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cssnano VS Autoprefixer

Compare cssnano VS Autoprefixer and see what are their differences

cssnano logo cssnano

A modular minifier, based on the PostCSS ecosystem. Created by @ben_eb.

Autoprefixer logo Autoprefixer

autoprefixer - Parse CSS and add vendor prefixes to rules by Can I Use
  • cssnano Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-21
  • Autoprefixer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-01

cssnano features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Autoprefixer features and specs

  • Automated CSS Vendor Prefixing
    Autoprefixer automatically adds vendor prefixes to CSS rules, ensuring compatibility with different browsers without manually writing prefixes.
  • Keep Up with Browser Updates
    Autoprefixer stays updated with the latest information about browser support, allowing developers to focus on writing standard CSS and not worry about changing requirements.
  • Configurable Browsing Target
    Developers can specify the target browsers and versions, making it possible to control the level of backward compatibility needed for a project.
  • Integrates with Build Tools
    It integrates smoothly with various build tools and task runners like webpack, Gulp, and Grunt, streamlining the development workflow.
  • Reduces File Size
    Autoprefixer only applies necessary prefixes based on specified browser support, which can help keep the CSS footprint small compared to manually adding excess prefixes.

Possible disadvantages of Autoprefixer

  • Potential Overhead
    There might be an initial setup time to properly configure Autoprefixer with the desired build tools and browser targets.
  • Dependence on Tools
    Using Autoprefixer requires integration into a build process or toolchain, which might not suit smaller projects or those without a build process.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers who are new to post-processing tools, understanding and correctly applying tool configurations might take some learning time.
  • Not a Silver Bullet
    While Autoprefixer handles vendor prefixing, it doesn't correct other CSS-related issues, which might still require manual adjustments and cross-browser testing.

cssnano videos

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Autoprefixer videos

Stop Worrying about Vendor Prefixes with Autoprefixer | XI to Eye vol 8

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to cssnano and Autoprefixer)
CSS Framework
21 21%
79% 79
Developer Tools
33 33%
67% 67
Development Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Design Tools
29 29%
71% 71

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Autoprefixer should be more popular than cssnano. It has been mentiond 22 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.

cssnano mentions (5)

  • How to Optimize CSS for Faster Page Load Speed
    This approach improves your [Core Web Vitals](https://web.dev/vitals/)—specifically Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). --- ### 3. Minify Your CSS Minifying your CSS removes unnecessary whitespace, comments, and redundant code. Use tools like: - [cssnano](https://cssnano.co/) - [CleanCSS](https://www.cleancss.com/css-minify/). - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Maximize Web Performance with CSS Optimization Techniques
    Minifying your CSS involves removing unnecessary whitespace, comments, and reducing property names. This results in smaller file sizes and faster downloads. Use tools like UglifyCSS and CSSNano for this purpose. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Classic Themes with Block Patterns in WordPress
    For the sake of simplicity, my example setup uses a single-file plugin and puts all styles directly into a single style.css file without using further theme.css or theme.json files, which we might want to use depending on the requirements for customizability. Likewise, SASS / SCSS support can be added if it makes life easier for the developer(s) involved. But as we already use PostCSS to control autoprefixing and... - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • How to auto-prefix and minify CSS?
    The cssnano plugin can minify/compress CSS and make it suitable for production use. Install cssnano plugin using this command:. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • CSS: is there any tool our there that cleans up your css file?
    I'd look through the available postcss plugins. Many of them will do what you are looking for, or at least parts of what you are looking for. For example CSSNANO is a css minifier. Source: almost 4 years ago

Autoprefixer mentions (22)

  • Exploring Tailwind Oxide
    Unlike other frameworks, you can’t just npm install and write code. Take one look at the Tailwind CSS installation page and before you even begin, you need to decide if you want to install it with the CLI or as a PostCSS plugin. Wait, you know CSS, but what is PostCSS? Then, you keep reading and you see something about CSS preprocessor and you might wonder what that is too. Then, you see that you not only have to... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Native CSS nesting now supported by all major browsers!
    Mixins - This allows you to reuse a set of rules inside another rule. I never really found a good use case for mixins. They were available to me when I was still using Bootstrap with LESS, but using them seemed a little complex, because you always need to look up what they do and the resulting CSS output is not always clear. If you're thinking of using them for browser prefixes (e.g. -webkit-transform), I would... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • 23 of the best Eleventy Themes (Starters) for 2023
    Simple, fast, and a little bit opinionated, Eleventy Plus Vite features Eleventy 2.0.0-canary, the new Eleventy 2.0 Dev Server with live reload, Vite 3.0 as Middleware in Eleventy Dev Server (using eleventy-plugin-vite), build output post-processing by Vite (with Rollup), CSS/Sass post-processing with PostCSS including Autoprefixer and cssnano, a custom CSS/Sass structure, basic fluid typography based on Utopia,... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • The Complete Guide for Setting Up React App from Scratch (feat. TypeScript)
    w/ postcss-preset-env(v7.8.3): convert modern CSS into something most browsers can understand, determining the polyfills you need based on your targeted browsers or runtime environments. It takes the support data that comes from MDN and Can I Use and determine from a browserlist whether those transformations are needed. It also packs Autoprefixer within and shares the list with it, so prefixes are only applied... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • How do I deal with CSS for Safari?
    As others have said, you need to normalize. Also, you may need something like autoprefixer if you're using styles that have different vendor prefixes. https://github.com/postcss/autoprefixer. Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing cssnano and Autoprefixer, 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.

Purgecss - Easily remove unused CSS

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).

Prettier - An opinionated code formatter

Bourbon - Bourbon - A simple and lightweight mixin library for Sass / CSS.