PostCSS VS stylus

Compare PostCSS vs stylus and see what are their differences.

PostCSS

Transforming styles with JS plugins (by postcss)

stylus

Expressive, robust, feature-rich CSS language built for nodejs (by stylus)
Our great sponsors
  • SurveyJS - Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App
  • WorkOS - The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS
  • InfluxDB - Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale
PostCSS stylus
86 26
28,145 11,160
0.3% 0.1%
8.8 6.7
8 days ago 23 days ago
TypeScript JavaScript
MIT License MIT License
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

PostCSS

Posts with mentions or reviews of PostCSS. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-01-11.
  • PostCSS - my initial experience
    3 projects | dev.to | 11 Jan 2024
    the plugins in the official PostCSS website were old like IE6 or the marquee tag, and
  • Dark Mode with SvelteKit, a Blog Post
    3 projects | /r/sveltejs | 15 Nov 2023
    Hello internet. I just published a new blog post on how to implement dark mode with SvelteKit, optionally with PostCSS and TailwindCSS:
  • 11 Ways to Optimize Your Website
    12 projects | dev.to | 12 Nov 2023
    There are many frontend tools available for this purpose. For example, PostCSS is a popular CSS processor that can combine and minimize your code. With the right plugin, it can even fix your code for compatibility issues, making sure your CSS styles work for all browsers.
  • Styling React 2023 edition
    11 projects | dev.to | 3 Nov 2023
    I use PostCSS to extend CSS’s features and to add a few things that make writing styles a little more convenient, but it could easily be swapped for another preprocessor like Sass or vanilla CSS. It’s up to you. You can view my PostCSS config here.
  • Abstract Syntax Trees and Practical Applications in JavaScript
    13 projects | dev.to | 21 Oct 2023
    Code transpilation isn't specific to JavaScript, You can also add a level of transformation to your CSS source using tools like post-css. Most languages with a fairly mature ecosystem will probably have some tools to help with code transformation.
  • Let's Make Learning Frontend Great Again!
    11 projects | dev.to | 22 Aug 2023
    LiveCodes provides many of the commonly used developer tools. These include Monaco editor (that powers VS Code), Prettier, Emmet, Vim/Emacs modes, Babel, TypeScript, SCSS, Less, PostCSS, Jest and Testing Library, among others. All these tools run seamlessly in the browser without any installations or configurations. It feels like a very light-weight version of your own local development environment including the keyboard shortcuts, IntelliSense and code navigation features.
  • How to setup a simple static website using Svelte (with login)
    5 projects | dev.to | 19 May 2023
    Usually, one of the first things I do on creating a new web app is to throw a UI library in to help style components. There are several UI libraries that can be used by Svelte, but in this case I went with daisyUI because it's a fairly popular UI library which includes tailwind. To install daisyUI, you first need to install tailwind. There's a few different ways to do this (such as this guide), but the easiest way I've found is the following command, which also adds PostCSS and AutoPrefixer:
  • Vanilla+PostCSS as an Alternative to SCSS
    15 projects | dev.to | 30 Mar 2023
    Vanilla CSS has taken a similar path with ambitious working drafts, better browser support, and PostCSS to fill the gap for user agents lagging behind. So why is Sass/SCSS still so popular? Maybe we go so used to it that we might have forgotten what problems it was meant to solve in the first place.
  • Web 3.0 frontend stacks in 2023
    20 projects | dev.to | 29 Jan 2023
    UI, CSS : tailwindcss + PostCSS + Radix UI + UI components by shadcn
  • When Vite ignores your Browserslist configuration
    9 projects | dev.to | 26 Dec 2022
    Actually, Vite doesn’t support Browserslist at all: the only reason it “seems” to work well with CSS is because Vite uses PostCSS, which itself natively uses Browserslist. We could say that Vite supports Browserslist by proxy, for CSS.

stylus

Posts with mentions or reviews of stylus. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-02-15.
  • Future of CSS: Functions and Mixins
    3 projects | dev.to | 15 Feb 2024
    Traditionally CSS lacked features such as variables, nesting, mixins, and functions. This was frustrating for Developers as it often led to CSS quickly becoming complex and cumbersome. In an attempt to make code easier and less repetitive CSS pre-processors were born. You would write CSS in the format the pre-processor understood and, at build time, you'd have some nice CSS. The most common pre-processors these days are Sass, Less, and Stylus. Any examples I give going forward will be about Sass as that's what I'm most familiar with.
  • Why Use Sass?
    5 projects | dev.to | 29 Jul 2023
    Stylus
  • Quick Guide To CSS Preprocessors
    3 projects | dev.to | 21 Nov 2022
    The Stylus is built on Node.js. It differs from Sass and Less, which are more opinionated to the syntax; the stylus allows you to omit semicolons, colons, and braces if you want at any time. Another cool feature is that the stylus has a property lookup feature. You can do that easily if you set property X relative to property Y's value. The stylus can be more concise because of its flexibility, but it depends on your preferred syntax.
  • Install Angular
    3 projects | dev.to | 13 Nov 2022
    ng new test1 ? Would you like to add Angular routing? Yes ? Which stylesheet format would you like to use? > CSS SCSS [ http://sass-lang.com ] SASS [ http://sass-lang.com ] LESS [ http://lesscss.org ] Stylus [ http://stylus-lang.com ]
  • Is there a way to shorten .contactform h2,… and to say something like .contactform (h2, ul, label)?
    3 projects | /r/webdev | 9 Nov 2022
    first of all, quit using css. get on board Stylus @ https://stylus-lang.com/
  • Is a bracket within a bracket possible? (HTML/CSSS)
    4 projects | /r/HTML | 13 Aug 2022
    The term you are looking for is "nesting". CSS currently does not support it. But there is a draft being worked on. No browser currently supports it, though. Most CSS Pre- or Postprocessors like Sass, Less, Stylus, PostCSS support nesting.
  • Create own default plugin to NX workspace
    8 projects | dev.to | 27 May 2022
    // schema.json { "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/schema", "cli": "nx", "$id": "ReactLibrary", "title": "", "type": "object", "properties": { "name": { "type": "string", "description": "Library name", "$default": { "$source": "argv", "index": 0 }, "x-prompt": "What name would you like to use for the library?", "pattern": "^[a-zA-Z].*$" }, "directory": { "type": "string", "description": "A directory where the lib is placed.", "alias": "dir" }, "domain": { "description": "Domain where this library belongs.", "type": "string", "default": "none", "alias": "dom", "x-prompt": { "message": "Which domain this library belongs?", "type": "list", "items": [ { "value": "web", "label": "Web" }, { "value": "common", "label": "Common" } ] } }, "scope": { "type": "string", "description": "A scope for the lib.", "alias": "sc" }, "type": { "description": "Library type", "type": "string", "alias": "t", "x-prompt": { "message": "Select library type?", "type": "list", "items": [ { "value": "data", "label": "Data" }, { "value": "model", "label": "Model" }, { "value": "util", "label": "Util" }, { "value": "feature", "label": "Feature" }, { "value": "ui", "label": "Ui" } ] } }, "style": { "description": "The file extension to be used for style files.", "type": "string", "default": "none", "alias": "s", "x-prompt": { "message": "Which stylesheet format would you like to use?", "type": "list", "items": [ { "value": "css", "label": "CSS" }, { "value": "scss", "label": "SASS(.scss) [ http://sass-lang.com ]" }, { "value": "styl", "label": "Stylus(.styl) [ http://stylus-lang.com ]" }, { "value": "less", "label": "LESS [ http://lesscss.org ]" }, { "value": "styled-components", "label": "styled-components [ https://styled-components.com ]" }, { "value": "@emotion/styled", "label": "emotion [ https://emotion.sh ]" }, { "value": "styled-jsx", "label": "styled-jsx [ https://www.npmjs.com/package/styled-jsx ]" }, { "value": "none", "label": "None" } ] } }, "linter": { "description": "The tool to use for running lint checks.", "type": "string", "enum": ["eslint", "tslint"], "default": "eslint" }, "unitTestRunner": { "type": "string", "enum": ["jest", "none"], "description": "Test runner to use for unit tests.", "default": "jest" }, "skipFormat": { "description": "Skip formatting files.", "type": "boolean", "default": false }, "skipTsConfig": { "type": "boolean", "default": false, "description": "Do not update `tsconfig.json` for development experience." }, "pascalCaseFiles": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Use pascal case component file name (e.g. `App.tsx`).", "alias": "P", "default": false }, "routing": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Generate library with routes." }, "appProject": { "type": "string", "description": "The application project to add the library route to.", "alias": "a" }, "publishable": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Create a publishable library." }, "buildable": { "type": "boolean", "default": false, "description": "Generate a buildable library." }, "importPath": { "type": "string", "description": "The library name used to import it, like `@myorg/my-awesome-lib`." }, "component": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Generate a default component.", "default": true }, "js": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Generate JavaScript files rather than TypeScript files.", "default": false }, "globalCss": { "type": "boolean", "description": "When `true`, the stylesheet is generated using global CSS instead of CSS modules (e.g. file is `*.css` rather than `*.module.css`).", "default": false }, "strict": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Whether to enable tsconfig strict mode or not.", "default": true }, "setParserOptionsProject": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Whether or not to configure the ESLint `parserOptions.project` option. We do not do this by default for lint performance reasons.", "default": false }, "standaloneConfig": { "description": "Split the project configuration into `/project.json` rather than including it inside `workspace.json`.", "type": "boolean" }, "compiler": { "type": "string", "enum": ["babel", "swc"], "default": "swc", "description": "Which compiler to use." } }, "required": ["name", "type", "scope", "domain"] }
  • Add BootstrapVue to VuePress
    4 projects | dev.to | 25 Jan 2022
    Finally we need to load the bootstrap css. VuePress ships with stylus by default now, but we can still import css into our stylus file at .vuepress/styles/index.styl
  • Scss/Sass - Is this something I should try and learn before landing my first job, or is vanilla CSS enough?
    2 projects | /r/Frontend | 23 Jan 2022
    Uhh... yeah. But if you want to omit the braces and semicolons you can check this preprocessor https://stylus-lang.com You will enjoy the landing page, LoL. Maybe even get motivated.
  • State of the Web: Bundlers & Build Tools
    17 projects | dev.to | 23 Jan 2022
    Often, it is more efficient to use a language like Sass or Stylus instead of plain CSS. Or, perhaps you are trying to use TypeScript to enforce static typing in your code. Whatever the case, it is often better to use languages that the web does not natively support. Bundlers can help with this. Instead of running a bunch of different commands yourself to compile everything, you can often just add plugins to your bundler config file and run the bundler.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing PostCSS and stylus you can also consider the following projects:

styled-components - Visual primitives for the component age. Use the best bits of ES6 and CSS to style your apps without stress 💅

emotion - 👩‍🎤 CSS-in-JS library designed for high performance style composition

esbuild - An extremely fast bundler for the web

Tailwind CSS - A utility-first CSS framework for rapid UI development.

purgecss - Remove unused CSS

JSS - JSS is an authoring tool for CSS which uses JavaScript as a host language.

prettier - Prettier is an opinionated code formatter.

Sass - Sass makes CSS fun!

cssbundling-rails - Bundle and process CSS in Rails with Tailwind, PostCSS, and Sass via Node.js.

esbuild-loader - Webpack loader for esbuild: Speed up your build ⚡️

lit-element - LEGACY REPO. This repository is for maintenance of the legacy LitElement library. The LitElement base class is now part of the Lit library, which is developed in the lit monorepo.