Why I Built a High-Performance Wallpaper Gallery with Vanilla JS (No React)

I’ve been collecting wallpapers for years, but most wallpaper sites felt slow, cluttered, or filled with ads.

So I decided to build my own — WallpaperVerse.

🔗 Live site: https://wallpaperverse.akshthakkar.me

What I wanted to build

A clean, distraction-free wallpaper gallery

Fast performance, even with large images

Smooth animations that feel intentional

Bulk downloads without friction

Tech stack

I intentionally avoided frameworks to focus on fundamentals.

Vanilla HTML, CSS, JavaScript

GSAP for motion & micro-interactions

JSZip for bulk downloads

Optimized images (WebP, lazy loading)

One interesting challenge

The auto-scrolling wallpaper carousels.

Here’s the simplified logic behind the infinite horizontal scroll:

The "Infinite" Scroll Logic
const grid = document.querySelector('.collection-grid');
const scrollSpeed = 0.5;

// 1. Clone items to double the content length
// This ensures we always have content to scroll into
Array.from(grid.children).forEach(item => {
  grid.appendChild(item.cloneNode(true));
});

function loop() {
  // 2. Move scroll position slightly every frame
  grid.scrollLeft += scrollSpeed;

  // 3. The Magic Reset
  // When we've scrolled past the original set of items (halfway),
  // instantly snap back to the start (0).
  // Since the content is identical, the user sees no jump.

  if (grid.scrollLeft >= grid.scrollWidth / 2) {
    grid.scrollLeft = 0;
  }

  requestAnimationFrame(loop);
}

// Start the animation

loop();

This approach keeps the motion smooth and continuous without needing complex state management.

What I learned

UI polish matters more than flashy features

Performance is a feature

Vanilla JS scales surprisingly well when structured properly

AI tools help most when they speed up thinking, not replace it

This project helped me understand frontend tradeoffs far better than tutorials ever did.

If you’re curious, you can check it out here:
👉 https://wallpaperverse.akshthakkar.me

Feedback is always welcome 🙌