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Tailwind CSS VS Atlassian Design

Compare Tailwind CSS VS Atlassian Design and see what are their differences

Tailwind CSS logo Tailwind CSS

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

Atlassian Design logo Atlassian Design

Design, develop, and deliver
  • Tailwind CSS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-13
  • Atlassian Design Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-22

Tailwind CSS features and specs

  • Utility-First Approach
    Tailwind CSS uses a utility-first approach, promoting the use of small, reusable utility classes to style elements directly in your markup. This can lead to more readable and maintainable HTML.
  • Customization
    The framework is highly customizable. You can easily configure its default theme, add your extensions, and create custom utilities. Tailwind’s config file allows for deep customization of all aspects of the framework.
  • Consistent Design
    Using utility classes ensures design consistency because the same classes will apply the same styles globally.
  • Responsive Design
    Tailwind CSS has excellent built-in support for responsive design. You can easily apply different styles for different screen sizes using responsive utility variants.
  • Performance
    Tailwind purges unused CSS in production, resulting in smaller final output files and improved performance.
  • Integrates Well with Frameworks
    Tailwind CSS integrates smoothly with modern JavaScript frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular.
  • JIT Compiler
    The Just-in-Time (JIT) mode in Tailwind CSS generates styles on-demand, reducing the development build sizes and speeding up the development process.

Possible disadvantages of Tailwind CSS

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For developers coming from traditional CSS or other CSS frameworks, getting used to Tailwind's utility-first approach may take some time.
  • HTML Congestion
    Due to the utility-first approach, HTML files can get filled with numerous utility classes, making it look cluttered and harder to read.
  • Initial Setup
    Setting up Tailwind CSS initially can be complex, especially for beginners. Configuration settings and integrations with build tools can be confusing.
  • Verbosity
    Some developers find the inline utility classes verbose, particularly when complex styles are required, which can lead to bloated template files.
  • Limited Abstractions
    Tailwind doesn't provide higher-level abstractions such as components out of the box, like other frameworks (e.g., Bootstrap) do. Developers need to build and maintain these abstractions themselves.
  • Dependency Tailoring
    While Tailwind aims to be minimalistic, it may enforce some dependencies or build tool integrations that could be unnecessary for very simple projects.

Atlassian Design features and specs

  • Comprehensive Design System
    Atlassian Design provides a complete and consistent design system for building applications, which helps ensure user interfaces are coherent and professional.
  • Access to Components
    It offers a wide range of pre-built UI components that can be easily integrated into projects, saving time in the development process.
  • Documentation
    Extensive and detailed documentation is available, which helps developers and designers understand how to use the system effectively.
  • Consistency
    Ensures that all components and patterns follow the same design principles, resulting in a more consistent user experience across different products.
  • Community Support
    Being a part of the broader Atlassian community means that there is a wealth of shared knowledge and resources available to help solve common problems.

Possible disadvantages of Atlassian Design

  • Learning Curve
    For new users, especially those not familiar with Atlassian products, the system can have a steep learning curve.
  • Customization Limitations
    While it provides many components, customization options might be limited for more unique or advanced use cases.
  • Dependency
    Relying heavily on Atlassian's design system means that changes or updates from Atlassian can impact your products, necessitating continuous adaptation.
  • Performance
    Using a large number of pre-built components might affect the performance of your application, especially if all components are not optimized for your specific use case.
  • Integration Complexity
    Integrating Atlassian Design with other systems or legacy codebases may require additional effort and potentially complex workarounds.

Tailwind CSS videos

Why I Don't Like Tailwind CSS

More videos:

  • Review - Vanilla CSS vs Bootstrap vs Tailwind CSS - Which one should you choose?
  • Review - Get Started with Tailwind CSS in 15 Minutes

Atlassian Design videos

5 things our users want from the Atlassian Design System

More videos:

  • Review - Atlassian Design Week 2017

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Tailwind CSS and Atlassian Design)
Developer Tools
99 99%
1% 1
Design Tools
94 94%
6% 6
Color Palette Generator
0 0%
100% 100
CSS Framework
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Tailwind CSS and Atlassian Design

Tailwind CSS Reviews

  1. Awesome framework

    I use it in all my current projects. It's easy to start and very customisable. Love it so much! I improved the speed of development 2x times by using Tailwind.


22 Best Bootstrap Alternatives & What Each Is Best For
Tailwind CSS comes with features such as responsive design, customizability, hover, focus, and active states out of the box. These enable developers to build sophisticated, interactive interfaces with ease. When it comes to integrations, Tailwind CSS can be integrated with popular front-end frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular, enhancing its utility across different...
Source: thectoclub.com
15 Top Bootstrap Alternatives For Frontend Developers in 2024
If you want to learn the valuable skill of Tailwind CSS, we highly recommend taking the "Tailwind CSS From Scratch" course by Brad Traversy on Udemy. In this introductory course, you will build great-looking layouts quickly and efficiently using Tailwind CSS utility classes.
Source: coursesity.com
10 Best Free React UI Libraries in 2023
TailwindCSS is a utility-first CSS framework designed to build modern and beautiful websites in no time. Here, utility class names define what to do. Each utility class comes with pre-defined CSS properties.
11 Best Material UI Alternatives
Tailwind CSS promotes a modular approach to styling, where devs can combine classes to create unique and responsive designs. It offers utilities for layout, typography, colors, spacing, and more, allowing developers to create consistent and visually appealing interfaces with minimal effort.
Source: www.uxpin.com
Top 10 Best CSS Frameworks for Front-End Developers in 2022
Tailwind enables faster development of the front-end. Instead of a default theme or built-in UI components, you’d get pre-designed widget menus and utility classes to build your website. Tailwind has modular components, and if you make changes in one place, other parts of your code won’t get impacted. Tailwind requires the least amount of learning and is easy to use. You can...
Source: hackr.io

Atlassian Design Reviews

We have no reviews of Atlassian Design yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Tailwind CSS seems to be a lot more popular than Atlassian Design. While we know about 1014 links to Tailwind CSS, we've tracked only 12 mentions of Atlassian Design. 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.

Tailwind CSS mentions (1014)

  • SonicScan - A Music Fingerprinting and Identification App
    Then I learned Tauri and used my favourite frontend framework SolidJS with TailwindCSS and DaisyUI to build the UI with MotionOne to add animations and Tauri to build the desktop/web/android/ios app. - Source: dev.to / about 22 hours ago
  • Top 5 Free React UI Libraries to Use in 2025
    Shadcn/ui contains a set of beautifully designed and accessible components, and it works seamlessly with major React frameworks. It’s open-source and has amassed 85.5k (and counting) GitHub stars. It’s built on the shoulders of giants — Radix UI and Tailwind CSS, making it one of the best to work with. Unlike many other UI libraries, the components are not just installed as npm modules, they’re downloaded into... - Source: dev.to / 22 days ago
  • Tailwind vs Linaria: Performance Investigation
    We're going to investigate the difference in performance between Tailwind and Linaria. Tailwind, you already know. And Linaria has been getting quite a lot of traction since styled components went into maintenance mode recently. We'll cover why Linaria is a good choice for this comparison a bit further. - Source: dev.to / 28 days ago
  • How to Integrate Tailwind with 11ty – With Code Examples
    It is a well-known fact that Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework. It lets you style elements directly within your HTML, thanks to pre-defined classes. Unlike other CSS frameworks that offer pre-built components, Tailwind offers these low-level utility classes that let you create your own design system. Thus, this makes crafting unique responsive designs effortless as there is not much to do with custom CSS. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • 🎨 Smooth UI Transitions in HTML with Grains.js, TailwindCSS and g-class directive
    Note: It's best to utilize TailwindCSS to use ready-made styles via their classes. g-class directive has nothing to do with TailwindCSS, however. It only switches class names based on state. After that, you can use whatever you want. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
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Atlassian Design mentions (12)

  • Top 5 Drag-and-Drop Libraries for React
    As the official evolution of react-beautiful-dnd, this library also comes with extensible accessibility features right out of the box. The default assistive controls are based on the Atlassian Design System, so if you’re already using that, integration will be seamless. But if you aren’t, you can easily replace those components with your own, or completely redefine how accessibility is provided and take a more... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Getting Started with Color Module for Your Design System
    Atlassian Design System: Atlassian's Design System encompasses a color module encompassing primary, secondary, and functional colors, along with an extended palette for shades and tints. The system provides comprehensive guidelines for effective color usage and emphasizes accessibility. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Making a UI Kit. Is there a good checklist for Must Have elements?
    Atlassian design system: https://atlassian.design/. Source: about 2 years ago
  • What's the best way to encapsulate a feature to make it reusable?
    Regarding discoverability, you could build a directory with documentation. Similarly to how design systems are documented, e.g: https://atlassian.design/ But if you really want to share them you'll probably need to evangelize it somehow. Source: about 2 years ago
  • UI Design Roadmap 2023
    Step 5: Study design system Atlassian design system Primer design system Spectrum, Adobe’s design system Carbon design system. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Tailwind CSS and Atlassian Design, you can also consider the following products

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

Design Principles - An open source repository of design principles and methods

Bulma - Bulma is an open source CSS framework based on Flexbox and built with Sass. It's 100% responsive, fully modular, and available for free.

Colorbox.io - Create accessible color systems 🎨

React - A JavaScript library for building user interfaces

Facebook Design - Resources for Designers from the Facebook Design team