Freebies, Inspiration, Web Development
45 Examples of Amazing Website Preloaders Around the Web
+ Free Preloader Animations
With our attention span getting shorter, when users have to wait a few seconds for a website to load, it might be a deal-breaker. In order to prevent them from closing the page, many designers are coming up with solutions to make the waiting less boring by visually pleasant animations. Known as website preloaders, these animations have to keep users entertained while server operations finish processing. They indicate that the website is still processing data and in many cases also indicate the progress.
Trouble is, a simple loading screen that says “Loading” and gives percentages, or a simple loading bar, are kind of boring and won’t do much to engage the viewer. This is why creative designers come up with simple, original, and custom animations that don’t slow down the loading process any further.
With this in mind, today we hand-picked a collection of 45 examples of amazing website preloaders from all around the web.
We also added a few freebies that you can try out.
1. Pencil Preloader Animation
We’ll start with a mesmerizing infinite preloader animation by Mantas Bačiuška. The simple yet effective outline art style makes it even easier to notice how smoothly the animation is done.
2. Jumping Triangle Site Loader
Here we have a triangle preloader by Majo Puterka that jumps around the screen and charges itself. There is much attention to detail with the little moving shadow. A lot to look at while waiting for the page to load.
3. Avocado Page Preloader
This Avocado loader interaction by Taras Migulko has a little avocado character juggling with vegetables. The designer made the page loading animation for a carb-managing website dedicated to healthy eating and keto diets. A nice example, that you can also go conceptual and put something fun related to your field of work to keep your visitors busy while your website is loading.
4. Minimalistic Website Loader
These Loading Gif animations by Dilys Lim and Sharon Yar are simple and minimalistic. You can check the entire collection of loader animation gifs here. Due to their simplicity, these animations are suitable for mobile apps and games, however, they would look pretty neat on websites as well.
5. Melting Ice Cream Page Loading Gif
Here’s a melting ice-cream loading animation by the same designers.
6. Alien Invaders Starcruiser Page Loader
And something inspired by our favorite childhood 8-bit games.
7. Garbade Truck Loading Page
Moving away from minimalism, we have a garbage truck loading animation by Ravikanth Buddiga as our next suggestion.
8. Simple Ping Pong Website Preloader
Simple and effective ping pong preloader by Rincy David counting percentages, proving creativity can do anything even it meant creating with nothing more than a line and a circle.
9. Bottling Page Preloader Animation
This is a loading micro animation by Nick Buturishvili for Leavingstone.
10. Panike Preloading Animation
Here we have one of the previous loading animations for the Panike website added by Awwwards.
11. Wordplay Loading Screen
An amazing example of loading animation text sequences for Hochburg was added by Awwwards.
12. Fun Dachshund Website Preloader
Creativity knows no limits. This is the case with this fun dachshund character from the ITG website walking in two opposite directions and stretching.
13. Chicken Laying Eggs Preloading Screen
This website is crazy about eggs and lets you know from the moment it loads.
14. Christmas Elves Preloading Animation
Loading Christmas Gifts by Chuan² with some very enthusiastic elves on a mission. Seasonal page loading animations are always a nice touch to websites with seasonal sale events.
15. Interactive Website Loading Animation
Stained Glass Real Estate’s preloader offers interaction by playing a video a letting you color the shapes and characters while it plays. You can also review and share your creation once you’re done.
16. 3D characters Page Loader
Next is the awesome website preloader for Humans, getting all those cool 3D characters ready.
17. Ice-Cream Modern Loading Animation
Tolia Ice Cream gives us this cool loading animation with an ice cream waiting for the temperatures to drop while the website is loading. The lower the temperature, the happier this ice-cream character gets.
18. Glasses Website Loading Screen
Here we have the simple and effective conceptual animation for Lazy Eyes designs.
19. Calendar Animated Website Preloader
This is the older preloading animation for Grupow, that you can still enjoy in Awwwards.
20. More!milk Preload Animation
This is a very lightweight video preloader by Chipsa for the Rissian website More!milk.
21. Burger Website Preloader
We follow with a jumping burger loader animation by Rehana Khan made in AE.
22. Coffee Preloader Animation
Mantas Bačiuška gives us some coffee love with this abstract animater website preloader concept.
23. Running Logo Loading Design
In this website preloader, Mantas Bačiuška is giving life to the Šviesa Publishing House logo with a running animation.
24. Unilever Loading Screen
We continue with this smooth loader animation by Maksym Havrylov for Unilever.
25. Wavelength Website Preloader
Clean and minimalistic wavelength loading animation by Niklaus Gerber.
26. Typography Page Load Animation
This preloader is for a landing page about typography, designed by Oleksandra Ryzhyk.
27. Clock Deconstruction Website Preloader
A simple and effective processing animation for a website by Oleg Frolov.
28. Isometric Road Preloading Animation
This isometric-style animation is a sneak-peek and a part of a bigger project by EuroART93.
29. Intro Animation Preloader
Here we have exploration for an intro animation from a preloader into a landing page, by Matthew Hall. On click drops an image, once you reach the end of the gallery they fall away.
30. Cube Animation Website Preloader
Very smooth, surrealistic, and mesmerizing bubble cube preloading animation Oleg Frolov.
31. Spiral Loading Screen Animation
This is a futuristic neon-glowing spiral pre-loader concept by Alex Gorbunov.
32. Neon Website Preloader with Digital Numbers
On the topic of futurism and neo accents, Kushagra Agarwal designed and coded a fully responsive loading screen animation for Dark theme.
33. Liquid Loading
The next one has a very original concept for a liquid preloader experiment by Denis Krol Krasavchikov.
34. Apple Preloading Animation
The creator Anatoly Kotlyar tried to make the waiting less boring, by visually pleasant animation, which will keep users entertained. They made this animated preloader for CXDojot with After effects to be later exported as JSON so it would be lightweight and quick to load.
35. Hey! Poof! Experimental Website Preloader
Just an experimental preloading animation by Igor Mahr that we hope to see someday live.
36. Rocket Site Loader
A concept logo animation by Yurii for their client’s website.
37. Cubes Isometric Preloader Animation
Here we have a very professional and complex isometric 3D animation of rearranging cubes by Webshocker Matjaz Valentar.
38. Neon Bubble Website Preloader
Liquid preloader by Denis Krol Krasavchikov with hypnotizing neon colors.
39. Bold Mobile App Preloader
This preloading animation by Arounda is based on the Bold’s brand log for a Mobile App. Now let’s see some great website preloader ideas that also offer their animations for free.
Free CSS/JS Website Preloaders
In this section, we will look at six amazing CSS preloaders that you can use. The buttons below each offer the HTML/CSS/JS code that you can copy for your project.
40. Free CSS/JS Loading Animation with Physics
We’ll start with this simple but different Loading animation with added physics by Oleg Frolov, made with Figma, Cinema 4D, and After Effects. below you can review the code, courtesy of Abubaker Saeed based on the same design.
Get Code41. Pure CSS Book Loading Animation
The next Book Loader design by Su for RaDesign also comes with pure CSS by Aaron Iker. It’s a nice touch for online book stores and educational websites.
Get Code42. CSS Website Preloaders by FXGround Part 1
This is the first part of free CSS animations for websites and apps by FXGround. There are 12 free preloaders that won’t affect the page speed and you can use them to pre-load your website, images, or AJAX content.
Get Code43. CSS Website Preloaders by FXGround Part 2
And here’s the second part that features 12 more on the same principle. You can click the Download Source button to review the code.
Get Code44. Free Ping Pong Loading Screen CSS Animation
Another idea for CSS loading animation. Done in Principle for fun and practice by Oleksandr Pronskyi.
Get Code45. Foot Tap CSS/JS Loading Animation
And the last example that you can also use for free comes from Darin with a nervous foot tapping.
Get CodeThat’s it!
We hope you enjoyed this collection of 45 amazing website preloaders from all over the web. Some of them are live on real websites, others are still in the concept phase, but what’s important is they serve as a great inspiration to take ideas from and create even more amazing ones. Which ones did you like best? Would you consider adding a preloading animation to your website?
In the meantime, for more inspo, insights, or freebies, why not check some of these articles:
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- 10 Creative People to Follow on TikTok