When you see 3D on a website, it’s often thanks to Three.js. When you spot an animation or a scroll trigger, chances are, it’s the work of GSAP (GreenSock Animation Platform). GSAP has emerged as the preferred choice for web developers, acclaimed for its versatility, robust features, and unparalleled performance. It easily integrates into no-code and low-code environments such as Webflow, making it approachable for both novices and seasoned developers.

While GreenSock’s official tutorials are extremely helpful, finding additional learning materials for GSAP can be a bit of a challenge. Nevertheless, I’ve succeeded in locating a blend of tutorials and live projects that could shed light on how various GSAP functions operate. As well as the recommended courses in this Best Courses Guide (BCG), the Time for Practice section includes several follow-along resources.

Click on the shortcuts for more details:

• Top Recommendations
• Unpacking GSAP: Exploring Its Technical Features
• Why You Should Trust Us
• Courses Overview
• Time for Practice
• Best Courses Guides Methodology

Here are my Top Recommendations:

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Unpacking GSAP: Exploring Its Technical Features

GSAP, or the GreenSock Animation Platform, is a framework-agnostic animation library, implying that you can apply the same GSAP code across diverse frameworks like React, Vue, Angular, and more without altering its core principles. It comes equipped with advanced animation capabilities such as timeline control, an extensive range of easing options, and sophisticated sequencing abilities, all of which contribute to the crafting of intricate animations.

Further enhancing its appeal, GSAP’s lightweight framework and streamlined rendering engine guarantee smooth, high-performance animations. Techniques such as animation batching and hardware acceleration are key to its superior performance optimization. This blend of comprehensive features, user-friendly nature, and exceptional performance optimization has elevated GSAP’s standing, making it a more popular choice than traditional CSS animations.

Why You Should Trust Us

Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 60 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of 200,000 online courses and 200,000 reviews written by our users. And we’re online learners ourselves: combined, the Class Central team has completed over 400 online courses, including online degrees.

Courses Overview

• All of these courses are free, some have optional paid add-ons
• They are all suitable for beginners
• The GSAP subject is followed by more than 800 Class Central learners.

Best Text-Based Resource (GreenSock Animation Platform)

If you asked me to recommend just one resource for learning GSAP, the official documentation would naturally be my go-to. This comprehensive resource is supported by a bustling forum with over 193K posts and a dedicated learning center. They’ve also dedicated sections to cover GSAP with React, and they identify some of the most common pitfalls you may encounter when using GSAP for animation.

Best Video-Based Course for Absolute Beginners (Creative Coding Club)

Carl from the Creative Coding Club covers GSAP Animation with extensive video tutorials. There are some completely free tutorials but also membership plans with new materials released every week. This course is loaded with demos and specialty visualizers to help you understand complex concepts.

How you’ll learn:

The videos cover various aspects of GSAP, such as its syntax, animation techniques, and practical examples, suitable for absolute beginners. The presenter provides clear explanations and demonstrates how to implement GSAP effectively. By following along with the video, you will gain hands-on experience and understanding of GSAP, enabling you to create captivating web animations.

Also see Carl’s blog at SnorklTV.

Also Great Beginner GSAP Course (Ihatetomatoes)

GreenSock101 by Ihatetomatoes is a practical resource to learn GSAP and ScrollTrigger. It provides a structured approach to understanding and utilizing GSAP for web animation. Through this website, you will gain knowledge of GSAP’s features and learn how to create engaging web animations. The content is concise and focuses on practical learning, using code examples and interactive demos to reinforce concepts.

Designed for GSAP beginners, you should have a working knowledge of HTML5 and CSS3. Basic JavaScript knowledge is welcome, but not necessary.

What you’ll learn:

• Fundamentals of GSAP and its various features
• GSAP syntax, animation properties, and how to animate elements on a web page
• Advanced techniques include timeline control, sequencing animations, and working with SVG animations
• Integrating GSAP with JavaScript frameworks like React and Angular to create interactive animations.

With a combination of written explanations, code examples, and interactive demos, you’ll gain hands-on experience in using GSAP effectively for dynamic web animations. The resources provided will guide you step-by-step, allowing you to practice and experiment with GSAP directly in the browser, ensuring an engaging and practical learning experience.

Great YouTube GSAP Playlist (The Code Creative)

GSAP by The Code Creative provides an overview of GSAP, guiding you through its features, animation techniques, and practical examples. Each video dives into specific concepts, providing clear explanations and practical demonstrations. By following along with the examples, you will gain hands-on experience in implementing GSAP and creating stunning animations for your web projects, for an engaging and immersive learning experience.

NOTE: check the video order carefully, as the playlist is currently not arranged in chronological order.

You will learn:

• Fundamentals of GSAP and its applications in web animation
• GSAP syntax, timeline control, advanced animations, SVG animations, and integration with popular JavaScript frameworks like React and Angular.

Gregg’s website has some interesting courses on web audio and some interesting portfolios to learn web development.

Time for Practice

Once you’ve completed these courses and have a good understanding of the concepts, it’s essential to put them into practice. Some of the tutorials that I found that could solidify your concepts would be:

• GSAP Animation by NaymurWeb
• Animate anything with GSAP | Complete GSAP Course in Hindi
• GSAP Animation by Coderell

Codepen is another excellent resource for exploring creations by more seasoned GSAP animators and learning through code analysis. There are a lot of codepens on GSAP, which could be used to understand how GSAP works and a good practice could be to try to replicate some of the work out there.

Best Courses Guides Methodology

I built this ranking following the now tried-and-tested methodology used in previous Best Courses Guides (you can find them all here). It involves a three-step process:

1. Research: I started by leveraging Class Central’s database with 200K online courses and 200K+ reviews. Then, I made a preliminary selection of courses by rating, reviews, and bookmarks.
2. Evaluate: I read through reviews on Class Central, Reddit, and course providers to understand what other learners thought about each course and combined it with my own experience as a learner.
3. Select: Well-made courses were picked if they presented valuable and engaging content and fit a set of criteria including comprehensive curriculum, affordability, release date, ratings and enrollments.

Pat revised the latest version of this article.