Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Tailwind CSS VS DaisyUI

Compare Tailwind CSS VS DaisyUI and see what are their differences

Tailwind CSS logo Tailwind CSS

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

DaisyUI logo DaisyUI

Free UI components plugin for Tailwind CSS
  • Tailwind CSS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-13
  • DaisyUI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-27

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.

DaisyUI features and specs

  • Customizability
    DaisyUI allows for deep customization with support for custom themes and component variations, enabling developers to adapt the UI to specific project needs.
  • Ease of Use
    DaisyUI is designed to be user-friendly with intuitive class names and accessible components, reducing the learning curve for new users.
  • TailwindCSS Integration
    Built on top of TailwindCSS, DaisyUI provides the utility-first approach of Tailwind with additional pre-styled components, offering the best of both worlds.
  • Consistent Design
    It offers a consistent design language with a comprehensive collection of UI components, ensuring a cohesive look and feel across a project.
  • Active Development
    The project is actively maintained, with frequent updates and new features being added, ensuring ongoing improvements and stability.

Possible disadvantages of DaisyUI

  • Dependency on TailwindCSS
    Since DaisyUI is an extension of TailwindCSS, projects need to include and configure TailwindCSS, which may add complexity for those unfamiliar with Tailwind.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its ease of use, there might be an initial learning curve for developers who are not already familiar with utility-first CSS frameworks like TailwindCSS.
  • Opinionated Design
    DaisyUI comes with its own set of design opinions and styles which might not align with every project's requirements, potentially requiring additional customization.
  • Limited Community
    While growing, the community around DaisyUI is smaller compared to more established UI libraries, which may result in less available support and fewer third-party resources.
  • Performance Overhead
    Adding another layer on top of TailwindCSS might introduce additional performance overhead, especially in large-scale applications with numerous components.

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

DaisyUI videos

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

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Tailwind CSS and DaisyUI)
Developer Tools
88 88%
12% 12
Design Tools
78 78%
22% 22
CSS Framework
100 100%
0% 0
User Experience
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Tailwind CSS and DaisyUI. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

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

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

DaisyUI Reviews

Tailwind CSS: 15 Component Libraries & UI Kits
This is quite an interesting addition to this list. You'll first notice that daisyUI uses a custom - simpler - syntax for its components. In fact, whereas you'd need to write several utilities to style a button with raw Tailwind - daisyUI does it with a single "btn" tag.
Source: stackdiary.com
22 Best Sites for Free Tailwind Components
DaisyUI adds all standard UI components to Tailwind CSS, including buttons, cards, and more. By doing so, we can focus on the most critical aspects of each project rather than creating essential elements for them all. You can customize everything in DaisyUI using Tailwind CSS utility classes because Tailwind components have low CSS specificities.
How to Choose a Tailwind Component Library (Plus the Top 6 Options)
With 48 components, over 15,000 GitHub Stars, and over 2 million NPM installs, daisyUI is one of the more popular inclusions in this list. Designed to be used as a plugin with TailwindCSS, daisyUI adds multiple utility classes for you to use in place of the original TailwindCSS ones. For example, now you can use the btn class to get a button with the classes inline-block...
Source: prismic.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Tailwind CSS should be more popular than DaisyUI. It has been mentiond 1017 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.

Tailwind CSS mentions (1017)

  • Selfish reasons for building accessible UIs
    > When I’m trying to debug a web app, it’s hard to orient myself in the DevTools if the entire UI is “div soup” That’s tame. Try adding some Tailwind CSS. After monitoring Tailwind CSS since its early days, and believing I had some pretty serious philosophical disagreements with it, I recently took an opportunity to try it out in earnest, and it is so mindbogglingly obnoxious in dev tools that... - Source: Hacker News / 1 day ago
  • MailPlanet🌍: Visualize email origins on a global map
    Styling: Tailwind CSS (Assumed, common with Next.js). - Source: dev.to / 10 days ago
  • How to add markdown to a Next.js project
    This article assumes the reader is a developer that knows their way around Markdown, TypeScript, React.js, and [Next.js] https://nextjs.org/). Familiarity with Tailwind-css would also be useful. - Source: dev.to / 26 days ago
  • 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 / 27 days 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 / about 2 months ago
View more

DaisyUI mentions (158)

  • 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 / 27 days ago
  • Cut the Crap: Ship Better-Looking Websites (Fast)
    Other Tailwind Libraries: If the Shadcn approach isn't your jam, there are libraries like Flowbite or DaisyUI. They offer ready-made components styled with Tailwind, often installed as dependencies. Providing similar speed benefits for common patterns. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Shadcn UI: Revamp your legacy React app with minimal effort
    It’s difficult to go back to Material UI or Daisy UI in 2025 once you get into Shadcn. It became my go-to choice and potentially one of my primary reasons I’d opt for https://nextjs.org/ when I create a quick side-project or proof of concept. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • TailwindCSS & DaisyUI in the Shadow DOM
    However, using popular styling frameworks like TailwindCSS and DaisyUI inside the Shadow DOM isn’t straightforward. Since styles in the Shadow DOM don’t inherit from the global stylesheet, you need a strategy to ensure your component still benefits from Tailwind’s utility classes and DaisyUI’s prebuilt components. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • The State of Open-Source Tailwind CSS Component Frameworks: A Developer's Guide
    DaisyUI has established itself as a foundational component library in the Tailwind ecosystem. It offers a familiar, Bootstrap-like development experience. Its semantic class system simplifies component reuse, providing pre-styled elements without requiring proprietary dependencies. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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

Tailwind UI - Beautiful UI components by the creators of Tailwind CSS.

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.

FlowBite - Build UI interfaces and simplify the process of integrating into live websites with Tailwind CSS

React - A JavaScript library for building user interfaces

Chakra UI - Simple, modular and accessible UI components for your React applications.