Smooth Scroll

© 2026 darkroom.engineering

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A smooth scroll library
fresh out of darkroom.engineering

Name: Lenis
Author: darkroom.engineering

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Why smooth scroll?

We’ve heard all the reasons to not use smooth scroll. It feels hacky. It’s inaccessible. It’s not performant. It’s over-engineered. And historically, those were all true. But we like to imagine things as they could be, then build them. So, why should you use smooth scroll?

Create more immersive interfaces

Unlock the creative potential and impact of your web experiences. Smoothing the scroll pulls users into the flow of the experience that feels so substantial that they forget they’re navigating a web page.

Normalize all your user inputs

Give all your users the same (dope) experience whether they’re using trackpads, mouse wheels, or otherwise. With smooth scroll, you control how silky, heavy, or responsive the experience should be — no matter the input. Magic!

Make your animations flawless

Synchronization with native scroll is not reliable. Those jumps and delays with scroll-linked animations are caused by multi-threading, where modern browsers run animations/effects asynchronously with the scroll. Smooth scroll fixes this.

Rethinking smooth scroll

We have to give props to libraries like Locomotive Scroll and GSAP ScrollSmoother. They’re well built and well documented – and we’ve used them a lot. But they still have issues that keep them from being bulletproof.

Loss of performance budget due to using CSS transforms

Inaccessibility from no page search support and native scrollbar

Non-negligible import costs (12.1kb - 24.34kb gzipped)

Limited animation systems for complex, scroll-based animations

Erasing native APIs like Intersection-Observer, CSS Sticky, etc.

Loss of performance budget due to using CSS transforms

Inaccessibility from no page search support and native scrollbar

Non-negligible import costs (12.1kb - 24.34kb gzipped)

Limited animation systems for complex, scroll-based animations

Erasing native APIs like Intersection-Observer, CSS Sticky, etc.

so we built
web scrolling

Enter
Lenis

As it should be

Lenis is an open-source library built to standardize scroll experiences and sauce up websites with butter-smooth navigation, all while using the platform and keeping it accessible.

Run scroll in the main thread

Lightweight
(under 4kb)

Made for 2026+

Bring your own animation library

CONTROL THE SCROLL EASING DURATION

Use any element as scroller

Enjoy horizontal + vertical support

Feel free to use “position: sticky” again

touch support

view showcase