The best React carousel libraries for banner sliders of 2025

March 6, 2025ProductBy Juliana Amorim

Carousels and sliders are essential UI elements for showcasing content, especially banners, in a visually appealing and space-efficient way.

The React ecosystem has several excellent libraries that simplify the implementation of these components, but choosing the right library depends on your specific requirements, such as customization needs, performance considerations, and bundle size.

This post highlights some of the best React carousel libraries available in 2025 to help you select the perfect one for your project.

React UI component libraries that offer carousel

Although not specific to the carousel component, some React UI component libraries also provide this element.

React carousel specific libraries

Here’s an overview of some libraries ordered from the most to the least used, based on GitHub stars and npm weekly downloads in March 2025.

Swiper

Swiper is a lightweight and performance-focused library optimized for mobile and touch devices. It offers rich transition effects, multi-slide support, and modular architecture, which helps keep the bundle size minimal. Swiper is ideal for responsive designs and touch-based UIs, providing excellent performance across different devices.

Embla Carousel

Embla Carousel is a lightweight, dependency-free library focused on performance and extensibility. It supports keyboard navigation, screen readers, and custom layouts, making it ideal for projects requiring pixel-perfect UI control. It works well with frameworks like Next.js and is suitable for accessible, responsive carousels.

React Slick

React Slick is a versatile library offering features like autoplay, infinite scrolling, and lazy loading. It is highly customizable with a responsive design and supports swipe gestures on mobile devices. However, it depends on jQuery, which can increase the bundle size. Despite this, it remains popular for its rich feature set and community support.

FullPage.js

FullPage.js is a full-screen carousel component that supports touch gestures and keyboard navigation. It offers extensive customization options like parallax effects and lazy loading. Although highly configurable, it's more suited for full-screen applications than standard carousels.

React Swipeable

React Swipeable is a lightweight library that provides swipe gestures and is easy to integrate. However, it might not offer as many features as other libraries like Swiper or React Slick.

Glide.js (React Wrapper)

Glide.js is a smooth, performance-driven library with a React wrapper. It's known for its speed and sleek transitions, making it suitable for projects needing fast and efficient carousels. However, it might not offer as many customization options as other libraries.

React Alice Carousel

React Alice Carousel is known for its intuitive swipe functionality and responsive design. It features autoplay, fade animations, and RTL support, making it perfect for mobile-responsive content galleries. It allows displaying multiple items per slide and customizing navigation. Although lightweight, it offers advanced customization options, making it suitable for visually appealing carousels.

Keen Slider

Keen Slider is a modern, touch-enabled library with a native React hooks API. It supports parallax effects, drag functionality, and virtual slides for performance. It's ideal for interactive dashboards and mobile-first apps but lacks predefined styles, requiring more customization effort.

Pure React Carousel

Pure React Carousel is an unstyled library with no external dependencies, giving developers complete control over layout and appearance. It's lightweight and flexible but lacks built-in styles or UI elements, requiring more setup for customization.

Flickity

Flickity is known for its ease of use and performance. It offers features like snap points and free-scroll, making it suitable for simple yet powerful sliders. However, it might not be as feature-rich as other libraries like Swiper or React Slick.

React Elastic Carousel

React Elastic Carousel is robust and flexible, allowing horizontal and vertical sliding. It offers customization options to personalize the carousel's appearance and behavior. However, it might not be as lightweight as some other options.

React Owl Carousel

React Owl Carousel is a robust library with features like responsive options, URL hashing, and lazy loading. However, it relies on jQuery, which can increase the bundle size. Despite this, it remains a dependable option for creating highly customizable carousels.

React Responsive Carousel

This lightweight and feature-rich library offers customization options like lazy loading and YouTube autoplay. However, it is no longer actively maintained, which might limit its future support and updates. It provides a smooth experience but may lack the smoothness of other carousels during drag operations.

React Multi Carousel

React Multi Carousel is designed to display multiple items per slide and is responsive across different screen sizes. It's easy to use but might lack some advanced features that are available in other libraries.

How to choose?

Each library has strengths, whether performance, customization, flexibility, or ease of use. By considering factors such as your project's specific needs, the importance of mobile responsiveness, and the impact on bundle size, you can make an informed decision.

React Slick and Swiper are popular for their extensive feature sets and community support. At the same time, Embla Carousel and Keen Slider offer lightweight, modern solutions with a focus on performance and accessibility.

Take the time to explore each option's documentation and demos to find the perfect fit for your project. You can create visually stunning and user-friendly banner carousels that enhance your application's user experience.

Happy coding!