Material UI vs Tailwind CSS

Overview

Material-UI

Stacks2.7K

Followers3.7K

Votes445

Tailwind CSS

Stacks4.8K

Followers3.1K

Votes245

Material-UI vs Tailwind CSS: What are the differences?

Material-UI and Tailwind CSS are popular front-end frameworks used for building user interfaces in web development. Here are the key differences between Material-UI and Tailwind CSS:

Styling Approach: Material-UI follows the principles of Material Design, providing pre-defined and consistent styling patterns for a visually appealing and cohesive interface. It offers a set of ready-to-use components with pre-defined styles, allowing developers to quickly create interfaces that align with Material Design guidelines. Tailwind CSS, on the other hand, takes a utility-first approach. It provides a vast utility class library that allows developers to apply specific styles directly to HTML elements, giving them more control and flexibility.
Customization and Theming: Material-UI offers a theming system that allows developers to customize the appearance of their applications. It provides a variety of pre-built themes and allows for easy customization of color schemes, typography, and other design elements. Material-UI also provides options for creating custom themes. In contrast, Tailwind CSS focuses on utility classes that can be combined to create custom styles. It provides an extensive range of utility classes that cover various design aspects, allowing developers to build highly customized and unique interfaces without the need for extensive CSS customization or theming.
Component Ecosystem: Material-UI provides a comprehensive set of pre-built and reusable components, covering a wide range of UI elements such as buttons, inputs, navigation menus, and more. These components follow Material Design guidelines, ensuring consistency and familiarity for users. On the other hand, Tailwind CSS takes a utility-first approach, offering utility classes for developers to create custom components and styles, granting flexibility but requiring more manual work.
Learning Curve and Developer Experience: Material-UI has a steeper learning curve due to its comprehensive component library, theming system, and adherence to Material Design guidelines. Tailwind CSS, on the other hand, has a relatively shallow learning curve. Its utility class approach allows developers to quickly apply styles without the need to write extensive CSS. However, developers need to be familiar with Tailwind CSS's utility class syntax and understand how to compose and combine utility classes effectively.

In summary, Material-UI and Tailwind CSS offer different approaches to front-end development. Material-UI provides pre-built components and follows Material Design principles, allowing for faster development and a consistent user experience. Tailwind CSS, on the other hand, focuses on utility classes for maximum customization and flexibility.

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Advice on Material-UI, Tailwind CSS

Bridget

Full Stack Developer at Bridget Sarah

May 29, 2020

Decided

I do prefer to write things from scratch however when it came to wanting to jump-start the frontend, I found that it was taking me a lot longer hence why needing to use something very fast.

Bootstrap was the boom when it came out, I didn't like it, to be honest, set in its way and a pain to over-ride and in addition, you can tell from a distance if you're using boostrap and as everything looks the same.

I came across Tailwind CSS as I wanted more dynamic features, you could say, I've been now doing it for a few days and I love it a lot. I've been practising with the full stack part installed but I an't we wait until I do a new project, and I'll e able to select exactly what I want. Much faster.

681k views681k

Comments

Kexin

Mar 4, 2021

Decided

I replaced Bootstrap with Material-UI during the front-end UI development, because Material-UI adopts a component-based importing style, making it suit well in a "React programming style". This makes me comfortable when programming because I can treat importing UI components as other React components I define.

281k views281k

Comments

Syed

Jul 16, 2020

Needs adviceon

Bootstrap

Tailwind CSS

I am planning to redesign my entire application, which is currently in Bootstrap. I heard about Tailwind CSS, and I think its really cool to work with. Is it okay if I use Bootstrap and Tailwind together? I can't remove Bootstrap altogether, as my application is using the js dependencies of Bootstrap, which I don't want to disturb.

739k views739k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Material-UI	Tailwind CSS
Material UI is a library of React UI components that implements Google's Material Design.	Tailwind is different from frameworks like Bootstrap, Foundation, or Bulma in that it's not a UI kit. It doesn't have a default theme, and there are no build-in UI components. It comes with a menu of predesigned widgets to build your site with, but doesn't impose design decisions that are difficult to undo.
Tables; Forms; Snackbars; Buttons; Theming	No default theme; No build-in UI components; No opinion about how your site should look; Doesn't impose design decisions that you have to fight to undo; Comes with a menu of predesigned widgets to build your site with; Or offers a head start implementing a custom design with its own identity
Statistics
Stacks 2.7K	Stacks 4.8K
Followers 3.7K	Followers 3.1K
Votes 445	Votes 245
Pros & Cons
Pros 141 React 82 Material Design 60 Ui components 30 CSS framework 26 Component Cons 36 Hard to learn. Bad documentation 29 Hard to customize 22 Hard to understand Docs 9 Bad performance 7 Extra library needed for date/time pickers	Pros 44 Highly customizable 33 Quick setup 30 Utility first styles, its amazing 24 Versatile 23 Great docs Cons 14 Priced 5 Cluttered html structure
Integrations
React Emotion Next.js styled-components Node.js	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Material-UI, Tailwind CSS?

Bootstrap

Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.

Foundation

Foundation is the most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world. You can quickly prototype and build sites or apps that work on any kind of device with Foundation, which includes layout constructs (like a fully responsive grid), elements and best practices.

Semantic UI

Semantic empowers designers and developers by creating a shared vocabulary for UI.

Materialize

A CSS Framework based on material design.

Material Design for Angular

Material Design is a specification for a unified system of visual, motion, and interaction design that adapts across different devices. Our goal is to deliver a lean, lightweight set of AngularJS-native UI elements that implement the material design system for use in Angular SPAs.

Blazor

Blazor is a .NET web framework that runs in any browser. You author Blazor apps using C#/Razor and HTML.

Quasar Framework

Build responsive Single Page Apps, SSR Apps, PWAs, Hybrid Mobile Apps and Electron Apps, all using the same codebase!, powered with Vue.

Nuxt.js

Nuxt.js presets all the configuration needed to make your development of a Vue.js application enjoyable. You can use Nuxt.js for SSR, SPA, Static Generated, PWA and more.

UIkIt

UIkit gives you a comprehensive collection of HTML, CSS, and JS components which is simple to use, easy to customize and extendable.

Ant Design

An enterprise-class UI design language and React-based implementation. Graceful UI components out of the box, base on React Component. A npm + webpack + babel + dora + dva development framework.

Related Comparisons

Styling Approach: Material-UI follows the principles of Material Design, providing pre-defined and consistent styling patterns for a visually appealing and cohesive interface. It offers a set of ready-to-use components with pre-defined styles, allowing developers to quickly create interfaces that align with Material Design guidelines. Tailwind CSS, on the other hand, takes a utility-first approach. It provides a vast utility class library that allows developers to apply specific styles directly to HTML elements, giving them more control and flexibility.
Customization and Theming: Material-UI offers a theming system that allows developers to customize the appearance of their applications. It provides a variety of pre-built themes and allows for easy customization of color schemes, typography, and other design elements. Material-UI also provides options for creating custom themes. In contrast, Tailwind CSS focuses on utility classes that can be combined to create custom styles. It provides an extensive range of utility classes that cover various design aspects, allowing developers to build highly customized and unique interfaces without the need for extensive CSS customization or theming.
Component Ecosystem: Material-UI provides a comprehensive set of pre-built and reusable components, covering a wide range of UI elements such as buttons, inputs, navigation menus, and more. These components follow Material Design guidelines, ensuring consistency and familiarity for users. On the other hand, Tailwind CSS takes a utility-first approach, offering utility classes for developers to create custom components and styles, granting flexibility but requiring more manual work.
Learning Curve and Developer Experience: Material-UI has a steeper learning curve due to its comprehensive component library, theming system, and adherence to Material Design guidelines. Tailwind CSS, on the other hand, has a relatively shallow learning curve. Its utility class approach allows developers to quickly apply styles without the need to write extensive CSS. However, developers need to be familiar with Tailwind CSS's utility class syntax and understand how to compose and combine utility classes effectively.

Material UI vs Tailwind CSS