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KONNECTWAY

Posted on Oct 03, 2024

Top UI Libraries for React: Exploring Material UI, Next UI, WindUI, Tailwind UI, Daisy UI and React-Bootstrap

#UI #React

 6 mins of reading


In web development, time is precious. As developers often say, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” Instead, use existing tools and libraries to speed up your work. Leveraging UI component libraries allows you to focus on what makes your app unique while ensuring a consistent and polished interface.

A well-designed UI enhances the user experience, boosts usability, and ensures consistency across your application. One critical aspect of UI design is layout, which dictates how elements are arranged on the screen. A good layout improves navigation, readability, and overall user satisfaction.

In this post, we’ll explore some of the most popular UI libraries for React: Material UI (MUI), Next UI, WindUI, Tailwind UI, and React-Bootstrap. We’ll look into their pros and cons, specifically focusing on how they handle layout, to help you make an informed decision for your next project.


Material UI (MUI) – mui.com

Material UI (MUI) is one of the most widely used UI libraries, based on Google’s Material Design guidelines. It offers a vast array of pre-styled components like buttons, cards, grids, and typography. It’s highly customizable, allowing you to adjust themes and styles to match your brand.

Pros:

  • Consistency: Adheres to Material Design principles for a polished look.
  • Customizable: Extensive theming options for colors, typography, and layout.
  • Comprehensive Components: Wide range of components suitable for complex projects.
  • Powerful Layout System: Provides a robust Grid system and layout components to create responsive designs.
  • Active Community: Regular updates and thorough documentation.

Challenges:

  • Learning Curve: Might be overwhelming due to extensive customization options.
  • Bundle Size: Can increase your project’s size, affecting performance if not optimized.
  • Opinionated Design: Material Design may not fit all project aesthetics, requiring extra customization.

Example:

 


In this example, we create a card with an image, text, and a button using MUI’s Card component.

See the Pen
MUI
by Juan (@takelo)
on CodePen.


Next UI – nextui.org

Next UI is a modern, lightweight library focused on simplicity and performance. It offers an elegant design system ideal for building responsive, sleek UIs without sacrificing speed.

Pros:

  • Performance: Minimal overhead ensures faster load times.
  • Ease of Use: Straightforward API for quick development.
  • Minimalist Design: Suits clean and modern interfaces.
  • Customizable: Offers theming options despite its simplicity.
  • Basic Layout Components: Includes simple layout tools for building responsive designs.

Challenges:

  • Limited Components: Fewer components compared to larger libraries, potentially limiting functionality.
  • Simplistic Layout Options: Layout capabilities are not as extensive as other libraries.
  • Smaller Community: Less widespread use may result in fewer resources and third-party integrations.

Example:

 


You can run this example HERE


WindUI – wind-ui.com

WindUI is built on Tailwind CSS, enabling the creation of fast and highly customizable UIs. It combines Tailwind’s utility-first approach with pre-built components for flexibility and ease of use.

Pros:

  • Flexible Styling: Leverages Tailwind’s utility classes for granular control.
  • Highly Customizable: Easily extendable components.
  • Responsive Design: Built with a mobile-first approach.
  • Powerful Layout Control: Tailwind CSS provides extensive utilities for layouts, including Flexbox and Grid.

Challenges:

  • Tailwind Dependency: Requires familiarity with Tailwind CSS.
  • Complex Customization: Deep customization may become complex without solid Tailwind knowledge.
  • Manual Layout Configuration: Relies on utility classes, which can become verbose for complex layouts.

Example:

 


Using Tailwind’s utility classes, you have fine-grained control over the layout.

See the Pen
WindUI
by Juan (@takelo)
on CodePen.


Tailwind UI – tailwindui.com

Tailwind UI enhances Tailwind CSS by offering a collection of professionally designed, responsive components. It allows you to quickly integrate high-quality UI elements into your project.

Pros:

  • Professional Design: Offers polished, ready-to-use components.
  • Customization Flexibility: Tailwind’s utility classes make styling straightforward.
  • Responsive Out of the Box: Components are designed with responsive layouts in mind.
  • Comprehensive Layout Utilities: Tailwind CSS provides powerful tools for creating complex layouts.

Challenges:

  • Cost: It’s a paid product, which might not suit all budgets.
  • Learning Curve: Requires understanding of Tailwind CSS.
  • Verbose Markup: Extensive use of utility classes can make HTML markup lengthy and harder to read.

Example:

 

See the Pen
Tailwind
by Juan (@takelo)
on CodePen.


Daisy UI – daisyui.com

DaisyUI is built on top of Tailwind CSS, offering a collection of customizable, accessible components that follow modern design principles. It allows developers to quickly create responsive interfaces while leveraging the full power of Tailwind CSS.

Pros:

  • Ready-to-Use Components: Comes with pre-built, styled components, making it easier to set up UIs quickly.
  • Customizable:Since it’s built on Tailwind CSS, components can be customized using utility classes. And more control on you own created components
  • Accessible: Provides accessibility features out-of-the-box, following best practices for web accessibility.
  • Mobile-First: Components are designed to be responsive, making them ideal for mobile-first development.
  • Utility Class Friendly: You can extend or override styles with Tailwind utility classes easily.

Challenges:

  • Tailwind Dependency: Requires knowledge of Tailwind CSS to fully utilize the framework.
  • Design Constraints: Although customizable, it may feel limiting compared to designing components from scratch using Tailwind.
  • Learning Curve: Beginners may need time to familiarize themselves with both Tailwind and DaisyUI. And you will need to take control of the javascript part (making some of the component functional with React)

Example:

 


Tailwind CSS Tools – A Perfect Match for Custom Components

If you’re already familiar with Tailwind CSS, tools like Tailwind UI and DaisyUI can be excellent additions to your workflow. They offer pre-designed components that you can fully control and modify to match your project needs. Since both are based on Tailwind, you can easily extend or modify the components, giving you the power to create abstracted and reusable UI elements without losing control over the design and behavior since you will need to create the components yourself.

See the Pen
DaisyUI
by Juan (@takelo)
on CodePen.


React-Bootstrap – react-bootstrap.netlify.app

React-Bootstrap integrates Bootstrap components into React, providing the responsiveness and grid system of Bootstrap without relying on jQuery.

Pros:

  • Familiarity: Easy for those experienced with Bootstrap.
  • Responsive Grid System: Simplifies layout design for various screen sizes.
  • Mature Library: Stable with extensive community support.

Challenges:

  • Outdated Design: Bootstrap’s styling may seem less modern compared to newer libraries.
  • Customization Challenges: Overriding default styles can be difficult.
  • Larger Bundle Size: Can add significant weight to your application.

Example:

 

React-Bootstrap’s Grid system allows for quick and easy layout creation.

See the Pen
BootstrapUI
by Juan (@takelo)
on CodePen.


Conclusion

Layout is a critical component of UI design, affecting how users interact with your application. Each library offers different tools and approaches to layout:

  • Material UI: Provides a powerful Grid system and numerous layout components, ideal for complex, responsive designs.
  • Next UI: Offers basic layout components suitable for simpler layouts in modern applications.
  • WindUI and Tailwind UI: Leverage Tailwind CSS utilities for granular layout control, allowing highly customized and responsive designs.
  • DaisyUI: Built on top of Tailwind CSS, DaisyUI simplifies development with pre-built components and accessibility features, making it a strong choice for quickly building responsive and accessible UIs.
  • React-Bootstrap: Uses Bootstrap’s well-known Grid system, making layout design straightforward but potentially less modern in appearance.

Remember, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when these powerful libraries can provide a solid foundation for your application’s UI and layout needs. Evaluate the pros and cons in the context of your project’s requirements to choose the most fitting library. Happy coding!