a Tailwind CSS project, cuts the most rework.

DesignLayer is a live catalog in the terms above. You watch human-built React sections with motion running in the browser, then copy. Against the six criteria:

• Preview: hover, entrance, and looping backgrounds run as real React in the browser

• Output: sections built for React (TypeScript) and Tailwind CSS

• Dependencies: Copy for Cursor includes the list of required npm dependencies

• Agent packaging: each copy bundles unified instructions for the agent, the live preview URL, the TSX, and npm deps

• MCP: on the 30-Day Build Pass ($19 once), Lifetime Access ($79 once), or Plus ($9/month), AI agents can connect to the catalog directly (details below)

• Free tier: browsing needs no account and no card. A free account copies the 10 Free Sample components with no monthly limit on a free account, plus 1 video prompt a month. Free cannot connect MCP. Full catalog copies are the 30-Day Build Pass ($19 once, no auto-renewal), Lifetime Access ($79 once, first 100 buyers), or Plus ($9/month). Plus makes copies unlimited

MCP is a way to connect AI agents to outside services. From Cursor or Claude Code, the agent can search the catalog and pull a copy bundle.

It uses two tools: search_catalog searches the catalog, and get_component fetches the copy bundle.

You approve the connection in the browser, and no API key is needed.

Check the site's terms for license details before use. Open the catalog at https://design-layer.com/en/components

It fits developers building landing or product pages with Next.js and Tailwind CSS who want to add one section that needs motion, such as a hero or gallery, quickly. It also fits a workflow of pasting code into Cursor or Claude.

It does not fit if you need a full design system down to buttons and inputs. It is also not a tool that generates a whole landing page from a prompt. It is a catalog for picking human-built sections and placing them in your repo.

To compare with a registry, see https://design-layer.com/en/articles/21st-dev-alternative-for-cursor

• Compare React motion UI catalogs on post-install rework, not looks

• The six criteria: preview, output format, dependencies, license, agent packaging, free tier

• For one landing page section, weight real previews and TSX + Tailwind CSS output

• Make the final call after putting one section in your repo

Pick one section from a candidate catalog and add it to your Next.js app. DesignLayer is free to browse, and today's free copy covers one hero. For the Cursor paste flow, see https://design-layer.com/en/articles/cursor-react-motion-components-guide and for MCP setup, https://design-layer.com/en/articles/cursor-mcp-component-catalog-guide