Is TailwindCSS superior to other frameworks?
I absolutely adore TailwindCSS. And its wonderful VSCode plugin. Anyone else feel the same way?
I've been developing my most recent project with Tailwind on React.js, with extra focus on improving my front end skillset.
I was always a back end developer that dabbled with front end. One thing I always hated about front end dev was having to manage this extra layer of code - the CSS. It was just so uninteresting to me.
Tailwind just completely changes the game for me. I don't think I could ever go back to normal CSS or SASS ever again. Anyone else feel the same way?
What are some of the negatives you've experienced with it?
I think I can see one downside in that some have claimed it can be a bit write only and may get away from the class/inheritance type model CSS was modeled to provide.. but paired with VSCode, the development experience just feels like pure joy.
I've played around with Tailwind and yet always found it more cumbersome than Bootstrap, simply because it's new. I know Bootstrap gets a lot of hate around here, but I've always thought it gets the job done, and it's more customizable then people say. Tailwind CSS may be the flavor of the day, and it's great that it lets you write CSS in-line, but I'm slow to adopting it. I don't feel like I'm missing out either.
I've found customizing Bootstrap pretty easy. Just make sure to use !important.
I'm also a backend developer and to me I find Tailwind too "low level" - you really do need a good understanding of modern CSS to use it. My personal preference is Bulma which lets me get something up and running pretty quickly, with only a basic knowledge of CSS.
This is true! There are plenty of kits and frameworks atop of tailwind that do the work for you. Letting you dive in and tune it up later if you want to learn css and browser styling, while giving a smoother start.
I don't like Tailwind personally. I like CSS because I learned it and have been using it for years and I am fast with it, and it is way more powerful than Tailwind once you learn it well. I would much rather use a CSS based framework that doesn't leave solid principles behind like the way Tailwind couples styling tightly with HTML.
The time to learn it is big, many folks like myself can put some time into learning, but not a huge amount of time and then once you learn it, you are locked into the "tailwind way" of thinking which makes it hard to switch back-and-forth between mindsets when working with non-tailwind projects. Upgrading legacy apps to use Tailwind I found to be almost impossible and incredibly frustrating, and in the future, when the next greatest framework comes out, I would imagine it would be next to impossible to move on from Tailwind. I also found myself looking for some missing components that Tailwind didn't have, maybe this changed lately, but its a pain when the component isn't there, then you have to build it yourself, while learning HOW to build it in the process, frustrating!
I also found some documentation for more complicated use-cases missing, which adds much more time to figure out, where as with CSS, I can just use a few classes. Also, its one more thing/tool to learn in an ocean of tools that I feel is not necessary; why not just learn CSS a bit better? this will not make it into any of my projects yet, maybe in the future if those things change or it may go the way of coffee-script (another tool I hated and refused to use, why not just learn JavaScript?).
Side note: Laravel now comes with Tailwind by default, which I disagree with, the first thing I do is rip it out of my projects.
To answer your question "why not just learn CSS a bit better?" because CSS is a horrific, nightmarish clusterfuck. I quit a job at a startup once, and a big reason was that I was demoralized from writing thousands and thousands of lines of CSS.
I guess it is entirely subjective & dependent on the developer, I have been a developer for over 15 years, from small businesses to the biggest fortune 500 enterprise applications (with millions of lines of code) and I have never had to write thousands of lines of CSS, so maybe you're approach/structure should have been different; like I said, CSS and how to use it effectively should be understood first , before moving to a tool that does it for you, so you understand "what" and "why" you need to use it or not use it. Tailwind does not give me a need to use it.
I do like Tailwind. At times I think it can be a little bit un DRY, but the two main advantages for me are:
I think in the end it's a great solution as long as you are prepared to sometimes just create a component to reuse (eg buttons.)
I also use TailwindUI which apart from being a great source of ideas / solutions is also a nice way to learn Tailwind.
Well it's more a personal preference than being superior I think. Tailwind somehow did not grow on me - I prefer Bulma for simplicity, and classes seems very easy to remember. Slightly larger, but still small and flexible enough for my works.
TailwindCSS is a great solution to custom design work. Material UI is a great solution for making clean and quick dashboards. They’re solutions to different problems.
Not every team has developers than can work with TailwindCSS at scale like Material UI at scale—maintaining quality can be difficult and new technology takes time to learn.
That said, I really enjoy creating my own custom designs with TailwindCSS for personal projects.
The answer to what is the superior framework is not the same as what framework best fits this project or this team.
Completely agree with your points.
I'm using it for personal projects and will bring it into teams when it makes sense and time is available.
Love it too!
Code is better than CSS at applying a propagating style.
By leaving it to code I can use css classes, React components, static strings, builder classes or whatever. I can use the most appropriate tool.
With pure CSS it is a mismatch to component based coding and it is not programmable (well it is a tiny bit but not much). So you end up with SCSS etc. but that is still hell.
Tailwind is wonderful to use. I have not had as much joy styling pages with any other system. I am a late starter and was sceptical for years.
Tailwind brought utility-first CSS frameworks in common usages, It's like
"CSS for people that hate CSS", and I'm in love with this approach.
I agree with you, I could not go back to normal CSS ever again.
Thought, tailwind is not the only framework. I still use it because of tailwindui components, but I should deep into https://github.com/unocss/unocss, which have a different approach, is even faster than tailwind JIT and is fully customizable (so you can also use tailwind classes).
I love Tailwind! Cleaner than style, but still gives me the flexibility I need.
You do need to master flexboxes and grids to be really effective with layouts in Tailwind.
Flexboxes are just wonderful. Take 2 hours to do a tutorial it is worth it!
Legit hated the idea of Tailwind CSS - AT FIRST.
I was skeptical since SASS + Components seemed like the end game for styling.
I've built up this habit of trying software I have negative opinions about to prove myself right or wrong.
I recently gave it a shot and even built a cheatsheet in public
My view has completely changed and I highly recommend it to developers now.
There is a decent learning curve but it's smooth sailing after that.
I felt the exact same way when I first started learning it.
One of the things that I love is how easy it is to get something very nice looking up and running very quickly on mobile.
The design just sort of falls together and if you follow their guidelines regarding responsive design (design for mobile first, use breakpoints for desktop) then it's just such a smooth experience.
Designing for mobile first has been an interesting trend that I've picked up.
I took this idea to the extreme when building my personal site page which is literally a 'mobile only' website with minor background tweaks for desktop.
Asking anyone online who knows is TailwindCSS superior is like asking is pizza superior to dough.
Bro. It's the best thing since... Pizza!
I feel like an artist painting a picture from my head when I'm building out front end design with Tailwind!
"Electric cars are the best car" it makes no sense.
"Tailwind is the superior way to handle CSS" then you would compare it to CSS, SASS, CSS in JS etc which is correct.
Bootstrap v6 will be a Tailwind framework (or Tailwind like).
Hey there,
It seems my post title may have been edited by a moderator to be a little more controversial.
My original title was just "TailwindCSS" as I wanted to see if other developers really enjoyed the Tailwind experience, and wanted to see what were some potential pitfalls from others who may have used it. That's really all I wanted out of this post.
I'm not sure why they changed the title, it really paints my post in a much different light than I intended, and I'm not sure how I feel about that
TailwindCSS is the best CSS framework in POV because I don't need to care a lot about design, colors, or shadows, ... everything is chosen perfectly + with a huge variation.
besides that after v3 and announcing JIT(Just in Time) it is just amazing.
but the downside: if you want to create custom designs or complex layouts, you will need to go back to CSS.
Not if you leverage JIT.
You should use a tool depending on what you are building...not depending on what others like.