Are you tired of the same old boring CSS? Are you looking for a way to spice up your UI design without sacrificing accessibility and performance? Look no further, because Tailwind CSS and Chakra UI are here to save the day! These two popular CSS frameworks offer unique approaches to styling your UI components, but which one is the best for your project? In this article, we'll explore the notable differences between Tailwind CSS and Chakra UI, including their design philosophies, code snippets, and even their build and runtime performance. So grab a cup of coffee and get ready to compare and contrast, because it's time to decide which one reigns supreme: Tailwind CSS or Chakra UI!

Now let's get to it!

Tailwind CSS and Chakra UI are two popular UI component libraries that have been widely adopted by developers worldwide. Both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages, but there are some notable core differences between the two. In this article, we will take a closer look at these differences and explore why Chakra UI is the best choice for developers.

• Tailwind CSS

Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework that focuses on providing pre-defined CSS classes that can be used to style HTML elements. It offers a wide range of classes that can be used to apply styles such as padding, margin, typography, and colors to elements. Developers can use these classes to create complex layouts and styles without writing any CSS code.

One of the main advantages of Tailwind CSS is its flexibility. Since it provides a wide range of pre-defined classes, developers can quickly create custom styles that fit their needs. Additionally, Tailwind CSS is designed to be highly customizable, so developers can configure and extend it to meet their specific requirements.

Here's an example of how you can use Tailwind CSS to style a button:

<button class="bg-blue-500 hover:bg-blue-700 text-white font-bold py-2 px-4 rounded">
  Click me
</button>

In this example, we're using Tailwind CSS classes to set the background color, text color, font weight, padding, and border radius of the button. This allows us to quickly create a stylish button without writing any vanilla CSS code.

• Chakra UI

Chakra UI is a component library that provides a set of reusable UI components that can be used to create complex UIs. It focuses on providing a set of high-quality, accessible components that can be used to build responsive, user-friendly interfaces. Chakra UI is built on top of styled-system, a library that provides a set of functions for styling components.

One of the main advantages of Chakra UI is its accessibility. All components are designed to meet accessibility standards and can be easily customized to meet specific accessibility requirements. Additionally, Chakra UI provides a consistent design system that can be used to create cohesive UIs across different pages and applications.

Here's an example of how you can use Chakra UI to create a button:

<Button colorScheme="blue" size="md">
  Click me
</Button>

In this example, we're using the Chakra UI Button component to create a button with a blue color scheme and a medium size. This allows us to quickly create a high-quality, accessible button without writing any CSS code.

Why Chakra UI is the best choice?

While both Tailwind CSS and Chakra UI have their own set of advantages, Chakra UI is the best choice for developers who prioritize accessibility and consistency in their UIs. Chakra UI provides a set of high-quality, accessible components that can be easily customized to meet specific requirements. Additionally, Chakra UI's focus on consistency allows developers to create cohesive UIs across different pages and applications.

Here's an example of how you can use Chakra UI to create a form:

<Formik
  initialValues={{ email: '', password: '' }}
  onSubmit={values => console.log(values)}
>
  <Form>
    <FormControl isRequired>
      <FormLabel>Email address</FormLabel>
      <Input type="email" name="email" />
    </FormControl>
    <FormControl isRequired>
      <FormLabel>Password</FormLabel>
      <Input type="password" name="password" />
    </FormControl>
    <Button mt={4} colorScheme="blue" type="submit">
      Submit
    </Button>
  </Form>
</Formik>

In this example, we're using Chakra UI components to create a form that collects an email and password from the user. The Formik component is used to handle form submission and validation, while the Chakra UI Input, FormControl, and FormLabel components are used to create the form fields. The Button component is used to create the form submission button.

This example demonstrates how easy it is to create complex forms using Chakra UI. The components are designed to work together seamlessly, which makes it easy for developers to create consistent and accessible UIs.

Build and runtime performance
When it comes to build and runtime performance, both Tailwind CSS and Chakra UI perform very well. However, there are some differences between the two that are worth noting.

Tailwind CSS

Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework, which means that it generates a lot of CSS classes. This can result in larger CSS files and longer build times, especially if you're using a lot of custom classes. However, Tailwind CSS is designed to be highly customizable, so you can configure it to only include the classes that you need, which can help to reduce the size of your CSS files.

In terms of runtime performance, Tailwind CSS generates very efficient CSS that is optimized for modern browsers. This means that your pages will load quickly and the user experience will be fast and smooth.

Chakra UI

Chakra UI is built on top of styled-system, which is a library that uses a theme-based approach to styling components. This means that Chakra UI generates fewer CSS classes than Tailwind CSS, which can result in smaller CSS files and shorter build times. Additionally, Chakra UI provides a set of pre-built themes that you can use to quickly style your components, which can help to reduce the amount of custom CSS that you need to write.

In terms of runtime performance, Chakra UI generates very efficient CSS that is optimized for modern browsers. Additionally, Chakra UI provides a set of performance optimizations that can help to reduce the amount of work that the browser needs to do when rendering your components. This can result in faster page load times and a smoother user experience.

The question here now is why i think Chakra is a great choice over tailwind css?
I was opportuned to come accross a blog post of Segun Adebayo which is the author of chakra ui, and i was impressed by some new improvements being incorporated into chakra which i will highlight in this article.

• Breaking the monolith

Chakra UI is a large framework with many different features like components, theming, and styling all tied together. This can make it difficult for developers to understand and contribute to the codebase, leading to longer bug fixing times. To make it easier to work with, we're breaking Chakra UI down into smaller, independent projects that are easier to manage and understand.
To reduce the complexity, we're splitting up the big ideas in Chakra into smaller, manageable and independent projects. Here's a quick overview:

This image better explains the architecture they're willing to achieve with chakra.

I'll be talking about the architecture of this image in this section in simple words.

Styled System(zero runtime css-in-js[Panda]): Developers love using style props and runtime CSS-in-JS to create dynamic UI components that are easy to use. However, these features can slow down the performance of the application. To solve this problem, we're building a new styling solution called Panda that will extract styles at build time, which means the application will run faster. Panda will also use new platform features like CSS variables and cascade layers to make styling even easier for developers.

State Machine + Accessibilty (using zag): Chakra UI is designed to make interactive components easy to use, no matter what framework you're using. We achieve this by modeling every component as a state machine. This means that we carefully plan out how the component will change and behave in different states, making it predictable and easy to maintain. By using this approach, we can create components that are easy to debug and understand, which will ultimately make your development process smoother.

Here is an example of how to build a number input component using zag in react.

  // 1. Import the state machine
  import * as numberInput from '@zag-js/number-input';

  // 2. Import the React bindings
  import { useMachine, normalizeProps } from '@zag-js/react';

  export function NumberInput() {
    // 3. Consume the machine
    const [state, send] = useMachine(numberInput.machine({ id: '1', max: 50, min: -50 }));

    // 4. Convert machine to a user friendly API
    const api = numberInput.connect(state, send, normalizeProps);

    // 5. Render the component
    return (
      <div {...api.rootProps}>
        <label {...api.labelProps}>Enter number:</label>
        <div>
          <button {...api.decrementButtonProps}>DEC</button>
          <input {...api.inputProps} />
          <button {...api.incrementButtonProps}>INC</button>
        </div>
      </div>
    );
  }

Isn't this a great leap that you can manage your states and also make them reuseable accross
components?

Zag.js is our low-level state machine library used to build all the components in Chakra
UI. We aim to develop a robust set of application and e-commerce components that works in
most JS frameworks.
To learn more about Zag.js, check out the docs here: https://zagjs.com, or you can watch
my demo on the Learn with Jason show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8HJoE_ktDc

Headless Components: Building UI components with State machines sounds exciting but can sometimes sound complex or scary. It sometimes gives the impression that you need to know, or at least learn, about state machines before you can use them. That's not the case (at all).

To increase adoption, we're wrapping Zag.js component logic into a headless component library you can use to build your applications and design systems with speed.

import { NumberInput } from '@ark-ui/react';

export function Demo() {
  return (
    <NumberInput min={-50} max={50}>
      <NumberInput.Label>Label</NumberInput.Label>
      <NumberInput.Field />
      <NumberInput.Control>
        <NumberInput.DecrementTrigger>
          <button>-1</button>
        </NumberInput.DecrementTrigger>
        <NumberInput.IncrementTrigger>
          <button>+1</button>
        </NumberInput.IncrementTrigger>
      </NumberInput.Control>
    </NumberInput>
  );
}

The Chakra team created a new library called Ark, which will be the headless component foundation for Chakra UI.

It's open source and you can check it out here: https://github.com/chakra-ui/ark

Design token platform [Ultra]: Design tokens are quickly becoming the standard for managing design decisions in a product or website today. They're a powerful concept that allows you to build a design system that is flexible, scalable, and maintainable.

Chakra UI today supports a theming system that allows you to customize design tokens and components at any level of granularity. We also added basic support for semantic tokens to enable developers to build automatic light and dark modes into their applications. Most enterprise applications require more than just light and dark modes.

Beyond authoring design tokens, transforming and distributing tokens to different platforms and projects is a huge pain point for most design systems.

We're building Ultra, a SaaS platform that will allow product teams:

• Create core and semantic design tokens visually (without it feeling like grunt work)

• Define best practices, shared layers and text styles across your project

• Provides automatic documentation for your tokens with a GPT interface for searching and filtering

• Distribute design tokens to different platforms and project

In conclusion this particular framework Chakra UI has a great potential amongst its peers. It seems like a no-brainer to get inclined and familiar with its concept and use it to achieve efficiency and speed in styling your product. I mean isn't that what we've always wanted to achieve as developer? Speed and Efficiency, in which chakra will be serving on a platter of Gold.

To read more on the chakra latest updates you can check through this link: https://www.adebayosegun.com/blog/the-future-of-chakra-ui

If this is helpful drop a like and also your comments and criticism are welcomed.