what's faster? CSS3 transitions or jQuery animations?

Solution 1:

According to this link, jQuery animation is much slower then css animation.

Reason can be because jquery has to modify the props of the DOM element using timers and a loop. The CSS is part of the browser engine . which depends pretty much on hardware of system. You can also check that in profiling of Chrome or Firefox.

Solution 2:

CSS animations will almost always be faster.

A head to head comparison of CSS transitions and jQuery's animate. Rather than setting a timer to run repeatedly, transitions are handled natively by the browser. In my rather unscientific testing, transitions are always quicker, running with a higher frame rate, especially with high numbers of elements. They also have the advantage that colours can be animated easily, rather than having to rely on plugins.

http://css.dzone.com/articles/css3-transitions-vs-jquery

Related Question: Performance of CSS Transitions vs. JS animation packages