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CSS Next VS styled-components

Compare CSS Next VS styled-components and see what are their differences

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Contents:
  1. » Base Details
  2. » Reviews
  3. » Alternatives

CSS Next logo CSS Next

Use tomorrow’s CSS syntax, today.

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.
  • CSS Next Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-02-22
  • styled-components Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27

CSS Next features and specs

  • Future CSS Features
    CSS Next allows developers to use the latest CSS syntax and features that may not yet be supported by all browsers, enabling progressive enhancement and future-proofing stylesheets.
  • Simplified Syntax
    By using future CSS features, developers can write more concise and expressive code, making stylesheets easier to read and maintain.
  • Polyfills and Transpilation
    CSS Next automatically provides polyfills and transpiles CSS so that the latest features can be used even in environments that do not yet support them natively.
  • Improved Workflow
    With CSS Next, developers can directly utilize tools that help improve styling workflows, such as variables, custom selectors, and media queries, more conveniently.

Possible disadvantages of CSS Next

  • Dependency on Tooling
    CSS Next requires a build process for transpilation, which adds complexity and dependencies to project setup and maintenance.
  • Potential Performance Overhead
    The polyfills and transpilation process can introduce a performance overhead during development and build times, affecting the speed of initial setup.
  • Limited Support for Older Browsers
    While CSS Next helps bring future features to more browsers, it might not fully support significantly older browsers, necessitating additional fallbacks or workarounds.
  • Project Activity and Maintenance
    Due to changes in the web development landscape and focus shifts, CSS Next might not be actively maintained, potentially leading developers to use alternatives like PostCSS or native CSS features as they become available.

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.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to CSS Next and styled-components)

CSS Next

styled-components

Developer Tools
12 12%
Developer Tools
88% 88
CSS Framework
30 30%
CSS Framework
70% 70
Design Tools
12 12%
Design Tools
88% 88
Javascript UI Libraries
0 0%
Javascript UI Libraries
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using CSS Next 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 seems to be a lot more popular than CSS Next. While we know about 169 links to styled-components, we've tracked only 2 mentions of CSS Next. 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.

CSS Next mentions (2)

  • PostCSS - my initial experience
    The author of the most popular PostCSS plugin himself recommended the postcss-preset-env over his own creation which is cssnex, and. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Vanilla+PostCSS as an Alternative to SCSS
    Switching from a ready-made tool like Sass or a recommendation package like cssnext (deprecated since 2019) or PostCSS Preset Env (archived in 2022), to the modular PostCSS Preset Env plugin set we can choose a helpful and convenient set of future CSS features beyond the current stable client CSS. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago

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 / 26 days 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 / 27 days 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 / 3 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 / 3 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

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

PostCSS - Increase code readability. Add vendor prefixes to CSS rules using values from Can I Use. Autoprefixer will use the data based on current browser popularity and property support to apply prefixes for you.

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

Stylecow - CSS processor to fix your css code and make it compatible with all browsers

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.

Sass - Syntatically Awesome Style Sheets

Less - Less extends CSS with dynamic behavior such as variables, mixins, operations and functions. Less runs on both the server-side (with Node. js and Rhino) or client-side (modern browsers only).

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