CSS Modules vs Stylus

Overview

Stylus

Stacks447

Followers411

Votes331

GitHub Stars11.3K

Forks1.1K

CSS Modules

Stacks132

Followers161

Votes2

CSS Modules vs Stylus: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the key differences between CSS Modules and Stylus. Both of these technologies are commonly used for styling websites, but they have distinct features that set them apart.

Scoping: CSS Modules support local scoping of styles, where class names are automatically generated in a way that they are unique within a component. This ensures that styles defined in one component do not clash with styles in another component. On the other hand, Stylus does not have built-in scoping capabilities and relies on naming conventions or other mechanisms to avoid style conflicts.
Syntax and Features: CSS Modules follow standard CSS syntax, with the addition of being able to import and use variables, compose classes, and apply pseudo-selectors and media queries. In contrast, Stylus introduces a different syntax with features like nested selectors, variable interpolation, and mixins that can significantly improve the readability and maintainability of stylesheets.
Compilation: CSS Modules are compiled at build-time, where the styles are transformed into unique class names and associated with their respective components. This results in separate CSS files being generated for each component. On the other hand, Stylus is a preprocessor that compiles into CSS before the website is deployed. This means that the styles are compiled just once, reducing the overhead during runtime.
Browser Support: CSS Modules are inherently compatible with all modern browsers, as they ultimately generate standard CSS. Stylus, however, requires a compiler or transpiler to convert its syntax into CSS that browsers can understand. This introduces an additional step in the development process and might have implications for older browsers or other environments with limited support for CSS preprocessors.
Community and Ecosystem: CSS Modules have gained significant adoption and have a larger community of developers sharing code, best practices, and tools. This makes it easier to find resources and get support when working with CSS Modules. Stylus, while still popular, has a smaller community and fewer resources available, which may limit the number of plugins or integrations available for specific use cases.
Learning Curve: CSS Modules have a relatively low learning curve, as they are built on top of standard CSS syntax. Developers familiar with CSS can easily adopt CSS Modules without needing to learn a new syntax. On the other hand, Stylus introduces a new syntax and concepts that developers need to learn before they can start using it effectively. This can be an advantage for more experienced developers looking for advanced features, but it might require additional time and effort for beginners.

In summary, CSS Modules provide local scoping, follow standard CSS syntax, are compiled at build-time, have broader browser support, a larger community, and a lower learning curve compared to Stylus, which has a different syntax, supports nested selectors and mixins, compiles into CSS at runtime, requires additional tools for browser compatibility, has a smaller community, and may have a steeper learning curve.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs

CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Stylus, CSS Modules

Anonymous

CEO at ME!

Jun 17, 2020

Needs adviceon

Sass

Stylus

PostCSS

Originally, I was going to start using @{Sass}|tool:1171| with Parcel, but then I learned about @{Stylus}|tool:1172|, which looked interesting because it can get the property values of something directly instead of through variables, and @{PostCSS}|tool:3339|, which looked interesting because you can customize your Pre/Post-processing. Which tool would you recommend?

547k views547k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Stylus	CSS Modules
Stylus is a revolutionary new language, providing an efficient, dynamic, and expressive way to generate CSS. Supporting both an indented syntax and regular CSS style.	It is a CSS file in which all class names and animation names are scoped locally by default. The key words here are scoped locally. With this, your CSS class names become similar to local variables in JavaScript. It goes into the compiler, and CSS comes out the other side.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 11.3K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 1.1K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 447	Stacks 132
Followers 411	Followers 161
Votes 331	Votes 2
Pros & Cons
Pros 69 Simple 54 Indented syntax 38 Efficient 33 Built for node.js 32 Open source	Pros 2 Static rather than compiled at runtime
Integrations
Node.js	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Stylus, CSS Modules?

Sass

Sass is an extension of CSS3, adding nested rules, variables, mixins, selector inheritance, and more. It's translated to well-formatted, standard CSS using the command line tool or a web-framework plugin.

Less

Less is a CSS pre-processor, meaning that it extends the CSS language, adding features that allow variables, mixins, functions and many other techniques that allow you to make CSS that is more maintainable, themable and extendable.

PostCSS

PostCSS is a tool for transforming CSS with JS plugins. These plugins can support variables and mixins, transpile future CSS syntax, inline images, and more.

Bourbon

Bourbon is a library of pure sass mixins that are designed to be simple and easy to use. No configuration required. The mixins aim to be as vanilla as possible, meaning they should be as close to the original CSS syntax as possible.

Compass

The compass core framework is a design-agnostic framework that provides common code that would otherwise be duplicated across other frameworks and extensions.

astroturf

It lets you write CSS in your JavaScript files without adding any runtime layer, and with your existing CSS processing pipeline.

PreCSS

It combines Sass-like syntactical sugar — like variables, conditionals, and iterators — with emerging CSS features — like logical and custom properties, media query ranges, and image sets.

Animate.css

It is a bunch of cool, fun, and cross-browser animations for you to use in your projects. Great for emphasis, home pages, sliders, and general just-add-water-awesomeness.

Autoprefixer

It is a CSS post processor. It combs through compiled CSS files to add or remove vendor prefixes like -webkit and -moz after checking the code.

css-loader

The css-loader interprets @import and url() like import/require() and will resolve them.

Related Comparisons

CSS Modules vs Stylus: What are the differences?

Introduction

Scoping: CSS Modules support local scoping of styles, where class names are automatically generated in a way that they are unique within a component. This ensures that styles defined in one component do not clash with styles in another component. On the other hand, Stylus does not have built-in scoping capabilities and relies on naming conventions or other mechanisms to avoid style conflicts.
Syntax and Features: CSS Modules follow standard CSS syntax, with the addition of being able to import and use variables, compose classes, and apply pseudo-selectors and media queries. In contrast, Stylus introduces a different syntax with features like nested selectors, variable interpolation, and mixins that can significantly improve the readability and maintainability of stylesheets.
Compilation: CSS Modules are compiled at build-time, where the styles are transformed into unique class names and associated with their respective components. This results in separate CSS files being generated for each component. On the other hand, Stylus is a preprocessor that compiles into CSS before the website is deployed. This means that the styles are compiled just once, reducing the overhead during runtime.
Browser Support: CSS Modules are inherently compatible with all modern browsers, as they ultimately generate standard CSS. Stylus, however, requires a compiler or transpiler to convert its syntax into CSS that browsers can understand. This introduces an additional step in the development process and might have implications for older browsers or other environments with limited support for CSS preprocessors.
Community and Ecosystem: CSS Modules have gained significant adoption and have a larger community of developers sharing code, best practices, and tools. This makes it easier to find resources and get support when working with CSS Modules. Stylus, while still popular, has a smaller community and fewer resources available, which may limit the number of plugins or integrations available for specific use cases.
Learning Curve: CSS Modules have a relatively low learning curve, as they are built on top of standard CSS syntax. Developers familiar with CSS can easily adopt CSS Modules without needing to learn a new syntax. On the other hand, Stylus introduces a new syntax and concepts that developers need to learn before they can start using it effectively. This can be an advantage for more experienced developers looking for advanced features, but it might require additional time and effort for beginners.

CSS Modules vs Stylus

Overview