Lively Wallpaper gives you everything you need to create a stunning, animated desktop experience. Explore the full set of features that make Lively the best free alternative to paid wallpaper apps.
Set any video file as your desktop wallpaper. Lively supports MP4, WebM, AVI, MOV, MKV, and animated GIF formats with smooth, hardware-accelerated playback. Simply paste a YouTube URL to use any video from the web. Audio is fully supported with per-display volume control, and you can configure playback speed to your liking.
Full support for any multi-monitor configuration. Choose between three layout modes: Span stretches a single wallpaper across all displays, Per Display lets you set unique wallpapers on each screen, and Grid provides independent control with per-monitor audio routing. Lively auto-detects display changes and adjusts seamlessly.
Designed for gamers and power users. Lively automatically detects fullscreen applications and games, then pauses wallpaper playback to free up GPU and CPU resources. Configure global or per-application pause rules, set battery-saver mode for laptops, and choose between pause, stop, or continue modes for each scenario.
Go beyond videos with interactive HTML, CSS, and JavaScript wallpapers. Lively uses the Chromium-based WebView2 engine to render web content at full speed. Write GLSL shaders directly or import them from Shadertoy. Create data-driven dashboards, weather displays, music visualizers, or any creative web content as your wallpaper.
Every wallpaper in Lively is highly configurable. Adjust colors, speed, saturation, brightness, contrast, and other parameters through an intuitive properties panel. Web-based wallpapers support custom user properties so creators can expose sliders, color pickers, dropdowns, and checkboxes for end-users to personalize their experience.
Package and share your custom wallpapers using the Lively ZIP format. This portable archive bundles the wallpaper source, metadata, preview image, and configuration so anyone can import it with a single click. Share your creations with the community or back up your personal wallpaper collection for easy transfer between machines.
Lively supports a wide range of media, web, and shader formats to give you maximum creative freedom.
MP4, WebM, AVI, MOV, MKV, WMV, FLV, M4V, MPEG. Hardware-accelerated decoding via mpv ensures smooth playback even for 4K content. YouTube URL playback is also supported.
GIF, APNG, WebP (animated), BMP, JPG, PNG, TIFF. Animated formats loop seamlessly. Static images can be set as wallpapers with optional parallax or zoom effects.
HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, React, Three.js, or any web technology. Powered by the Chromium-based WebView2 runtime with full GPU acceleration and WebGL support.
GLSL fragment shaders, Shadertoy imports, Unity games, and Godot games. Create GPU-powered procedural animations or run interactive game scenes on your desktop.
See how Lively Wallpaper stacks up against other popular animated wallpaper tools for Windows.
| Feature | Lively Wallpaper | Wallpaper Engine | RainWallpaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $3.99 (Steam) | Free / $2.49 Pro |
| Open Source | Yes (GPL-3.0) | No | No |
| Video Wallpapers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Web / HTML Wallpapers | Yes | Yes | No |
| Shader Wallpapers | Yes (GLSL) | Yes | No |
| Multi-Monitor | Full support | Yes | Limited |
| Smart Pause (Gaming) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| No Ads | Yes | Yes | Free version has ads |
| Community Sharing | Lively ZIP | Steam Workshop | No |
Download Lively Wallpaper for free and experience all these features on your own desktop. No ads, no subscriptions, no limits.
Available for Windows 10 & 11. View all download options