Top 5 Headless Components For Your React Application In 2023

#frontend #ui #react

This post was originally published on My personal site on Jul 1, 2023.

As a React Developer, your daily tasks is managing UI and Components. While libraries like MUI or Ant Design are commonly used for building applications, they may not be flexible enough to fulfill the expectations of your project managers or clients. In such cases, creating custom UI components becomes necessary.

Tight deadlines can often prevent developers from making the components API flexible or testing against accessibility standards. This can lead to problems down the road, such as components that are difficult to customize or that do not meet accessibility requirements.

In this post, I will share five headless component libraries that excel in accessibility and great API design. These libraries can help you to save time and create accessible, high-quality user interfaces.

Radix Primitive

Radix is a comprehensive component library developed by the teams at WorkOS. It offers a variety of useful components that can be used for different purposes, such as Modals (dialogs), Dropdowns, and Tabs.

One of the great things about Radix is its well-designed API, which is easy to understand and use. The documentation provides clear examples that demonstrate how to integrate Radix with popular styling solutions like Tailwind CSS. In addition, Radix offers handy utilities like Slots and Portal, which shouldn’t be overlooked.

Radix stands out from other libraries due to its distinctive capability of installing components separately. This feature offers advantages such as reducing computer storage usage and enhancing both the speed of your builds and page loads. Recently they have created Radix Theme, a full-featured components for your application.

Base UI (a.k.a MUI Base)

MUI (Material-UI has become extremely popular among developers because it enables them to quickly create user interfaces that closely follow the Material Design specifications.

In 2022, MUI introduced Base UI, a collection of React Components that gives developers complete control over the visual appearance of their user interfaces. With Base UI, there is no need to override any defaults.

For those who are already familiar with MUI’s API design, Base UI is an excellent option. It seamlessly integrates with Tailwind CSS or MUI System, a collection of CSS utilities provided by MUI. This combination provides increased flexibility and empowers developers to effectively achieve their desired UI outcomes.

Headless UI

In addition to Tailwind CSS, Tailwind Labs also created Headless UI, a collection of components that work well with Tailwind CSS.

One notable component in Headless UI is Transition. It provides a simple way to animate React Components, making it a great option for developers who want basic animation functionality without using more complicated solutions like React Spring or Framer Motion.

Zag and Ark

Zag.js and Ark are headless component libraries created by the teams behind Chakra UI.

Zag.js is a headless component library that are powered by Finite State Machines. As stated in the documentation, “Machines handle the logic. You handle the UI,” which means you can enhance your user interface with a pre-defined state machine. On the other hand, Ark is a headless component library that are built on top of Zag.js, offering simpler configuration options.

If you are a fan of Chakra UI products, they have created a new CSS Engine called Panda CSS as a styling solution. By combining Zag/Ark and Panda, you can easily create your entire design system.

Reach UI

Reach UI is a headless component library created by React Training Teams, the same teams behind Remix and React Router.

Similar to other headless component libraries mentioned earlier, Reach UI is compatible with various styling solutions. However, it requires importing base styles and CSS files to ensure proper functionality of the components.