Cavalry vs LottieFiles Comparison 2026
Cavalry and LottieFiles are not really competing for the same job. Cavalry is free for individuals and creates motion graphics from scratch for a video timeline. LottieFiles, free to start and from $19.99 a user a month billed annually for the AI credits, is a library and delivery platform for the Lottie vector format, built to ship animations inside an app or a website rather than to a rendered video.
Procedural 2D animation, free for individuals
Lottie animations, from library to production
At a glance
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Cavalry | LottieFiles | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | From $19.99 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | Not stated |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
Cavalry
Procedural 2D animation, free for individuals
Cavalry animates by rules rather than by keyframe: shapes driven by generators, behaviours and data, so a hundred elements move together without a hundred edits. Motion designers use it for the work that would be tedious anywhere else, and it exports to the formats a video timeline expects. The company states plainly that individuals pay nothing. Coming from a keyframe tool, the model takes a while to click, and then it is hard to leave.
Our note
The free licence removes the only reason not to try it, so the real question is whether the procedural way of thinking suits your work. Give it a project with repetition in it, because a single moving logo will not show you anything After Effects does not already do.
LottieFiles
Lottie animations, from library to production
LottieFiles is everything that grew around a file format: a library of ready animations, tools to edit and optimise them, and the players that put them into a site or an app. A Lottie is vector, so it scales and stays small, which is why it ended up in most modern interfaces rather than a GIF. Designers hand off to developers here without a video file in between. It is not where the animation gets made from scratch.
Why people weigh these two
- LottieFiles instead of Cavalry
- LottieFiles takes Lottie animations from library to production with a free tier and paid at $19.99, more pipeline than authoring tool next to Cavalry.
- Cavalry instead of LottieFiles
- Cavalry is free for individuals and animates procedurally rather than frame by frame, suited to a motion designer who wants a desktop tool instead of a library and player.
Which one should you pick
Cavalry is the tool when the destination is video: title sequences, data visualisation, anything built from generators and behaviours that needs to render out to a timeline an editor can cut. It is free for individual use with no paid tier to compare against.
LottieFiles is worth paying for once the destination is software rather than video: an app onboarding animation or an interface element that has to stay small and sharp at any size. Most people need only the free tier and a player, and should pay only once editing or private hosting becomes the actual blocker, not before.
Common questions
- Should I use Cavalry or LottieFiles to make a motion graphic for a video?
- Cavalry. It is built to create animation for a video timeline. LottieFiles is a library and delivery platform for animations that ship inside apps and websites, not a tool for making video output.
- Is LottieFiles free to use?
- There is a free version confirmed on its own pricing page. Paid plans start at $19.99 per user a month billed annually and add AI generation credits rather than gating the core library.
- Can Cavalry export the Lottie format that LottieFiles hosts?
- Its listing does not describe a Lottie export; Cavalry exports to formats a video timeline expects. LottieFiles is built specifically around the Lottie format.
- Which one is a library of ready-made animations?
- LottieFiles. It hosts and serves a library of existing animations for handoff to developers. Cavalry is an authoring tool for building new motion from scratch.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.