SVG Line-Drawing Animation: Four Libraries Compared

Animating SVG paths so they appear to draw themselves remains a popular frontend technique. While the underlying mechanism — manipulating stroke-dasharray and stroke-dashoffset — is well understood, hand-coding it becomes unwieldy for SVGs with many paths. JavaScript libraries abstract away the repetitive parts. Below are four options for creating these effects, demonstrated with a single multi-path castle SVG.

Preparing the SVG

To animate an SVG's stroke, the paths must be prepared correctly. Set fill to none on the shape, give each path a stroke (e.g., #B2441D) and a stroke-width (e.g., 2px). Since the animation will fill in distinct colors after drawing, strip fill colors from each path and group them by class names for six separate hues:


<svg id="svg-castle" width="480" height="480" viewBox="0 0 480 480" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <path d="M231.111 183.761V150.371C231.111 149.553 231.774 148.889 232.592 148.889H24  7.407C248.225 148.889 248.889 149.552 248.889 150.371V183.761L258.342 206.667H271.111  V135.556H240H208.889V206.667H221.658L231.111 183.761Z" stroke="#B2441D" stroke-width="2px" class="color-6" />
  <path d="M311.111 420H288.889V455.556V468.889H311.111V455.556V420Z" stroke="#B2441D"   stroke-width="2px" class="color-1" />
  <path d="M191.111 420H168.889V455.556V468.889H191.111V455.556V420Z" stroke="#B2441D" stroke-width="2px" class="color-1" />
  <path d="M168.889 220V228.889V237.778H222.222V228.889H212.487L221.658 206.667H208.88   9H169.524L177.778 220H168.889Z" stroke="#B2441D" stroke-width="2px" class="color-2"/ >
  <!-- etc. -->
</svg>

With this structured SVG, we can apply each library's API to produce the draw-and-fill sequence.

Vivus

Vivus is a dependency-free JavaScript class. Load it via CDN:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/vivus/0.4.5/vivus.min.js" integrity="sha512-NBLGIjYyAoYAr23l+dmAcUv7TvFj0XrqZoFa4i1o+F2VvF9SrERyMD8BHNnJn1SEGjl1AouBDcCv/q52L3ozBQ==" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

Create a new instance with three arguments: the target SVG's ID (svg-castle), an options object, and a callback that fires when the animation completes.

new Vivus('svg-castle', { 
  duration: 200, type:'oneByOne'
});

The callback can fill paths after the stroke is drawn. A helper function targets paths by class name and applies the desired fill color:

function fillPath(classname, color) {
  const paths = document.querySelectorAll(`#svg-castle .${classname}`);
  for (path of paths){
    path.style.fill = `${color}`;
  }
}

Call this helper for each of the six color classes:

function after() {
  fillPath('color-1', '#695a69');
  fillPath('color-2', '#b2441d');
  fillPath('color-3', '#dfd0c6');
  fillPath('color-4', '#c8b2a8');
  fillPath('color-5', '#de582a');
  fillPath('color-6', '#a08a8a')
}

The full setup is concise, and the callback structure cleanly separates the drawing phase from the fill phase.

Walkway.js

Walkway.js targets path, line, and polygon elements. Install via CDN:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/walkway.js/src/walkway.min.js"></script>

Unlike Vivus, Walkway's constructor takes only an options object. Call the draw method on the instance, passing the same color-fill callback as the optional second argument:

const svg = new Walkway({
  selector: '#svg-castle',
  duration: 3000,
});

svg.draw(after);

The API is minimal. The same callback logic from Vivus carries over without modification.

Lazy Line Painter

Lazy Line Painter touts minimal setup and pairs with the Lazy Line Composer, a free visual editor. Load it from a CDN:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/lib/lazy-line-painter-1.9.4.min.js"></script>

The instance constructor takes a selector (the SVG ID) and a config object. Rather than a callback parameter, completion is handled with an event listener on the animation:

// select the svg by id
let svg = document.querySelector('#svg-castle')

// define config options
let options = {
  strokeDash: '2, 2',
}
// initialize new LazyLinePainter instance
let myAnimation = new LazyLinePainter(svg, options)

// call the paint method
myAnimation.paint()
myAnimation.on('complete:all', (event) => {after()});

This event-driven approach allows control over when the animation starts — for instance, attaching it to a click event to replay the effect.

Framer Motion

Framer Motion differs from the other libraries in that it is a full React animation library, not an SVG-specific tool. Install it via npm:

npm install framer-motion

For line drawing, it offers a motion.path component accepting four primary props:

<motion.path
  d={pathDefinition}
  initial={{ pathLength: 1, pathOffset: 0 }}
  animate={{ pathLength: 0, pathOffset: 1 }}
  transition={{ duration: 2 }}
/>

The usage requires converting every SVG path element into motion.path, as shown:

import React from 'react';
import { motion } from "framer-motion";
const AnimatedCastle = () => {
  return (
    <svg id="svg-castle" width="480" height="480" viewBox="0 0 480 480" fill="non            e" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
      <motion.path d="M311.111 420H288.889V455.556V468.889H311.111V455.556V420Z"              stroke="#B2441D" stroke-width="2" className="color-1"
       initial={{ pathLength: 1,fill:"none", opacity:0, }}
       animate={{ pathLength: 0,fill:"695A69", opacity:1 }}
       transition={{ duration: 2 }}
      />
      <motion.path d="M191.111 420H168.889V455.556V468.889H191.111V455.556V420Z"                stroke="#B2441D" stroke-width="2" className="color-2"
        initial={{ pathLength: 1, fill:"none", opacity:0, }}
        animate={{ pathLength: 0, fill:"#b2441d", opacity:1}}
        transition={{ duration: 3 }}
      />
         
      <!-- etc. -->
    </svg>
  )
}

This conversion must be repeated for each path in the SVG. For the castle illustration, which contains over 60 individual paths, this process becomes repetitive and error-prone. The library is best suited for React components that render SVGs with no more than roughly five paths. For larger illustrations, the dedicated JavaScript libraries above are more practical.

Why Not Pure CSS?

A CSS-only solution exists but demands significant boilerplate. To animate each path's draw, you must know its total length — either by measuring via JavaScript or by normalizing all path lengths to one — then set stroke-dasharray and stroke-dashoffset relative to that value. Each path then needs its own keyframe animation for the dash offset, plus additional keyframes for each of the six fill colors. With over 60 paths in the castle SVG, this approach quickly exceeds 100 lines of CSS, far more than the library-based alternatives. The libraries handle path measurement, keyframe generation, and sequencing internally, reducing the effort to a few lines of configuration.