Designers love After Effects — until they meet Cavalry.

Fast, flexible, and built with motion designers in mind, Cavalry is shaking up the scene and winning over creatives who’ve had enough of laggy timelines and clunky workflows. In this post, we’ll explain why so many designers are switching to Cavalry motion graphics — and why you might be next.

Let’s give After Effects the credit it deserves. It’s been the industry standard for motion graphics for decades, and for good reason. Creatives have long used it to build everything from animated explainer videos to complex UI mockups, and it’s a beast when it comes to flexibility. With the right plug-ins and expressions (and enough patience!), you can basically make anything move.

However, as reliable as After Effects has been, it hasn’t exactly kept up with the evolving needs of modern motion designers. Once you start diving into more complex or high-volume animation work, its limitations become harder to ignore.

Here’s what kept us loyal:

The more you use After Effects for heavy motion work, the harder it becomes to ignore these issues:

After years of workarounds and third-party plug-ins, it’s clear that After Effects just wasn’t built with today’s motion workflows in mind. And I think a lot of other designers are feeling the same way. That’s where Cavalry motion graphics comes in.

Cavalry isn’t just another animation app — it’s what happens when you take everything frustrating about After Effects, throw it out the window, and start fresh with today’s motion designers in mind. Built by the team at Scene Group, Cavalry feels like a tool designed for how creatives work now.

One of the first things you’ll notice? It’s fast! Like, real-time playback fast. No more setting up a comp and praying the preview renders before you lose your train of thought. You make a change, and you see it instantly. No caching, no waiting — just creativity flowing.

Cavalry motion graphics is built on a procedural system, which means your animations can stay flexible, dynamic, and easily tweakable. Whether you’re linking elements together, using modifiers, or animating from spreadsheet data, everything stays live and responsive. Want to animate 100 social banners with different text and colors? Done.

Some of my favorite tools in Cavalry include:

After Effects can feel like building LEGO without instructions. Cavalry gives you the guide and makes it easier to get creative. It’s clean, organized, and doesn’t require ten plug-ins and a dozen YouTube tutorials just to get started. It’s also free to try, with a generous feature set in the free version. So there’s no reason not to test drive it for yourself.

So what makes Cavalry motion graphics stand out? It’s a combination of speed, flexibility, and genuinely smart tools that feel designed for creatives. Here are some of the highlights that are turning heads:

Cavalry comes packed with all the core tools you need for professional motion design, all built right in, so there’s no need to hunt for extra plug-ins. It helps keep your workflow fast, focused, and frustration-free. Here’s what’s included:

If you work with Illustrator or SVGs, you’ll love how smoothly Cavalry handles vector graphics. You can import them directly, preserve layers, and animate them with total control — no weird surprises!

No plug-ins required. Cavalry has behaviors, modifiers, and repeaters that make common animation tasks easier.

Is Cavalry right for you? It’s a good option if any of these descriptions sound familiar to you.

If you’ve ever found yourself buried in pre-comps or wrestling with sluggish previews in After Effects, Cavalry will feel like a breath of fresh air. It’s built for speed, clarity, and iteration, which is ideal for designers who want to stay in flow without technical roadblocks.

Do you need to animate 100 social posts, personalized lower thirds, or data-driven charts? Cavalry truly stands out in this area. Its data integration and procedural logic make repetitive or scale-heavy tasks surprisingly simple.

With non-destructive workflows, behaviors, and modifiers, Cavalry invites you to experiment and play. It’s perfect for motion designers who like to explore, tweak, and test ideas without constantly backtracking or rebuilding.

To be fair, Cavalry isn’t quite a complete replacement for After Effects yet. It has gaps, primarily if you work heavily with VFX, 3D animation compositing, or advanced typography effects that rely on plug-ins. But for pure motion graphics, animation, and data-driven content, it’s powerful.

If you’re curious about trying Cavalry, the good news is that you don’t need to fully commit to switching right away. It’s free to get started, with plenty of powerful features in the free version. You can test it first, and see how it fits into your creative process. Here’s what to consider.

If you’ve used tools like After Effects, you’ll pick up the basics quickly. And suppose you’re new to motion design altogether. In that case, Cavalry’s clean interface and built-in behaviors make it easy to start without needing a library of plug-ins or expression hacks.

While it’s still smaller than Adobe’s ecosystem, the Cavalry user base is passionate and generous. There are great tutorials, sample files, and even a lively Discord server where you can ask questions and share work.

The free version is surprisingly capable. However, the Pro plan covers a lot of features that would be great for studios or creatives who work on bigger projects. These include:

And much, much more! You can check out the official documentation page for a full breakdown of the latest available features for the Pro version of Cavalry.

You don’t have to ditch After Effects to enjoy the power of Cavalry. In fact, many designers use both together, and they complement each other really well. Each tool has its strengths, and when combined, they unlock a faster, smarter workflow—especially as AI motion design workflows become more integrated across platforms.

Cavalry shines when you’re working on:

Once the animation’s done, After Effects can still be your go-to for:

Cavalry isn’t just a shiny new toy — it’s a rethink of how motion design can work when the tools actually keep up with your creativity. It strips away the clunky bits, brings real-time responsiveness to the table, and adds smart, modern features that make animation feel intuitive again. For designers who’ve grown tired of patching together workflows or fighting with slow previews, it’s genuinely refreshing!

That doesn’t mean Cavalry replaces After Effects completely, but it definitely earns a place in your creative toolkit. Cavalry opens the door to faster, smarter, and more enjoyable design, whether you’re animating data, creating slick social content, or experimenting with techniques inspired by motion designers like Ben Marriott.

It’s not just different — it’s a glimpse of where motion is headed.

If you’d like to learn more about Cavalry, check out our quickstart Cavalry guide for new motion designers, or perhaps get inspiration from the pros by seeing what’s what with awards show motion graphics these days.

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