My take on TailwindCSS

TailwindCSS has been a popular utility-first CSS framework for a while now, and I’ve had the opportunity to use it in several projects. In this post, I want to share my thoughts and experiences with TailwindCSS, including its pros and cons.

Pros

  1. Utility-First Approach: TailwindCSS uses a utility-first approach to styling, which can lead to faster development and more consistent designs. Instead of writing custom CSS for each component, you can use pre-defined utility classes to style your elements.
  2. Customization: TailwindCSS is highly customizable. You can easily configure the framework to fit your project’s design requirements by including the @theme directive in your CSS. This allows you to create a unique design system while still benefiting from the utility classes.
  3. Responsive Design: TailwindCSS makes it easy to create responsive designs with its built-in responsive utilities. You can apply different styles based on screen size without having to write media queries manually.
  4. Community and Ecosystem: TailwindCSS has a large and active community, which means there are plenty of resources, plugins, and integrations available. This can help you extend the functionality of TailwindCSS and find solutions to common problems.

Cons

  1. Learning Curve: For developers who are used to writing traditional CSS, there can be a learning curve when transitioning to TailwindCSS. It may take some time to get used to the utility-first approach and the class naming conventions.
  2. Class Name Clutter: One of the common criticisms of TailwindCSS is that it can lead to cluttered HTML with many utility classes. This can make the markup harder to read and maintain, especially for larger projects.
  3. Performance: If not used carefully, TailwindCSS can lead to larger CSS files due to the inclusion of all the utility classes. However, using tools like PurgeCSS can help mitigate this issue by removing unused styles from the final CSS bundle.

Overall, I have found TailwindCSS to be a powerful and flexible CSS framework that can speed up development and help maintain consistency in design. However, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons and consider whether it fits your project’s needs before adopting it.

Personally, I have enjoyed using TailwindCSS for smaller projects and prototypes, but for larger applications, I prefer to use a more traditional CSS approach to keep the markup cleaner. As most of my professional work involves Vue.js, I prefer to use scoped styles within my components, which allows for better organization and maintainability. A recent change to how TailwindCSS handles @apply within scoped styles has made it less suitable for my workflow, and can lead to maintainability issues in larger projects. See this GitHub issue for more details.