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Purgecss VS cssnano

Compare Purgecss VS cssnano and see what are their differences

Purgecss logo Purgecss

Easily remove unused CSS

cssnano logo cssnano

A modular minifier, based on the PostCSS ecosystem. Created by @ben_eb.
  • Purgecss Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-28
  • cssnano Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-21

Purgecss features and specs

  • Reduced File Size
    PurgeCSS analyzes your CSS files and removes unused selectors, significantly reducing the size of your CSS files, leading to faster load times.
  • Performance Improvement
    By eliminating unnecessary CSS, PurgeCSS can improve the performance of your website, as there is less CSS for the browser to parse and execute.
  • Enhanced Maintainability
    With PurgeCSS, your CSS becomes cleaner and more manageable, making it easier for developers to maintain and update.
  • Integration
    PurgeCSS can be easily integrated into build tools like Webpack, Gulp, and Grunt, allowing seamless automation in the development workflow.
  • Customizability
    PurgeCSS offers configuration options that allow developers to specify content sources, safelisting of selectors, and more, making it highly customizable.

Possible disadvantages of Purgecss

  • Configuration Complexity
    Setting up PurgeCSS may require a detailed configuration to correctly identify which CSS selectors are in use, which can be complex for larger projects.
  • Potential Removal of Used Styles
    If not configured properly, PurgeCSS might accidentally remove dynamic classes generated by JavaScript or conditional rendering, affecting the functionality of the site.
  • Initial Setup Time
    The initial setup and integration process can be time-consuming, especially for projects with a large codebase or complex structure.
  • Limited Dynamic Content Handling
    PurgeCSS may struggle with highly dynamic sites where CSS classes are generated at runtime, requiring careful management or additional tools to ensure accuracy.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers may need to spend additional time learning how to effectively use PurgeCSS, especially if they are new to the tool or similar CSS management solutions.

cssnano features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Purgecss videos

How to use PurgeCSS to Remove Unused CSS Classes from Tailwind CSS, Bootstrap, and more!

More videos:

  • Review - Gatsby.js with Tailwind CSS and PurgeCSS

cssnano videos

No cssnano videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Purgecss and cssnano)
Developer Tools
89 89%
11% 11
CSS Framework
79 79%
21% 21
Design Tools
86 86%
14% 14
Development
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Purgecss should be more popular than cssnano. It has been mentiond 36 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.

Purgecss mentions (36)

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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 / 17 days 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

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Purgecss and cssnano, you can also consider the following products

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

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.

CSS Peeper - Smart CSS viewer tailored for Designers.

Sass - Syntatically Awesome Style Sheets

Unused CSS - Easily find and remove unused CSS rules

Prettier - An opinionated code formatter