What it is
ThreeUI Community is the free, open-source edition of ThreeUI — a component library built on Three.js for developers who want 3D visuals (animated scenes, interactive product showcases, immersive hero sections) on a website without building the rendering pipeline from scratch. It’s MIT licensed, and the repo describes it as sharing “the same application shell, layout, navigation, browse grid, search, themes, responsive behavior, component pages, live renderers, controls, variant picker, and source tabs as the main project” — the paid version’s difference is a larger catalog (Pro and Beta components), not a crippled free tier.
What’s actually free
- 50 Community parent components
- 111 Community routes
- 141 free variant records across the browse catalog
- No account, login, or API key needed to use the free components
- Runs locally with
npm install && npm run dev
Who this is for — and who it isn’t
This is a developer tool, not a drag-and-drop website builder. You need to be comfortable working in a JavaScript/React-style codebase to actually use these components in a project. If you’re looking for a no-code way to add 3D effects to a site, this isn’t it — it’s a component source you integrate yourself.
Worth knowing before you add it
Three.js itself isn’t a small dependency. In our own testing while building a much simpler effect for this site, a minimal Three.js scene added roughly 124KB (gzipped) to the page plus a persistent WebGL render loop — real cost on a content-heavy site where load speed affects rankings. That’s not a knock on ThreeUI specifically; it’s the nature of any Three.js-based library. If you’re building an actual 3D product showcase or interactive experience, that cost is the price of doing it — just don’t reach for it purely for decorative background motion, where a lightweight Canvas2D or CSS effect gets you 90% of the visual for a fraction of the weight.
Where to get it
Repo: github.com/MengTo/threeui · Live catalog: threeui.com
More free tools worth knowing about: claude-blog (Claude Code blog skill) · Vorssaint (Mac menu bar utility) · GPT-Image2 prompt library (image prompt templates)
