Tailwind CSS VS CSS Modules

Compare Tailwind CSS VS CSS Modules and see what are their differences

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Tailwind CSS

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

CSS Modules

I’ve been intrigued by CSS Modules lately. If you haven't heard of them, this post is for you. We'll be looking at the project and it's goals and aims. If

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2023-05-13

Landing page //
2023-02-21

Tailwind CSS

Website: tailwindcss.com
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CSS Modules

Website: css-tricks.com
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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.

CSS Modules features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Tailwind CSS videos

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Why I Don't Like Tailwind CSS

CSS Modules videos

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Josh Johnston: At Least 6 Ways to Win with CSS Modules

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Tailwind CSS and CSS Modules)

CSS Modules

Developer Tools

99 99%

Developer Tools

1% 1

CSS Framework

96 96%

CSS Framework

4% 4

Design Tools

99 99%

Design Tools

1% 1

Web Frameworks

100 100%

Web Frameworks

0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Tailwind CSS and CSS Modules. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews

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

Tailwind CSS Reviews

pat0rick

over 1 year ago

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.

Source: www.wearedevelopers.com

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

CSS Modules Reviews

We have no reviews of CSS Modules yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Tailwind CSS seems to be a lot more popular than CSS Modules. While we know about 1013 links to Tailwind CSS, we've tracked only 12 mentions of CSS Modules. 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 (1013)

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 / 9 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 / 15 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 / 23 days 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 1 month ago
## Vibe Coding Adventures: Day 1 — HealthLens AI
By having the AI building the skeleton of the project, I learn few things. First, this tool is fantastic for building impressive frontend applications with clean, well-structured Tailwind CSS styling. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago

CSS Modules mentions (12)

On why I prefer not to use elm-css
..., CSS Modules, CSS-in-JS, and Tailwind when I'm not constrained to do so. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
Is there really no better way to isolate styles across components than CSS modules?
From what I read about CSS modules, the style isolation provides some guard rails to prevent things like random bits of global style or having colliding rules all over the place. This makes a lot of sense, but even on huge projects, I never really have those problems. I've disciplined myself to pair a component file with a CSS file (MyComponent.jsx + MyComponent.css) and keep global styles to a minimum. Source: about 2 years ago
Components with separate styles - how to do?
Any time you import CSS files into a module, that CSS becomes active on EVERY component in your entire project, so that's not really a good way to go about it. It essentially creates a tag inside the final rendered html with all of your CSS within it. If you have two CSS files, and they both have a class of .myClass then they will step on each other and cause bad things to happen to your... Source: over 2 years ago
Why do bigger websites have the weirdest class and id names?
They are probably using css modules. Source: over 2 years ago
No Caption..
This may be a little more advanced but I'd also recommend looking into CSS modules. It basically allows you to scope your styles to individual elements preventing unwanted cascading, and simplifies naming conventions a lot (since the class names are now variables). Source: over 2 years ago