Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Vercel VS Tailwind CSS

Compare Vercel VS Tailwind CSS and see what are their differences

Vercel logo Vercel

Vercel is the platform for frontend developers, providing the speed and reliability innovators need to create at the moment of inspiration.

Tailwind CSS logo Tailwind CSS

A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom user interfaces.
  • Vercel Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-05
  • Tailwind CSS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-13

Vercel features and specs

  • Easy Deployment
    Vercel offers a straightforward and user-friendly process for deploying static sites and serverless functions. It integrates seamlessly with platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, allowing developers to deploy directly from their repositories.
  • Fast Performance
    Vercel optimizes delivery through its global CDN, which ensures fast load times for users all around the world. It provides edge caching and real-time purging that contribute to high-performance web applications.
  • Serverless Functions
    Vercel supports serverless functions, enabling developers to build and deploy backend functionality without needing to manage server infrastructure. This can save time and resources, particularly for smaller projects.
  • Integration with Next.js
    Vercel is the creator of Next.js, a popular React framework, and offers seamless integration with it, providing advanced features like static site generation, server-side rendering, and API routes.
  • Scalability
    Vercel can handle increased traffic automatically, scaling web applications to accommodate a growing number of users without additional configuration.
  • Preview Deployments
    Every pull request can generate a unique preview deployment, allowing teams to preview changes in a live environment before merging. This enhances collaboration and speeds up the development process.

Possible disadvantages of Vercel

  • Cost
    While Vercel offers a free tier, the pricing can become expensive for larger projects or enterprises, particularly if they require more bandwidth, build minutes, or advanced features.
  • Serverless Limitations
    Serverless functions on Vercel have limits on execution time and computational power. This can be a constraint for compute-heavy tasks or long-running processes.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Deploying heavily integrated projects with Vercel's proprietary features may make it difficult to migrate to another platform without significant rework.
  • Limited Backend Customization
    While Vercel supports serverless functions, it does not offer the same level of backend customization and control as traditional server hosting environments.
  • Learning Curve for Beginners
    Although easy deployment is a pro, beginners might find it complex to understand concepts like serverless architecture, environment variables, and project structure in the beginning.
  • Limited Language Support
    Vercel primarily supports JavaScript/TypeScript for serverless functions, potentially limiting the use for developers who prefer other programming languages for backend development.

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.

Vercel videos

Zeit Now - What is it?

More videos:

  • Review - Gorillaz - The Now Now ALBUM REVIEW
  • Review - Deploy Node.js Application to Zeit Now - FreeCodeCamp - Timestamp Microservice 04
  • Review - Now 100 Hits Forgotten 70's - The NOW Review
  • Review - AT&T TV Now 2020 Review - Is it GOOD now??
  • Review - Serverless Fullstack made easy with Next.js, Prisma 2, and Zeit Now #3: Set up Zeit Now

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Vercel and Tailwind CSS)
Developer Tools
33 33%
67% 67
Cloud Computing
100 100%
0% 0
Design Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Web Development Tools
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 Vercel and Tailwind CSS

Vercel Reviews

Top 10 Vercel v0 Open Source Alternatives | Medium
First things first, let’s talk about Vercel v0. You might be wondering, “What exactly is Vercel v0, and why should I care?” Well, my friend, Vercel v0 is a game-changing AI-powered development platform that’s been turning heads in the tech world. It’s designed to revolutionize the way we build and deploy web applications, making the process faster, smoother, and more...
Source: medium.com
5 Best Vercel Alternatives for Next.js & App Router
Vercel has become the go-to platform for hosting modern web applications built with frameworks like Next.js. However, as your application scales, Vercel's pricing model and lack of flexibility can become limiting.
Source: il.ly
Best Serverless Backend Tools of 2023: Pros & Cons, Features & Code Examples
Vercel is a platform for frontend developers for deploying code to an optimized production environment. Even though it doesn’t offer stateful features you’d expect from a BaaS like authentication or databases, it is trivial to copy/paste code from a third-party service like Auth0 for authentication and MongoAtlas for API development.
Source: www.rowy.io
Exploring alternatives to Vercel: A guide for web developers
In recent years, Vercel has emerged as a leading platform for deploying modern web applications, especially those built with frameworks like Next.js. Its seamless integration with Git, automatic deployments, and serverless functions have made it a go-to choice for many developers. However, Vercel can be quite expensive, especially for projects that scale, making it important...
Source: fleek.xyz
5 Free Heroku Alternatives with Free Plan for Developers
Vercel is last in my list and it is more like leys you host JavaScript based web apps and static websites. Since JS apps are in so much demand these days; you will find this platform easier to deploy your apps directly from GitHub/GitLab. It can even act as CI/CD pipeline for your projects. If you created a front end of an app then you can use it for deploying it. It lets...

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

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Tailwind CSS should be more popular than Vercel. It has been mentiond 1013 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.

Vercel mentions (594)

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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 / 2 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 / 8 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 / 15 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 / 26 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

What are some alternatives?

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

Next.js - A small framework for server-rendered universal JavaScript apps

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

Netlify - Build, deploy and host your static site or app with a drag and drop interface and automatic delpoys from GitHub or Bitbucket

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.

GitHub Pages - A free, static web host for open-source projects on GitHub

React - A JavaScript library for building user interfaces