Particle Slider vs Animation Kit – Animated Backgrounds & WebGL Effects

Particle Slider is a simple and flexible Gutenberg block that allows you to create animated image sliders with optional particle overlays. Each slide supports a background image, heading, subheading, and call-to-action button. The block also includes navigation arrows and a toggle for animated particle effects. Features: – Add multiple slides with images and text – Customize each slide with: – Heading – Subheading – Button (text + link) – Enable or disable animated particle background – Navigation arrows included – Fully responsive

Animation Kit lets you add a moving WebGL background to any WordPress page — a particle field, an aurora wash, a sweeping radar pulse — from a single admin screen. No theme editing, no shortcodes, no CSS. Pick an effect, tune the colors and motion, save, and your visitors see a smooth canvas layer behind your content. The plugin is builder-agnostic: it renders at the document level, so it cooperates with classic themes, block themes, Elementor, Bricks, WPBakery, and Gutenberg page builds without needing a per-builder integration. How it works You get a dedicated Background Animation screen inside the WP admin. From there: Pick one of 13 free effects (full list below). Adjust the live controls — colors, speed, density, opacity, z-index, position. Toggle the background on. The canvas appears site-wide. The free tier targets the whole website (single configuration). Pro adds multiple stacked configurations and per-page placement rules. Effects included in the free version Antigravity — Magnetic particle field that reacts to pointer movement. Good for tech, SaaS, and sci-fi-style hero sections. Aurora — Flowing color washes. Suits portfolios, night-mode brands, and creative agencies. Color Bends — Multi-stop color gradient with noise warp and slow rotation. Works as a brand backdrop. Grid Scan — Animated grid with a sweep line. Tech, cyber, and dashboard aesthetics. Line Waves — Concentric line waves with color cycling. Graphic, poster-like. Liquid Ether — Fluid simulation that ripples and bends with cursor movement. Most “wow” of the set. Particles — Drifting particle systems with configurable count, color, and spread. Pixel Blast — Animated pixel patterns (square, circle, triangle) with optional click-ripples. Retro and game-style. Plasma — Classic plasma shader with direction, scale, and color. Soft demoscene feel. Prism — Rotating 3D prism with bloom. Crystalline, futuristic. Radar — Sweep-style radar visualization with ring and spoke controls. Soft Aurora — Lower-intensity aurora with two-color gradient. Easier on small-screen viewers. Light Pillar — Vertical light column with adjustable glow, width, height, and rotation. Good for landing-page focal points. Each effect has its own controls; you only ship the code for the effect you enable (lazy-loaded chunk per effect, not a single fat bundle). Use cases Hero sections that need motion without an animated video. Landing pages where you want a moving backdrop behind a CTA. Portfolios and agency sites that want a signature visual. Conference, course, and event sites that want a “live” feel. Dark-mode marketing pages where Aurora or Light Pillar adds depth. Performance and Core Web Vitals Animation Kit is built around lazy loading. The frontend script only ships when a background is enabled; the heavy rendering code (Three.js, OGL, the per-effect shader) is split into separate chunks loaded on demand after DOMContentLoaded. On mobile, particle counts and pixel ratios are clamped automatically. Compatibility filters are registered for WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, Autoptimize, W3 Total Cache, and WP Fastest Cache so their delay-JS / combine-JS / minify rules don’t break the lazy chunks. Accessibility The canvas wrapper is aria-hidden="true" and pointer-events: none — assistive tech ignores it, and visitors can still click links, forms, and menus through it. prefers-reduced-motion: reduce is honored: when the user’s OS preference is set, the WebGL mount is skipped entirely. If the preference is toggled off during a session, the animation mounts at that point. Animation Kit Pro When the free tier stops fitting, Pro adds: Multiple background configurations stacked or rotated on the same site. Per-page placement rules — specific pages, CSS selectors, or HTML element targets. Premium roadmap access and priority support. Pricing and details: https://wpxero.com/plugins/wpxero-animation-kit/pricing