vanilla-extract VS Tailwind CSS

Compare vanilla-extract vs Tailwind CSS and see what are their differences.

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vanilla-extract Tailwind CSS
90 1,280
9,262 78,370
1.3% 2.3%
8.9 9.4
7 days ago 1 day ago
TypeScript TypeScript
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.

vanilla-extract

Posts with mentions or reviews of vanilla-extract. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-04-22.
  • The best testing strategies for frontends
    8 projects | dev.to | 22 Apr 2024
    In our experience, the best testing strategy for modern frontends is a combination of E2E testing (using Playwright+NextJS), and unit testing. Visual regression testing is not worth the effort in our opinion, especially with the advent of better CSS tooling like TailwindCSS and Vanilla Extract.
  • Is there really anything better than Css Modules?
    2 projects | /r/Frontend | 7 Dec 2023
    For building component libraries I’ve been a big fan of vanilla extract. Apparently it’s from the same people who made css modules
  • Introducing StyleX - the styling system used by Meta
    1 project | /r/webdev | 6 Dec 2023
    This sounds exactly like Vanilla Extract. https://vanilla-extract.style/
  • An Overview of 25+ UI Component Libraries in 2023
    40 projects | dev.to | 10 Sep 2023
    KumaUI : Another relatively new contender, Kuma uses zero runtime CSS-in-JS to create headless UI components which allows a lot of flexibility. It was heavily inspired by other zero runtime CSS-in-JS solutions such as PandaCSS, Vanilla Extract, and Linaria, as well as by Styled System, ChakraUI, and Native Base. ### Vue
  • Creating a Component Library Fast🚀(using Vite's library mode)
    7 projects | dev.to | 11 Aug 2023
    The components are styled with CSS modules. When building the library, these styles will get transformed to normal CSS style sheets. This means that the consuming application will not even be required to support CSS modules. (In the future I want to extend this tutorial to use vanilla-extract instead.)
  • Tailwind CSS and the death of web craftsmanship
    8 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 2 Aug 2023
    I do a lot of UI work and have never understood the appeal of Tailwind. It’s like relearning a new language. Tailwind was released in 2017. Maybe the CSS landscape wasn’t as good back then? Modern CSS is pretty awesome.

    I’ve enjoyed using Vanilla Extract https://vanilla-extract.style/. It’s like css-in-js with none of the downsides as everything gets compiled to css.

  • PSA: Rust web frontend with Tailwind is easy!
    3 projects | /r/rust | 1 Jul 2023
    Nah, I used enough Tailwind to know it becomes a spaghetti mess. I stick with CSS now, and in React I use https://vanilla-extract.style, compile time CSS in TypeScript.
  • What's the best option these days for CSS in JS?
    10 projects | /r/reactjs | 18 Jun 2023
    Vanilla Extract is my current choice for the next greenfield project. I would also recommend checking out how and why this team integrated it with Tailwind.
  • Feeling lost on grokking large libraries
    2 projects | /r/node | 13 Jun 2023
    I'm not trying to call a particular org or library out, because I think the ones I've been digging through (and prompted me to write this) are very high quality. It's vanilla-extract (a build-time CSS-in-JS library) and Braid Design System (built on vanilla-extract).
  • Coming here from svelteland... is there a way to put CSS module inside JS?
    4 projects | /r/solidjs | 3 Jun 2023
    Apart from what has been suggested, there is also https://vanilla-extract.style/.

Tailwind CSS

Posts with mentions or reviews of Tailwind CSS. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-04-25.
  • Shared Data-Layer Setup For Micro Frontend Application with Nx Workspace
    4 projects | dev.to | 25 Apr 2024
    Tailwind CSS: A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom designs.
  • Preline UI + Gowebly CLI = ❤️
    2 projects | dev.to | 25 Apr 2024
    First, you need to make sure that you have a working Tailwind CSS project…
  • Customer service pages for e-commerce built with Tailwind CSS
    1 project | dev.to | 24 Apr 2024
    Tailwind CSS
  • The best testing strategies for frontends
    8 projects | dev.to | 22 Apr 2024
    With better CSS approaches like TailwindCSS and Vanilla Extract (which we're heavily using) it's much easier to maintain the UI and make sure it doesn't change unexpectedly. No more conflicting CSS classes, much less CSS specificity issues and much less CSS code in general.
  • ChatCrafters - Chat with AI powered personas
    3 projects | dev.to | 12 Apr 2024
    This app was built with Svelte Kit, Tailwind CSS, and many other technologies. For a full rundown, please visit the GitHub repository
  • Mojo CSS vs. Tailwind: Choosing the best CSS framework
    3 projects | dev.to | 9 Apr 2024
    Unlike Tailwind, which has over 77,000 stars on GitHub, Mojo CSS has about 200 stars on GitHub. But the Mojo CSS documentation is fairly good and you can find most of the information you’ll need there.
  • Collab Lab #66 Recap
    7 projects | dev.to | 7 Apr 2024
    JavaScript React Flowbite Tailwind Firebase - Auth, Database, and Hosting Vite
  • Show HN: Brutalisthackernews.com – A HN reader inspired by brutalist web design
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 6 Apr 2024
    - Performance is a feature.

    Another common interpretation of brutalism is aesthetic, reacting to overly complicated user interfaces by creating simpler, more direct ones. Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com), one of today's most popular CSS libraries, promotes this approach in its component examples. There's also a neat library I've seen recently called "Neobrutalism Components" for React that I like (https://neobrutalism-components.vercel.app), providing components with a similar look and feel to Gumroad. This might more accurately be called 'Neo-Brutalism,' as noted in the comments.

    A more engineering-centric interpretation of Brutalism focuses on form, structure, and efficiency, drawing significantly from brutalist architecture principles. Apart from the user interface itself, most mobile, desktop, and web applications are extremely bloated and often perform worse than sites from 10 years ago did. While one HTML file might be "less brutalist" than the original HN site, it is substantially more brutalist than any HN mobile app in existence, and offers nearly identical functionality.

    A broader interpretation of brutalism, which could be termed 'Meta-Brutalism,' is embodied in the overall experience on this site through UX flows. Yes, in the strictest sense, the original HN site is more Brutalist in many ways, but it only shows 30 articles at a time and does not function as a PWA. For this site, the experience of reading 10 stories is arguably less brutalist, but for quickly browsing through several pages and skimming articles (which is how I read HN) it is a lot faster, and in my opinion, more Brutalist.

    My primary inspiration was addressing software and tool bloat in UIs rather than strictly adhering to every principle set forth by David Bryant Copeland. I don't find it convincing that this site "isn't brutalist" compared to really any other experience apart from the Main HN site, and I would argue the overall experience is more brutalist in its performance and scrolling behavior.

    As a side note: I generally don't like Brutalist architecture that much although I believe it is unfairly maligned. I visited the Salk Institute once and enjoyed it though (https://www.archdaily.com/61288/ad-classics-salk-institute-l...).

  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2024)
    10 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 1 Apr 2024
    - Staff Software Engineer ($275k/yr): https://tailwindcss.com/careers/staff-software-engineer

    We're small, independent, and profitable, with a team of just 6 people doing millions in revenue, and growing sustainably every year. You'd work directly with the founders on open-source software used by millions of people.

    If you like the idea of working on a small team that cares about craft and isn't trying to achieve VC scale, I think this is a pretty awesome place to do your best work.

  • Deploy a Golang serverless function for a demo form with htmx
    3 projects | dev.to | 30 Mar 2024
    Instead of Booststrap, I used Tailwind CSS as the CSS library.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing vanilla-extract and Tailwind CSS you can also consider the following projects:

stitches - [Not Actively Maintained] CSS-in-JS with near-zero runtime, SSR, multi-variant support, and a best-in-class developer experience.

flowbite - Open-source UI component library and front-end development framework based on Tailwind CSS

panda - 🐼 Universal, Type-Safe, CSS-in-JS Framework for Product Teams ⚡️

antd - An enterprise-class UI design language and React UI library

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

unocss - The instant on-demand atomic CSS engine.

shadcn/ui - Beautifully designed components that you can copy and paste into your apps. Accessible. Customizable. Open Source.

windicss - Next generation utility-first CSS framework.

linaria - Zero-runtime CSS in JS library

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

Material UI - Ready-to-use foundational React components, free forever. It includes Material UI, which implements Google's Material Design.