Free Intro.js and Shepherd.js alternatives (2026)

Driver.js — the closest MIT replacement for Intro.js

License:

MIT

Version:

driver.js 1.9.0

Driver.js covers what most Intro.js tours actually use: an overlay, a spotlight, a popover per step, a progress indicator, keyboard control, and since 1.8 a hints module with pulsing beacons. It's framework-agnostic like Intro.js and Shepherd, so a migration is mostly translating step objects: Intro.js's { element, intro } becomes Driver.js's { element, popover: { description } }.

What you'll rebuild: Intro.js's dontShowAgain checkbox (store a flag yourself and skip drive()), and step bullets if you rely on them. What you'll gain: MIT licensing, no dependencies, and a smaller bundle (about 5 kB gzipped per its README, against about 19.2 kB for Intro.js 8.6.0 on bundlephobia).

import { driver } from "driver.js";
import "driver.js/dist/driver.css";

const tour = driver({
  showProgress: true,
  steps: [
    {
      element: "#new-project",
      popover: { title: "Create a project", description: "Everything starts here." },
    },
    {
      element: "#invite",
      popover: { title: "Invite your team", description: "Tours work better with company." },
    },
  ],
});

tour.drive();

React Joyride — the MIT choice if you're on React

License:

MIT

Version:

react-joyride 3.2.0

If your Intro.js usage lives in a React app — perhaps through the intro.js-react wrapper, which is MIT itself but wraps AGPL Intro.js — React Joyride is the most established MIT replacement. Steps can render React components, the dialog is focus-trapped and labelled for screen readers, and v3 supports React 16.8–19. It's heavier than Driver.js (about 25.6 kB gzipped on bundlephobia) and React-only.

"use client";
import { useState } from "react";
import { Joyride, STATUS, type EventData, type Step } from "react-joyride";

const steps: Step[] = [
  { target: "#new-project", title: "Create a project", content: "Everything starts here." },
  { target: "#invite", title: "Invite your team", content: "Tours work better with company." },
];

export function OnboardingTour() {
  const [run, setRun] = useState(true); // v3: run defaults to false

  return (
    <Joyride
      steps={steps}
      run={run}
      continuous
      options={{ showProgress: true, buttons: ["back", "skip", "primary"] }}
      onEvent={(data: EventData) => {
        if (data.status === STATUS.FINISHED || data.status === STATUS.SKIPPED) setRun(false);
      }}
    />
  );
}

NextStep — MIT, with multi-page tours built in

License:

MIT

Version:

nextstepjs 2.3.0

Neither Intro.js nor Shepherd navigates between pages for you. NextStep does: each step can set nextRoute / prevRoute and the library handles the transition on Next.js, or on React Router and Remix through adapters. It requires the motion animation package and is best suited to App Router projects. Onborda is a similar, MIT-licensed Next.js option with a slower release cadence.

Reactour, TourGuide JS and Hopscotch — the rest of the field

License:

MIT

Version:

@reactour/tour 3.8.0

@reactour/tour (MIT, React 16–19) is a lighter React alternative with a provider-and-hook API and focus locking; its last release was May 2025. TourGuide JS (@sjmc11/tourguidejs, MIT) is a vanilla library that reads steps from data-tg-tour attributes — close to Intro.js's data-intro style — but it's still pre-1.0 (0.0.27) and ships SCSS you compile yourself.

Hopscotch, LinkedIn's old library, still turns up in "free alternative" lists because it's Apache-2.0. Its last npm release was 0.3.1 in June 2017 and its GitHub repository is archived. Don't start anything new on it.