Materialize vs tachyons: What are the differences?

## Introduction

Key differences between Materialize and tachyons are outlined below:

1. **Design Philosophy**: Materialize follows the Material Design principles by Google which focuses on utilizing light, depth, and motion to create intuitive user experiences. On the other hand, Tachyons is known for its functional utility-first approach, prioritizing fast loading times with minimal CSS code for easier customization. 

2. **Customization**: Materialize provides a more structured and opinionated approach to styling elements with predefined components and themes, making it easier for beginners to achieve a consistent design. In contrast, Tachyons offers a more low-level and granular control over styles, allowing developers to quickly prototype and customize designs without relying on predefined components.

3. **File Size**: Materialize includes a more extensive collection of CSS components and JavaScript functionalities, resulting in a larger file size when compared to Tachyons. Tachyons, known for its small footprint, focuses on atomic CSS classes which can be combined to create complex layouts efficiently, resulting in faster loading times and smaller file sizes.

4. **Learning Curve**: Materialize provides extensive documentation, examples, and predefined components making it easier for beginners to get started and achieve polished designs without much CSS knowledge. Tachyons, on the other hand, requires a deeper understanding of CSS principles due to its atomic class structure, making it more suitable for developers who prefer a more hands-on approach to styling.

5. **Community Support**: Materialize has a larger community and ecosystem with more resources, plugins, and templates available for developers. Tachyons, while having a smaller community, has a dedicated following of developers who appreciate its lightweight and efficient approach to styling websites.

6. **Flexibility**: Materialize, with its predefined components and themes, offers less flexibility in terms of customization compared to Tachyons, which allows for more creative and unique designs through its atomic class-based system without being constrained by predefined styles.

In Summary, Materialize and Tachyons differ in design philosophy, customization options, file size, learning curve, community support, and flexibility, catering to different preferences and needs in web development.