Rive vs Cavalry
Rive and Cavalry side by side, as of September 2026: what each one costs, what it's made for, and when smooth.video, a free animation tool that runs in your browser with no account, does the job instead.
Rive vs Cavalry at a glance
| Rive | Cavalry | smooth.video | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free plan, then Cadet at US$9 per seat a month billed yearly | Free for individuals | Free, no paid plan |
| Account | Required | Canva account required | Not needed |
As of September 2026. Plans change, so check those of Rive and Cavalry before you decide.
Rive
- Exports on the free plan
- None
- Output
- .riv files for runtimes, plus video and images
- Interactivity and state machines
- Yes
- Runtimes for apps, websites and games
- Yes
- Rigging, meshes, real-time collaboration
- Yes
When Rive fits better
The animation lives in a product and reacts to people: a button that responds to hover, a character that follows the cursor, a loading state driven by your app's data. That takes a runtime, and smooth.video doesn't have one.
Rive vs smooth.videoCavalry
- Install
- Desktop app for Mac and Windows
- How you animate
- Keyframes plus procedural tools: duplicators, falloffs, behaviours
- Transparent video
- WebM, ProRes 4444, plus APNG, GIF and WebP
- Animation driven by spreadsheets
- Yes
- Rigging, dynamics, scripting
- Yes
- Lottie and SVG export
- Yes
When Cavalry fits better
You build complex motion design: hundreds of shapes driven by one rig, charts animated from a spreadsheet, dynamics, scripts, or Lottie and ProRes deliverables. smooth.video has none of that.
Cavalry vs smooth.videoWhen smooth.video fits better
The animation ends up in a video, a post, an email or a slide, and plays the same way every time: a logo reveal, a product teaser, an animated stat, a GIF.
You need an animated title, a logo reveal or a social post today, on any computer, including one where you can't install software, and you don't need procedural systems to get there.
Open the editorStart from a template
See all 172 templatesQuestions
- Can smooth.video export Lottie or .riv files?
- No. It exports video (MP4 and WebM), GIF and images.
- Can I put a smooth.video animation on a website?
- Yes, as a video or a GIF. It plays the same way for everyone, without reacting to the cursor or to clicks.
- Is there a watermark?
- No, on any format.
- Can I animate a chart from a spreadsheet?
- No, you type the values in. smooth.video suits a handful of figures; for charts built from real data, Cavalry is the better fit.
- Can I open Cavalry projects?
- No. smooth.video opens its own .smooth files and imports images, video, audio and layered PSD files.
- Do I need to install anything?
- No. The editor and every export run in your browser.