Jelly UI
Ranked 2 of 14 UI component libraries by recommenders
People like its playful soft-body click effects on form controls and its web component implementation, though many say the constant animation is distracting and unsuited to production apps.
People like its playful soft-body click effects on form controls and its web component implementation, though many say the constant animation is distracting and unsuited to production apps.
79 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 41
- criticize it
- 38
- approval share
- 52%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 41 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fun, whimsical, delightful visual effects
“Adorable and whimsy. One nitpick - when writing uppercase letters in text field they should make larger ripples than lowercase.”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “Cute (and I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically), and I appreciate that it appears to gracefully degrade”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “I love the aesthetic, and I really love that they implemented it as a web component library.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” - Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls”
- Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls”
- Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls”
- Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls”
Well-built web component implementation
“I love the aesthetic, and I really love that they implemented it as a web component library.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “You've built something really great here, your grasp of web components is incredibly strong”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” Supports reduced-motion preference
“I actually like it just fine with motion reduced, but it's unbearable with full motion.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “I'm so glad it allows for preferences to reduce motion.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Animations are distracting or overdone
“the reactive animations would bother me (to the point of deeming it unusable) in any production app or website”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “It's funny to have squishy buttons. But I also hate eye-candy. It just takes away time.”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “overdone to the point of distracting”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” - Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls”
Breaks standard UX expectations
“I love this, but it does not seem to conform to standard UX best practices.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “I moved my scroll wheel a single tick and the content of the browser window completely changed with no movement to indicate scrolling was happening.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “A single function button should not behave differently based on where on the button you click it.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” - Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls”
Scroll wheel and scrolling behavior problems
“a menu would be so much better instead of the weird scroll-jacking”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “I moved my scroll wheel a single tick and the content of the browser window completely changed with no movement to indicate scrolling was happening.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “Navigating by clicking and holding a desired position on the scrollbar is completely broken.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” - Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls”
Performance costs from constant animation loop
“the performance on that showcase page isn't the best”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “if you have an idle task that is taking up a significant portion of the frame budget then its easy to have frame drops”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” “runs a a RAF animation loop every 8ms across every component on the page that causes the entire document to repaint”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls” - Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls”
Other UI component libraries people recommend
The four most recommended other UI component libraries, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| shadcn/ui | 82 | 54 | 60% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | — |
| Jelly UIThis page | 41 | 38 | 52% | 1 | — | — |
| Tailwind UI | 38 | 28 | 58% | 3 | — | — |
| Performative-UI | 38 | 8 | 83% | 2 | — | — |
| Radix UI | 20 | 21 | 49% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 83 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“You've built something really great here, your grasp of web components is incredibly strong”
“The animations, in this case, are not helpful. They distract from what you're trying to do.”
“My main complaint is that the animations don't all seem to go together”
“I find it very nice that the deformation is different for different click areas”
“It's funny to have squishy buttons. But I also hate eye-candy. It just takes away time.”
“Adorable and whimsy. One nitpick - when writing uppercase letters in text field they should make larger ripples than lowercase.”
“I find clicking on these form controls very satisfying”
“I like this a lot and am going to experiment w/ incorporating in my early literacy app.”
“Would be nice for GUI components of a game, but I kind of hope people don't run with this on regular apps/websites.”
“It's the first UI idea in many years that is surprisingly refreshing.”
“Text boxes should jiggle where I click them, not always in the middle.”
“the reactive animations would bother me (to the point of deeming it unusable) in any production app or website”
“the performance on that showcase page isn't the best”
“Nice idea but I feel like it would work better with a non-flat or mildly-3D theme.”
“A single function button should not behave differently based on where on the button you click it.”
“has an animated SVG and moving DOM elements in the header which consume far more resources”
“if you have an idle task that is taking up a significant portion of the frame budget then its easy to have frame drops”
“Applying these effects to every element would be garish.”
“It just violates my expectations, and thus feels frustrating. And there's almost no benefit.”
“It ignores my scroll wheel most of the time if I try to scroll multiple times in a row.”
“I moved my scroll wheel a single tick and the content of the browser window completely changed with no movement to indicate scrolling was happening.”
“I actually like it just fine with motion reduced, but it's unbearable with full motion.”
“I had no problems moving one tick at a time with my mouse wheel.”
“This is the liquid glass interaction the world deserved”
“Navigating by clicking and holding a desired position on the scrollbar is completely broken.”
“overdone to the point of distracting”
“I love this, but it does not seem to conform to standard UX best practices.”
“I don't see anything obviously wrong with its approach, and the core loop is running in microseconds for me when nothing is happening.”
“runs a a RAF animation loop every 8ms across every component on the page that causes the entire document to repaint”
“it gives animated feedback to emphasize what is happening/being altered”
“This is surprisingly delightful to play around with.”
“a menu would be so much better instead of the weird scroll-jacking”
“Something like this, where the target changes shape to improve targeting ability or increase the size of the click zone, would be wonderful.”
“This is perfect for gaming sites like Splatoon and Roblox.”
“I love the aesthetic, and I really love that they implemented it as a web component library.”
“I like most of the effects except for the wiggly "membrane" on inputs and buttons”
“I'm so glad it allows for preferences to reduce motion.”
“love it I can think of many projects that could use that”
“Cute (and I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically), and I appreciate that it appears to gracefully degrade”
“so fun to press buttons that CA and EU would have to make jelly buttons illegal”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.