What is swiper?
The swiper npm package is a modern touch slider with hardware accelerated transitions. It is intended for use in mobile websites, mobile web apps, and mobile native/hybrid apps. Swiper is designed to be used in a mobile environment, where touch interactions are fundamental. It provides a number of features like swiping, multiple slides per view, vertical slides, and more.
What are swiper's main functionalities?
Basic Swiper
This code initializes a basic Swiper instance with horizontal direction, loop mode, pagination, navigation arrows, and a scrollbar.
import Swiper from 'swiper';
const swiper = new Swiper('.swiper-container', {
// Optional parameters
direction: 'horizontal',
loop: true,
// If we need pagination
pagination: {
el: '.swiper-pagination',
},
// Navigation arrows
navigation: {
nextEl: '.swiper-button-next',
prevEl: '.swiper-button-prev',
},
// And if we need scrollbar
scrollbar: {
el: '.swiper-scrollbar',
},
});
Multiple Slides Per View
This code sets up a Swiper instance where you can have multiple slides visible at the same time, with space between the slides and clickable pagination.
import Swiper from 'swiper';
const swiper = new Swiper('.swiper-container', {
slidesPerView: 3,
spaceBetween: 30,
pagination: {
el: '.swiper-pagination',
clickable: true,
},
});
Vertical Swiper
This code snippet demonstrates how to initialize a Swiper instance that allows vertical swiping with clickable pagination.
import Swiper from 'swiper';
const swiper = new Swiper('.swiper-container', {
direction: 'vertical',
pagination: {
el: '.swiper-pagination',
clickable: true,
},
});
Other packages similar to swiper
slick-carousel
Slick is a jQuery plugin for creating carousels that supports multiple slides, responsive layouts, and touch events. It is similar to Swiper but relies on jQuery, which might not be ideal for modern projects that do not use jQuery.
glidejs
Glide.js is a dependency-free JavaScript ES6 slider and carousel. It's lightweight, flexible and fast. Designed to slide, no less, no more. It compares to Swiper in terms of being touch-friendly and responsive, but it emphasizes simplicity and performance.
flickity
Flickity is a touch, responsive, flickable carousel library. It has features like draggable slides, group cells, and adaptive height. It is similar to Swiper but offers a different set of features and API options, focusing on being flickable and physics-based interactions.
owl-carousel
Owl Carousel is a touch-enabled jQuery plugin that lets you create a beautiful responsive carousel slider. While it offers similar functionality to Swiper, it is built on top of jQuery, which might not be suitable for projects that aim to avoid jQuery dependencies.
Swiper
Swiper - is the free and most modern mobile touch slider with hardware accelerated transitions and amazing native behavior. It is intended to be used in mobile websites, mobile web apps, and mobile native/hybrid apps.
Swiper is not compatible with all platforms, it is a modern touch slider which is focused only on modern apps/platforms to bring the best experience and simplicity.
Getting Started