Overview

Stylus

Stacks447

Followers411

Votes331

GitHub Stars11.3K

Forks1.1K

PostCSS

Stacks2.4K

Followers547

Votes49

GitHub Stars28.9K

Forks1.6K

PostCSS vs Stylus: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the key differences between PostCSS and Stylus. Both PostCSS and Stylus are popular pre-processors used in web development for writing and generating CSS code. While they share some similarities, there are distinct differences that set them apart from each other.

Syntax: PostCSS uses a JavaScript-like syntax, allowing developers to employ familiar language constructs and function-based syntax. On the other hand, Stylus introduces a more concise and elegant syntax, inspired by the Python and Haml languages. Stylus eliminates the need for curly braces and semicolons, making the code more readable and less cluttered.
Feature set: PostCSS is a versatile and extensible tool that provides developers with a wide range of plugins to choose from. These plugins offer various functionalities, such as adding vendor prefixes, minifying code, or simplifying CSS syntax. On the contrary, Stylus includes many advanced features out of the box, such as mixins, nested selectors, and inheritance. Stylus aims to provide a comprehensive feature set without the need for extensive plugin usage.
Compilation: PostCSS requires a separate build step to compile the pre-processed code into final CSS. This step can be integrated into the build process using task runners like Gulp or Grunt. In contrast, Stylus has its own built-in compiler, eliminating the need for additional tools. This simplifies the development workflow and speeds up the compilation process.
Extensibility: One of the major advantages of PostCSS is its high extensibility. Developers can create their own plugins and share them with the community, enabling the customization of the tool to fit specific project requirements. Stylus, on the other hand, does not have the same level of extensibility. While it does support plugins, the ecosystem is not as extensive or actively maintained as the one for PostCSS.
Community and popularity: PostCSS has gained significant popularity in recent years and has a thriving community with a wide range of plugins and resources available. It is widely used by many web development teams and has a strong ecosystem supporting its growth. Stylus, while still popular, does not have the same level of community support and adoption as PostCSS.
Learning curve: Due to its JavaScript-like syntax, PostCSS is relatively easier for developers with JavaScript experience to pick up and start using. The familiarity with JavaScript concepts makes it easier to understand and integrate PostCSS into existing workflows. Stylus, with its unique Python-inspired syntax, may have a steeper learning curve for developers new to the language.

In summary, PostCSS and Stylus differ in syntax, feature set, compilation process, extensibility, community support, and learning curve. Understanding these differences can help developers choose the right pre-processor for their specific needs and project requirements.

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Advice on Stylus, 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?

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Comments

Detailed Comparison

Stylus	PostCSS
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.	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 11.3K	GitHub Stars 28.9K
GitHub Forks 1.1K	GitHub Forks 1.6K
Stacks 447	Stacks 2.4K
Followers 411	Followers 547
Votes 331	Votes 49
Pros & Cons
Pros 69 Simple 54 Indented syntax 38 Efficient 33 Built for node.js 32 Open source	Pros 21 The "babel" of CSS 15 Customizable 8 Autoprefixer 2 Variables 1 CSS MQPacker
Integrations
Node.js	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Stylus, PostCSS?

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.

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.