1. Wallpaper Engine Best Paid
Wallpaper engine is the most famous live wallpaper software because it’s feature-rich and has a huge library. It has the ability to animate your own static images, add different effects to them through its wallpaper engine editor and share them with other users through steam workshop which has arguably the best game and anime live wallpaper gallery. You can import your videos, HTML files and set up wallpaper playlists/slideshows. It supports a multi-display environment and works on all modern aspect ratios. You can even integrate it with your iCUE and Razer Chroma LED Hardware to sync your RGB LEDs with the live wallpapers.
- Feature-rich with a strong wallpaper editor
- Largest live wallpaper library
- Constantly updated and moderated
- Nudity in the workshop
2. Lively Wallpaper Best Free
This is one of the best free live wallpaper apps, Lively is a Free and Open Source (FOSS) application, you can just drag the video file into the library or paste a website URL (like Youtube) to use it as wallpaper. It also lets you change taskbar themes, lock screen pictures, supports multiple screens, and has a good set of settings regarding wallpaper, system performance, and audio.
- Free and Open Source
- Highly customizable
- No dedicated wallpaper library
3. Rain Wallpaper Paid
Rain Wallpaper is generally mistaken with Rainmeter but they’re completely different. Rainmeter is for widgets while Rain Wallpaper is for live dynamic wallpapers. It has a clean UI, multi-monitor support, built-in WYSIWYG editor to make wallpaper using videos, web pages, clocks, weather, text, images, etc. It’s available on Steam marketplace so you can use the steam workshop to browser through its online wallpapers gallery for gaming live wallpapers.
- WYSIWYG editor
- Built-in online gallery
4. WinDynamicDesktop Paid
WinDynamicDesktop dynamically changes the wallpaper according to the time of the day like sunrise and sunset based on your location just like the macOS Mojave dynamic desktop. It’s available on Github and Windows Store, both versions are a bit different so be sure to check their git for the differences.
- Minimalistic
- Limited themes
5. AutoWall Free
Auto wall turns videos, gifs, webs into a live wallpaper. It’s based on weebp and very basic. It also lets you set live wallpaper using a youtube video URL. It can also use wallpaper engine’s workshop wallpapers using steamworkshopdownloader.io but it’s not as convenient as wallpaper engine.
6. ScreenPlay Free
ScreenPlay is open-source wallpaper, widget, and app drawer application. It’s capable of supporting multiple ultrawide monitors at high frame rates. You can download it from Steam and access the vast collection of steam workshop libraries or upload your own. Written in modern C++20/Qt5/QML the app is very well designed with a lot of settings to tinker with including dark mode.
7. Plastuer Paid
Plastuer lets you use images, videos, and web pages as wallpaper. You can create your own and share it with others. It’s based on Chromium (an open-source software project for developing web browsers), starts automatically, and pauses while not in use with multi-monitor support.
- Simple and based on Open Source Chromium
- Very barebone
- No wallpaper library
8. DeskScapes Paid
DeskScapes from Stardock might be the oldest live wallpaper software out there. It supports multiple monitors, lets you choose from thousands of user-submitted artwork, add effects, do color adjustments, adjust the speed of animation, randomize background, etc. They’ve a great collection on nature and scenery wallpapers.
- Old and Popular
- Well-integrated library
- Focused on static wallpapers, not many live wallpaper options
9. MyLiveWallpapers Free
MyLiveWallpaper is free software that turns your videos into live wallpapers and adds music to them. You can adjust the video size, height, width, change horizontal and vertical positioning, adjust volume, and also make a playlist of live wallpapers to cycle automatically through them. You can download animated wallpapers through their site or use your own. For a relatively new app, it’s very well built.
- Portable and Lite
- No inbuilt library
10. DesktopHut Free
DesktopHut is an online animated wallpaper library, they have a great collection of anime live wallpapers for pc and recently they released their own application but it’s very basic, you can select, play and stop the live wallpaper, toggle audio on or off, control volume, supports only dual monitors and you’ve to download live wallpaper from external sources to use it.
- Good live wallpapers collection to download
- No inbuilt library
FAQ
Animated wallpaper is a cross between a screensaver and desktop wallpaper. Like a normal wallpaper, an animated wallpaper serves as the background on your desktop, an animated wallpaper can feature animated elements. Due to its lively nature, animated wallpaper is sometimes also referred to as live wallpaper.
No, most of the modern programs pause themselves when they’re not in focus i.e., they do not run in background and use 1-2% of resources at max. However, you should tweak the performance and battery settings according to your system.
No, They’re run automatically at startup.
Images, Video, GIFs and Web Pages (interactive and Non-Interactive).
