Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Tailwind CSS VS jQuery

Compare Tailwind CSS VS jQuery and see what are their differences

Tailwind CSS logo Tailwind CSS

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

jQuery logo jQuery

The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library.
  • Tailwind CSS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-13
  • jQuery Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-22

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.

jQuery features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    jQuery simplifies complex JavaScript tasks by providing easy-to-use methods, which can lead to shorter development times and cleaner code.
  • Cross-Browser Compatibility
    jQuery handles many browser inconsistencies, ensuring that your code works seamlessly across different browsers without additional effort.
  • Large Community and Ecosystem
    There is a vast community of developers who contribute plugins, extensions, and provide support, making it easier to find solutions and enhance functionality.
  • Animation and Effects
    jQuery offers built-in methods for creating animations and effects, allowing developers to enhance the user interface with minimal code.
  • AJAX Simplification
    The library provides straightforward methods for making AJAX calls, which simplifies the process of loading data asynchronously.
  • Documentation and Learning Resources
    Extensive documentation and a plethora of tutorials are available, making it easier for developers to learn and troubleshoot.

Possible disadvantages of jQuery

  • Performance Overhead
    Using jQuery can add overhead to your application due to its file size and additional abstraction, which can impact performance, especially in resource-constrained environments.
  • Relevance
    With the advent of modern JavaScript frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular, and the improvements in native JavaScript (ES6+), the need for jQuery has decreased, making it less relevant in contemporary web development.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While basic usage is straightforward, mastering more advanced topics and optimizing performance can be challenging for newcomers.
  • Potential for Overuse
    Developers might rely too heavily on jQuery for tasks that can be efficiently handled by native JavaScript, leading to bloated codebases.
  • Maintenance and Legacy Code
    Projects heavily reliant on jQuery may face maintenance challenges as modern frameworks and practices evolve, requiring significant refactoring effort if transitioning away from jQuery.
  • Security
    Older jQuery versions have known security vulnerabilities, and continuing to use outdated versions can pose security risks. Regular updates are necessary to mitigate this issue.

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

jQuery videos

Quick jQuery Review

More videos:

  • Review - jQuery vs Vue, React and Angular
  • Review - Front-End Development, HTML & CSS, Javascript & jQuery by Jon Duckett | Book Review
  • Review - The Legend of jQuery in 100 Seconds
  • Review - ⭕The one book I regret not having as a beginning web developer || Jon Duckett JavaScript & jQuery

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Tailwind CSS and jQuery)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Development Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Javascript UI Libraries
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Tailwind CSS and jQuery. 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 jQuery

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

jQuery Reviews

Top 20 Javascript Libraries
jQuery dramatically simplifies JS programming and is easy to learn and use. It is highly extensible and makes web pages load faster. jQuery wraps up a lot of standard functions making the job of the developer easy. A JS code of several lines could be just a method to be called in jQuery. It also has many plugins to perform different tasks. Some of the features of jQuery are...
Source: hackr.io
Top 15 jQuery Alternatives To Know
The world is full of newer technologies and there are alternatives available for all of them. jQuery is no different. The above-mentioned technologies can be a good alternative to jQuery though jQuery itself has a loyal user base of its own. Overall, it depends upon the organizational skills, requirements, budget, and objective, based on which stakeholders can take a call on...
Best Javascript libraries to use in 2021
jQuery has been in the development scene for a long time and has been the unprecedented king for webpage dev. It is one of the most common libraries used throughout the world, with more than 50% of websites using jQuery for their functioning. jQuery is a library used majorly for Document Object Model (DOM) manipulation. The DOM is a tree-like structure that represents all...
Source: codersera.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Tailwind CSS seems to be a lot more popular than jQuery. While we know about 1013 links to Tailwind CSS, we've tracked only 101 mentions of jQuery. 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 / 3 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 / 9 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 / 17 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 / 28 days 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
View more

jQuery mentions (101)

  • This One jQuery Mistake Froze Our Web Page! Here's the Fix You Need to Know
    Whenever the number of items increased, the browser became slow, sometimes even unresponsive. At first, we thought it was a server issue or maybe too much data. But no — the problem was hiding inside a small line of jQuery. - Source: dev.to / 13 days ago
  • Is jQuery Dead?
    Ah, jQuery — the library that powered a generation of web apps. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Understanding Awaitables: Coroutines, Tasks, and Futures in Python
    Then we have callbacks, which were popularized by AJAX calls. Back then, with jQuery, we could define handlers to deal with both success or failure cases. For instance, let's say we want to fetch the HTML markup of this blog (skipping error failure callback for brevity), we do. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • the entire history of JavaScript, i guess
    One of them is JQuery created by John Resig. The library addresses extremely-frustrating issues related to cross-browser compatibility that existed at the time. To this day, it remains the most widely used JavaScript library in terms of actual page loads. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Let Me Talk About Component-based Front-end Development
    The once popular jQuery, with its strengths fully utilized in jQuery UI and Bootstrap, provides many UI components and is also friendly to backend developers, seemingly meeting the requirements. However, looking at their component implementation and resource loading forms—. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

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.

Babel - Babel is a compiler for writing next generation JavaScript.

React - A JavaScript library for building user interfaces

Composer - Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP.