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BEM VS styled-components

Compare BEM VS styled-components and see what are their differences

BEM logo BEM

BEM — Block Element Modifier is a methodology, that helps you to achieve reusable components and code sharing in the front-end.

styled-components logo styled-components

styled-components is a visual primitive for the component age that also helps the user to use the ES6 and CSS to style apps.
  • BEM Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-21
  • styled-components Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27

BEM features and specs

  • Consistency
    BEM enforces a structured way of naming and organizing CSS classes, which promotes consistency across the codebase.
  • Scalability
    The methodology is designed to handle large and complex projects by keeping styles modular and reusable, which helps in maintaining scalability.
  • Maintainability
    By using a clear naming convention, BEM makes it easier for developers to understand and maintain code, even if they weren't the original authors.
  • Flexibility
    BEM allows for flexible and modular component development, making modifications easier without affecting unrelated parts of the codebase.

Possible disadvantages of BEM

  • Verbose Naming
    The class names in BEM can become quite long and verbose, which might make the HTML markup harder to read.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers unfamiliar with BEM may need some time to adapt to its conventions and understand the methodology well.
  • No Enforced Hierarchy
    BEM does not inherently enforce any specific hierarchy or structure among elements, which might lead to inconsistencies if not carefully managed.
  • Increased Initial Setup
    Implementing BEM from scratch can involve significant upfront planning and setup, which might be seen as an overhead for smaller projects.

styled-components features and specs

  • Component-Scoped Styling
    Styles are encapsulated within components, ensuring that styles do not leak or conflict with other parts of the application.
  • Dynamic Styling
    Enables dynamic styling with the help of JavaScript variables and props, allowing for highly customizable components.
  • CSS Syntax
    Allows developers to write actual CSS code within JavaScript, making it easier for those familiar with CSS to adapt.
  • Automatic Vendor Prefixing
    Automatically adds vendor prefixes to CSS properties, ensuring cross-browser compatibility without additional configuration.
  • Theming Support
    Provides a built-in theming solution, making it easier to implement and switch between different themes in the application.
  • Server-Side Rendering
    Supports server-side rendering, improving initial page load times and SEO.

Possible disadvantages of styled-components

  • Bundle Size
    Styled-components can add to the overall bundle size, potentially affecting performance, especially in large projects.
  • Learning Curve
    Requires developers to learn the styled-components library and its API, which can be a hurdle for new team members or those unfamiliar with CSS-in-JS.
  • Performance Overhead
    The runtime cost of parsing and injecting styles can impact performance, particularly in larger applications or with frequent style changes.
  • Tooling and Ecosystem
    While improving, the ecosystem around styled-components (e.g., linting, debugging) is not as mature as traditional CSS or CSS preprocessor tools.
  • CSS-in-JS Limitations
    Some CSS features, like advanced selectors or cascading, may be more cumbersome or less intuitive to implement compared to traditional CSS approaches.

Analysis of styled-components

Overall verdict

  • Styled-components is considered a good choice for many React projects, especially for large applications where modularity and maintainability of styles are important. It has a strong community, extensive documentation, and is widely adopted in the industry.

Why this product is good

  • Styled-components is a popular library for styling React applications. It allows developers to write CSS-in-JS, which means that styles are written in JavaScript and scoped to individual components. This approach offers several benefits, such as easier style management, dynamic styling capabilities, and the ability to leverage JavaScript's full power for styles. Styled-components also supports theming, making it easier to develop consistent design systems.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking to implement a consistent design system with theming capabilities
  • Large-scale React applications where component-based styling is essential
  • Projects that require dynamic styling based on props or state
  • Teams familiar with or willing to adopt a CSS-in-JS approach

BEM videos

BEM REVIEW! is Bem worth watching?

More videos:

  • Review - BEM - First Impressions
  • Review - Bem Episode 1 Discussion/ Review BEM HAS THE MUSIC!!!!!

styled-components videos

No styled-components videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to BEM and styled-components)
Developer Tools
22 22%
78% 78
Design Tools
25 25%
75% 75
CSS Framework
40 40%
60% 60
Javascript UI Libraries
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using BEM and styled-components. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, styled-components should be more popular than BEM. It has been mentiond 169 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

BEM mentions (46)

  • :where() :is() my mind?
    BEM encourages a flat structure with minimal nesting and specificity, making styles easier to read and maintain. It significantly reduces the risk of unintended style overrides and enhances modularity. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • SASS, CSS, or Tailwind: Which One Should You Choose?
    Keep in mind you also have to use BEM. If you use just SASS, there are little to no advantages compared with CSS. I am going to cover BEM in a separate article, but for your understanding, BEM is a methodology for writing good CSS. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Darling, I converted our perfectly fine SPA application into SSR: Part 2
    Most of our headaches stemmed from styled-components. Despite the merits of this CSS-in-JS library, it doesn’t mesh as seamlessly with server components. Traditional CSS methodologies, such as BEM (Block, Element, Modifier), CSS modules, or even utility-first frameworks like Tailwind, would have alleviated many of our difficulties. This lesson is a key takeaway that we plan to carry forward into our future projects. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Earth rescue - A CSS only game
    After I had created space, the code was as spaghetti as it can get. I decided to switch to SCSS and finally read into the BEM Pattern for CSS and after wasting another 4 hours, I decided that I could not decide wether the HUD is an element of the game and the button is an element of the HUD and the text is an element of the button and someone else also thought about this and called it the BEM grandchildren... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Upgrading and Refactoring a Slightly Outdated Web Project
    There are some conceptual requirements to clean code that I always found hard to achieve in a traditional web project, but that's one more reason to use tools like static site generators and follow design patterns like Atomic Design, (A)BEM CSS, and a modular file structure. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
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styled-components mentions (169)

  • 11 Interview Questions You Should Know as a React Native Developer in 2025 📈🚀
    Using the same CSS-in-JS approach as React, you can use libraries like Styled Components to style your components. This allows you to write CSS directly in your JavaScript files (personally not a fan of using these). - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • CSS-in-JS: Pros and cons
    The 2016 release of styled-components popularized the approach, offering a clean syntax and React integration. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Woovi monorepos best practices
    This detail implies if any dependencies can be resolved correctly and if not have a version conflict. As the example we have the styled-components lib, it can have a problem with type Symbol reference where the library doesn´t find your properties of themes because, in your internal code, it uses the symbolObject which is a unique object that refers your set configs. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Top 20 Modern React Libraries To Supercharge Your Next Big Project
    Resource: Styled Components Documentation. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How to Use Styled-Components for Elegant React UI Design
    Styled-Components is a library that allows you to write CSS directly within your JavaScript files (CSS-in-JS), ensuring that your styles are scoped to individual components. Rather than managing separate CSS files, you define your styles alongside your component logic. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing BEM and styled-components, you can also consider the following products

Sass - Syntatically Awesome Style Sheets

Tailwind CSS - A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom user interfaces.

Ant Design - An enterprise-class UI design language and React implementation with a set of high-quality React components, one of best React UI library for enterprises

stylelint - stylelint is a modern CSS linter

Storybook - Storybook is an open source tool for developing UI components in isolation for React, Vue, and Angular. It makes building stunning UIs organized and efficient.

Bootstrap - Simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and JS for popular UI components and interactions