Cult UI is the registry for interactions rather than for surfaces. Where most animated registries ship you a hero and a background, this one ships things that respond: a panel that expands from a button, a form that lives in a popover, a dock, a carousel in three dimensions. Its index holds 157 items, the repository sits around 6,000 stars, and 35 of its components are published on 21st.
The interactions worth taking
3D Carousel is the most-bookmarked of them, and one of the better answers to a rail that has to work in a narrow column. Logo Carousel and Feature Carousel are the flatter siblings.
Floating Panel is the button that expands into a panel in place, which is a genuinely useful pattern for a quick action that does not deserve a dialog. Popover Form is the same instinct applied to a short form, and Expandable is the general version.
Dock is the magnifying bar, and Glass Effect is the material treatment.
The caveat that comes with this kind of component
Expanding panels and popover forms are the two patterns most likely to be shipped without their contract. Both are dialogs in behaviour if not in name: something opens over the page, focus has to move into it, Escape has to close it, and focus has to come back. A panel that expands and traps nothing is unusable from a keyboard, and a popover with a submit button in it wanted to be a dialog in the first place.
The dialog guide has the full contract. It is worth reading before shipping any of the expandable family, because the components give you the animation and leave the behaviour to you.
Where it fits
Cult UI is a good second registry, rarely a first one. It has no primitives, no forms system and no product surfaces, so it sits on top of shadcn/ui rather than replacing anything, and the pieces worth taking are the two or three interactions that would otherwise be a day of work each.
Against its neighbours: Aceternity is darker and section-shaped, Magic UI is larger and more marketing-led, Kokonut is stronger on AI surfaces, and Origin UI is the opposite trade entirely.
Where else to look
The honest list, because the answer is not always us:
| Source | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Cult UI | The originals with the author's documentation | No primitives; a second registry rather than a first |
| shadcn/ui | The dialog, popover and dropdown behaviour underneath | Plain by design |
| Vaul | The drawer interaction with real gesture handling | One shape |
| 21st | These components with live previews, plus everything nearby | Quality varies by author, so preview before you take it |
Taking one
Every component page has a live preview and the code. Installing goes through the shadcn CLI against our registry:
That key comes from your 21st account, and installs require a membership. Set API_KEY_21ST once in your shell and the command works for anything in the catalogue. The 21st MCP covers the same ground without leaving the editor: ask Claude, Cursor or Codex for a component, get the previews inline, and let the agent write the file.
Browse the registry directory →
Frequently asked
- What is Cult UI best at?
- Interactions rather than surfaces. Where most animated registries ship a hero and a background, this one ships things that respond: a button that expands into a panel in place, a short form inside a popover, a magnifying dock, and a carousel that works in a narrow column by using depth instead of width.
- What is the catch with expanding panels?
- They are dialogs in behaviour if not in name. Something opens over the page, so focus has to move into it, Escape has to close it and focus has to return to the trigger. The components give you the animation and leave that contract to you, which is why a panel that expands and traps nothing is unusable from a keyboard.
- Is Cult UI a first or second registry?
- Second. It has no primitives, no form system and no product surfaces, so it sits on top of shadcn/ui rather than replacing anything. The pieces worth taking are the two or three interactions that would otherwise be a day of work each.
- How big is Cult UI?
- Its index holds 157 items on a repository of roughly 6,000 stars, which makes it mid-sized among the animated registries: smaller than Magic UI or Aceternity, larger than the single-purpose ones.