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Why I use Tailwind CSS instead of Bootstrap

You Already Know on March 05, 2021

If you are creating a new website or with a small web development team in a short amount of time, most developers lean towards Bootstrap to help wi...

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Nikola Betica • Mar 6 '21

Never was a fan of Tailwind or any other low-level CSS frameworks. Maybe it doesn't fit the projects I'm currently working on. But.. I don't understand that cliche "you don't have to be a CSS expert". What does it mean exactly? That you don't need to learn all of the property names? That' s true, but instead you have to learn all the Tailwinds custom classes that represent that properties. Tailwind is all about workflow, it doesn't add or subtract anything to or from CSS. It is a rewrite of CSS.

Btw, when did we start calling CSS a vanilla CSS?

You Already Know • Mar 12 '21

You don't have to be an expert in CSS, to use tailwind. CSS original name if you look it up is Vanilla CSS. Anything else

Mike Rogers ✈️ • Mar 7 '21

I switch between Bootstrap & Tailwind quite regularly, so I'm kind of excited to see what happens in the CSS space. I did have some thoughts I wanted to share:

While using Bootstrap it is very unlikely one will use all of it's available framework classes

I think the same could be said for Tailwind. Either way, I think adding PurgeCSS to every project regardless of framework is a massive win :D

To achieve a custom look when using Bootstrap we need to write custom css. Using Tailwind CSS utility classes, it is possible to achieve any look and feel of the button without writing any css.
The biggest strengths of Tailwind is its configurability.

I think the current biggest failure of Bootstrap is that it doesn't push that you can configure it by
overriding the SCSS variables & adjusting the mixins. Plus, you can just include the parts you want instead of all of it.

You Already Know • Mar 12 '21

Thanks for the feedback and tips, thats why I am here, to network, share tips etc.

andreseduardop • Jul 20 '21

I agree with you. Bootstrap is highly customizable. But, you have to know about scsss ...
Learning scss is challenging and rewarding in the long run.

Camilo Micheletto • Mar 7 '21

I think both serve differente purposes. Bootstrap has its own design sistem, it's not intended to be used if you need to overcustomize its components. While bootstrap comes with a component design system approach, tailwind comes with a utility based approach, which basically transfer the styling resposibility to ready-to-use classes and focus in design tokens instead of design patterns. But just as B4, tailwind comes with its own problems, like the need of heavy tooling, messy HTML and non DRY approach to code

You Already Know • Mar 12 '21

Thanks for the feedback

hbgl • Mar 7 '21 • Edited

But!, when project's get bigger and more traffik comes to the site(s), concerns of page overload and performance arise. While using Bootstrap it is very unlikely one will use all of it's available framework classes, which equals to considerable amount of css overload as well as unused components.

I disagree with this premise. Bootstrap consists of many independent components that you can selectively enabled and disable. I also don't understand what benefit Tailwind provides over Bootstrap.

You Already Know • Mar 12 '21

I am not an expert, just gave my opinion,

Abhinandan Khilari • Mar 6 '21

But with Tailwind, we have to apply lots of css classes which makes page's HTML too big, isn't it?

mrcbns • Jun 30 '21 • Edited

You can brake HTML in components with any framework so your components are small.
Then you can move your VERY LARGE amount of utility classes to an old style .my-class classnames and use the @apply directive this way