astroturf VS styled-components

CSS-in-JS has been a challenge – we're currently using https://github.com/astroturfcss/astroturf which seemed the simplest zero-runtime-cost option back when we were looking, but the library is starting to feel a bit under-maintained (if the author of Astroturf reads this, we love your work and will do whatever we can to support you in it!). But it's worked well for us over the last 2 years.

Happy to share a component example. We also use a small library for managing CSS classes in a typed fashion, which can also be used by our UI test code to target various elements. So that does add a bit of cryptic boilerplate, but the repo README has an example component with syntax highlighting:

Try https://github.com/4Catalyzer/astroturf

On the other side of our titular question is styled-components. While I'm talking about styled-components specifically, the topics and concepts here apply to any CSS-in-JS provider (e.g. emotion). There is a smaller CSS-in-JS library called astroturf that aims to give the developer the best of all worlds, so the limitations I'll discuss later on don't apply there. But be careful with smaller projects/ones that claim you can have it all! You are wading through uncharted territory :)

CSS-in-JS is a styling technique wherein CSS is composed using JavaScript instead of defined in external files. This method allows CSS to be scoped locally to components rather than globally, reducing the probability of style conflicts. Utilizing JavaScript also enables dynamic styling easily aligned with the component's state or props. Libraries like Styled Components and Emotion are popular choices in the React ecosystem for adopting this method.

In 2023, I had a chat with Max Stoiber, CEO of Stellate, on a podcast to learn about his early success on GitHub. His first open-source project, react-boilerplate/react-boilerplate, gained a whopping 10k stars in just one weekend after appearing on the homepage of Hacker News. This success led Max to drop out of university and create several other popular open-source projects, including styled-components. This library accelerates the process of building styles in React components.

Embracing the styled-components library allows developers to write actual CSS code to style their components. It utilizes tagged template literals to style components, enabling a seamless integration of styles within the component's JavaScript file. This approach eliminates the mapping between components and styles, thus enhancing developer productivity and component reusability.

styled-components: Allows for maintainable styling with CSS-in-JS. Learn more

Over the past few years, I've worked with React apps utilising various CSS-in-JS libraries, starting with styled-components, transitioning through emotion, Theme UI, and finally Stitches. I've also integrated MUI, Mantine, and Chakra in numerous client projects.

There are several alternatives to MUI. shadcn/ui is a modern alternative that is very popular. Ant Design is also a great alternative. Charkra UI can also be used as a UI Framework. Some people suggest just using styled components. Some use Tailwind CSS. Yet, for both styled components and Tailwind CSS, one still writes a lot of CSS. This might not provide the best developer experience compared to using a UI Framework, especially if we aim to avoid designing all the pages on the website.

Website: Styled Components

The project is build using several ready made components available within, Mantine. It’s a fully featured React components library. However some places still use some custom CSS-in-JS so we used some good ol’ styled components.