Jakub Andrzejewski

Posted on Oct 6

Shadcn Vue – Elegant, Customizable UI Components for Modern Vue Apps

#vue #ui #a11y #tailwindcss

Building consistent, accessible, and visually appealing user interfaces in Vue applications can be time-consuming. Creating components from scratch requires careful attention to accessibility, design system alignment, and customization flexibility.

This is where Shadcn Vue comes in — a collection of ready-made but fully editable UI components built with Tailwind CSS and inspired by the popular shadcn/ui library from the React ecosystem.

In this article, we’ll explore:

What Shadcn Vue is and how it works
Why it’s worth using in your Vue projects
Real-world examples of components you can use today

Enjoy!

🤔 What Is Shadcn Vue?

Shadcn Vue is a UI component library for Vue that provides a set of pre-built, modern, and accessible components designed for real-world applications. Its biggest advantage is that components are not shipped as a package but as source code — they become part of your project.

This means:

✅ You have full control over the code
✏️ You can modify and customize components freely
🔓 There’s no vendor lock-in — the code belongs to you, not the library

The library is built on Tailwind CSS and Radix Vue (a port of Radix UI), ensuring accessibility (a11y), modern design, and robust interaction patterns out of the box.

🟢 Why Use Shadcn Vue?

Here are the key reasons why Shadcn Vue stands out among other UI libraries:

1. 📦 Components as Source Code

Unlike most UI libraries, Shadcn Vue components are copied into your repository. You can refactor, restyle, or extend them without hacks or forking.

2. 🎨 Beautiful, Modern UI

The components follow modern UI/UX trends and look great right after installation — no heavy customization required.

3. 🛠️ Easy to Customize

Because Shadcn Vue uses Tailwind CSS and design tokens, you can quickly align components with your brand or design system.

4. 🧩 Scalable and Flexible

It works for small projects and large-scale applications alike. Use only the components you need, when you need them.

🟢 Example Components

Let’s look at how simple it is to use Shadcn Vue components in practice 👇

Example 1 – Button

<script setup>
import { Button } from "@/components/ui/button";
</script>

<template>
  <Button>Click me</Button>
  <Button variant="secondary">Secondary</Button>
  <Button variant="destructive">Delete</Button>
</template>

As a result, we get a clean, accessible buttons with pre-built variants that you can easily override with Tailwind classes.

Example 2 – Dialog (Modal)

<script setup>
import { Dialog, DialogContent, DialogHeader, DialogTitle, DialogTrigger } from "@/components/ui/dialog";
</script>

<template>
  <Dialog>
    <DialogTrigger as-child>
      <Button>Open Dialog</Button>
    </DialogTrigger>
    <DialogContent>
      <DialogHeader>
        <DialogTitle>Modal Title</DialogTitle>
      </DialogHeader>
      <p>This is a simple modal example using Shadcn Vue.</p>
    </DialogContent>
  </Dialog>
</template>

As a result, we get a fully accessible (a11y) modal with elegant design and keyboard support built in.

Example 3 – Input + Label

<script setup>
import { Input } from "@/components/ui/input";
import { Label } from "@/components/ui/label";
</script>

<template>
  <div class="space-y-2">
    <Label for="email">Email</Label>
    <Input id="email" type="email" placeholder="you@example.com" />
  </div>
</template>

As a result, we get a simple, accessible form field with semantic markup and clean styling.

✅ Best Practices

📁 Treat components as a starting point — customize them to fit your project.
🎨 Use Tailwind and CSS variables to align UI with your brand.
🧱 Import only what you need — no need to include the whole library.
♿ Leverage built-in accessibility from Radix Vue and Shadcn patterns.

📖 Learn more

If you’d like to learn more about Vue, Nuxt, JavaScript, or other useful frontend technologies, check out VueSchool by clicking this link or the image below:

It covers essential concepts for building modern Vue and Nuxt apps, helping you in both daily work and side projects 😉

🧪 Advance skills

Certification enhances your skills, builds credibility, and opens doors to new opportunities. Whether you’re advancing your career or switching paths, it’s a smart step toward success.

Check out Certificates.dev by clicking this link or the image below:

Invest in yourself — get certified in Vue.js, JavaScript, Nuxt, Angular, React, and more!

✅ Summary

Shadcn Vue is a modern, flexible, and highly customizable UI solution for Vue applications. By treating components as part of your codebase instead of a dependency, you gain full control while benefiting from clean, accessible, and production-ready UI components.

If you’re looking for an alternative to traditional UI libraries that often limit customization, Shadcn Vue is an excellent choice for your next project.

Take care!

And happy coding as always 🖥️

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