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Tailwind CSS VS TanStack Table

Compare Tailwind CSS VS TanStack Table and see what are their differences

Tailwind CSS logo Tailwind CSS

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

TanStack Table logo TanStack Table

Headless UI for building powerful tables & datagrids with TS/JS, React, Solid, Svelte and Vue
  • Tailwind CSS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-13
  • TanStack Table Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-03

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.

TanStack Table features and specs

  • Performance
    TanStack Table is designed for high performance, capable of handling large datasets efficiently through features like virtualized scrolling, which only renders visible rows.
  • Customization
    Provides extensive customization options for UI and behavior, allowing developers to tailor the table to specific needs with hooks and plugins.
  • Lightweight
    The core library is minimal and can be extended with plugins, making it lightweight by default and allowing developers to include only the features they need.
  • Headless Design
    Being headless, TanStack Table focuses solely on offering functionality, leaving the implementation of styles and appearance completely to the developer, which provides flexibility.
  • Community and Documentation
    The library has an active community and comprehensive documentation, which helps developers quickly understand and implement features.

Possible disadvantages of TanStack Table

  • Complexity
    With its headless nature and high level of customization, there can be a steep learning curve for developers unfamiliar with its approach or those new to React.
  • Lack of Built-in Styles
    Since it does not include built-in styles or components, additional work is required to implement design aspects, which may be a drawback for projects that need a quick setup.
  • React Dependency
    It is specifically designed for React, which makes it unsuitable for projects built with other frameworks.
  • Fragmentation
    Due to its plugin-based architecture, essential features can sometimes depend on third-party solutions, leading to possible fragmentation or inconsistency in updates and support.

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

TanStack Table videos

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

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Tailwind CSS and TanStack Table)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Design Tools
98 98%
2% 2
Data Grid
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 TanStack Table

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

TanStack Table Reviews

Using AG Grid in React: Guide and alternatives
Implementing pagination can be a little trickier. But one of the benefits of TanStack Table is that we have complete control over the functionality. Let’s implement server-side pagination with TanStack Table and see how it works.
The Best React Data Grid/Table Libraries with Material Design in 2023 - MRT Blog
The main advantage of this project is that it is also built on top of TanStack Table v8 (formerly known as React Table) and TanStack Virtual v3 (formerly known as React Virtual), which are powerful headless UI libraries for efficiently rendering react table components with virtualization. This also means the the APIs to customize the behavior of the table are standardized...
Best Free and Open-Source JavaScript Data Grid Libraries and Widgets
The TanStack Table library is a modern and up-to-date library for creating powerful tables and data grids. This is actually a headless library, so it won't ship with components, markup, or styles.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Tailwind CSS seems to be a lot more popular than TanStack Table. While we know about 1013 links to Tailwind CSS, we've tracked only 6 mentions of TanStack Table. 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 / 10 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 / 16 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
View more

TanStack Table mentions (6)

  • Building a Google Sheets–Like Table Component with TanStack Table, Zod, and ShadCN/UI
    TanStack Table for the core table logic. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • What are headless UI libraries?
    UI libraries aside, the whole headless rave has spread to packages and libraries for standalone components, headless text editors like Tiptap and Platejs, headless table components like Tanstack table, and more out there to explore. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Task tracker application using NextJS and SurrealDB
    To create the task table I have used [@tanstack/react-table](https://tanstack.com/table/v8) as it has many features like searching, pagination, sorting, and filtering. As it is a Headless table library it handles most of the complex tasks on its own. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • React Ecosystem in 2024
    If you're looking for information about tables in React, you can explore the TanStack Table documentation for version 8 at tanstack.com/table/v8. TanStack Table is a headless UI library that allows you to build powerful tables and datagrids in various frameworks like TS/JS, React, Vue, Solid, and Svelte while retaining control over markup and styles. The documentation will provide you with detailed information on... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • ⚡ Best Open Source React framework and libraries for Building Enterprise B2B apps
    Refer to TanStack Table documentation. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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

AG Grid - The best HTML5 datagrid in the world

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.

MUI X Data Grid - A fast and extensible React data table and React data grid, with filtering, sorting, aggregation, and more.

React - A JavaScript library for building user interfaces

Material React Table - Material React Table, a fully featured Material UI V5 implementation of TanStack React Table V8. Written from the ground up in TypeScript.