Less vs PostCSS vs Sass

Overview

Less

Stacks2.9K

Followers1.2K

Votes929

GitHub Stars17.0K

Forks3.4K

Sass

Stacks44.8K

Followers32.2K

Votes3.0K

GitHub Stars15.3K

Forks2.2K

PostCSS

Stacks2.4K

Followers547

Votes49

GitHub Stars28.9K

Forks1.6K

Less vs PostCSS vs Sass: What are the differences?

Less, PostCSS, and Sass are popular CSS preprocessors that enhance the development of stylesheets by adding features not natively supported by CSS. Here are the key differences between Less, PostCSS, and Sass:

Syntax and Features: Sass introduces an extended syntax with features like variables, nesting, mixins, and more. Less, a similar preprocessor, offers comparable features but uses a slightly different syntax. PostCSS takes a different approach by processing standard CSS with plugins that can add modern CSS features and transform existing syntax.
Compilation Process: Sass and Less require compilation before deployment, converting their extended syntax into standard CSS. PostCSS, on the other hand, processes existing CSS files using plugins, which can be added or removed as needed without the need for compilation.
Extensibility: PostCSS stands out for its high extensibility, allowing developers to choose specific plugins to suit their needs. This modular approach promotes a leaner output and faster processing times. Sass and Less come with built-in features and syntax that can be more comprehensive but potentially result in larger output files.
Browser Compatibility: Sass and Less primarily focus on providing enhanced syntax and features, while PostCSS shines in transforming CSS for better browser compatibility. PostCSS plugins can automatically add vendor prefixes, optimize styles, and apply polyfills to ensure consistent behavior across different browsers.
Community and Ecosystem: Sass boasts a large and established community with extensive documentation, making it a popular choice for developers. Less has a slightly smaller community but still offers a strong ecosystem. PostCSS has gained traction for its flexibility and growing collection of plugins, allowing developers to customize their toolchain.
Learning Curve: Sass and Less introduce new syntax and concepts, which may require a learning curve for developers new to preprocessors. PostCSS, by working with existing CSS, has a lower learning curve, making it easier for developers familiar with standard CSS.
Use Cases: Sass and Less are well-suited for projects that require extensive use of variables, mixins, and nesting. They offer comprehensive solutions for maintaining large and complex stylesheets. PostCSS is valuable for projects aiming to improve browser compatibility, optimize CSS, and take advantage of specific modern CSS features.
Integration: Sass and Less often come with built-in tools for compiling and watching stylesheets. PostCSS integrates well with build tools like webpack and can be integrated seamlessly into existing development workflows.
Popularity and Adoption: Sass has been widely adopted in the industry for many years and has a strong presence in web development. Less and PostCSS have also gained popularity, with Less finding use in certain projects and PostCSS being embraced for its modern approach to CSS processing.

In summary, Sass and Less provide powerful preprocessors with extended syntax, while PostCSS focuses on transforming CSS with a flexible and modular approach.

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Advice on Less, Sass, PostCSS

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

Cory

Mar 28, 2021

Decided

JSS is makes a lot of sense when styling React components and styled-components is a really nice implementation of JSS. I still get to write pure CSS, but in a more componentized way. With CSS post-processors like SASS and LESS, you spend a lot of time deciding where your .scss or .less files belong, which classes should be shared, and generally fighting the component nature of React. With styled-components, you get the best of CSS and React. In this project, I have ZERO CSS files or global CSS classes and I leverage mixins quite a bit.

40.3k views40.3k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Less	Sass	PostCSS
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.	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.	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.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 17.0K	GitHub Stars 15.3K	GitHub Stars 28.9K
GitHub Forks 3.4K	GitHub Forks 2.2K	GitHub Forks 1.6K
Stacks 2.9K	Stacks 44.8K	Stacks 2.4K
Followers 1.2K	Followers 32.2K	Followers 547
Votes 929	Votes 3.0K	Votes 49
Pros & Cons
Pros 214 Better than css 177 Variables 141 Mixins 99 Maintainable 79 Used by bootstrap	Pros 613 Variables 594 Mixins 466 Nested rules 410 Maintainable 300 Functions Cons 6 Needs to be compiled	Pros 21 The "babel" of CSS 15 Customizable 8 Autoprefixer 2 Variables 1 Mixins

What are some alternatives to Less, Sass, PostCSS?

Stylus

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.

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.

CSS Modules

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.

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.

Normalize.css

It makes browsers render all elements more consistently and in line with modern standards. It precisely targets only the styles that need normalizing.

Related Comparisons

Syntax and Features: Sass introduces an extended syntax with features like variables, nesting, mixins, and more. Less, a similar preprocessor, offers comparable features but uses a slightly different syntax. PostCSS takes a different approach by processing standard CSS with plugins that can add modern CSS features and transform existing syntax.
Compilation Process: Sass and Less require compilation before deployment, converting their extended syntax into standard CSS. PostCSS, on the other hand, processes existing CSS files using plugins, which can be added or removed as needed without the need for compilation.
Extensibility: PostCSS stands out for its high extensibility, allowing developers to choose specific plugins to suit their needs. This modular approach promotes a leaner output and faster processing times. Sass and Less come with built-in features and syntax that can be more comprehensive but potentially result in larger output files.
Browser Compatibility: Sass and Less primarily focus on providing enhanced syntax and features, while PostCSS shines in transforming CSS for better browser compatibility. PostCSS plugins can automatically add vendor prefixes, optimize styles, and apply polyfills to ensure consistent behavior across different browsers.
Community and Ecosystem: Sass boasts a large and established community with extensive documentation, making it a popular choice for developers. Less has a slightly smaller community but still offers a strong ecosystem. PostCSS has gained traction for its flexibility and growing collection of plugins, allowing developers to customize their toolchain.
Learning Curve: Sass and Less introduce new syntax and concepts, which may require a learning curve for developers new to preprocessors. PostCSS, by working with existing CSS, has a lower learning curve, making it easier for developers familiar with standard CSS.
Use Cases: Sass and Less are well-suited for projects that require extensive use of variables, mixins, and nesting. They offer comprehensive solutions for maintaining large and complex stylesheets. PostCSS is valuable for projects aiming to improve browser compatibility, optimize CSS, and take advantage of specific modern CSS features.
Integration: Sass and Less often come with built-in tools for compiling and watching stylesheets. PostCSS integrates well with build tools like webpack and can be integrated seamlessly into existing development workflows.
Popularity and Adoption: Sass has been widely adopted in the industry for many years and has a strong presence in web development. Less and PostCSS have also gained popularity, with Less finding use in certain projects and PostCSS being embraced for its modern approach to CSS processing.

In summary, Sass and Less provide powerful preprocessors with extended syntax, while PostCSS focuses on transforming CSS with a flexible and modular approach.

Less vs PostCSS vs Sass