Parallax scrolling — where elements move at different speeds relative to scrolling — can make a website feel deeply dynamic. Most people use heavy libraries like GSAP for this. But today, we’ll build a clean, efficient scroll-linked parallax effect with just Tailwind CSS and vanilla JavaScript. No external dependencies.

Why Go Pure?

Benefits include:

• Massively reduced page weight
• Customizable to any design system
• Better performance for mobile users

Step 1: Create Your Layers

Each parallax layer gets a basic Tailwind setup:

  

    
  
  

    
  
  

    
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Step 2: Basic JavaScript for Parallax

This snippet calculates parallax based on scroll position:

Step 3: Tuning Speeds Per Layer

You can assign different speeds to different layers with data-speed. Smaller values (e.g., 0.1) move slower (background feel), larger values (e.g., 0.6) move faster (foreground feel).

Bonus: Smoother Motion with requestAnimationFrame

For buttery smoothness, swap in a rAF loop instead of basic scroll event:

Pros and Cons

✅ Pros

• No libraries — maximum control and minimal load time
• Fully responsive and easy to tweak per element
• Compatible with Tailwind’s utility-first workflow

⚠️ Cons

• Manual math if you want more complex motion curves
• Very fast scrolls might cause tiny visual tearing without fine-tuning

🚀 Alternatives

• Locomotive Scroll: Adds inertia and smooth-scroll parallax but is a heavy dependency
• GSAP ScrollTrigger: Amazing for animation timelines, but overkill if you only want basic parallax

Summary

Creating scroll-linked parallax in Tailwind and vanilla JavaScript is refreshingly simple and surprisingly powerful. With just a few utility classes and event listeners, you can add rich motion to your site without slowing it down — a massive win for modern frontend builds!

If you found this useful, you can support me here: buymeacoffee.com/hexshift