What is TailwindCSS?

TailwindCSS is a tiny, utility first CSS framework for building custom designs, while being able to switch your brain off.

It makes CSS incredibly easy and quick to write, as shown by the following example:

Old CSS:

1. Write CSS, often in a seperate file

.my-class {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  justify-content: center;
  align-items: center;
  background-color: #fff;
  border: 1px solid #e2e8f0;
  border-radius: 0.25rem;
  padding: 1rem;
}

2. Import CSS into your component

import "./my-class.css";

3. Add the class to your HTML

<div class="my-class">...</div>

Equivelent in Tailwind:

1. Just write classes in your HTML

<div
  class="flex flex-col justify-center items-center bg-white border border-gray-200 rounded p-4"
>
  ...
</div>

Its usage along with React components is extremely powerful for quickly building UIs, however it is purely a CSS framework and does not provide any pre-built components or logic and shouldn’t be compared to a component library like Material UI.

TailwindCSS has a beautiful built-in design system, that comes out of the box with a carefully chosen color palette, sizing patterns for styles such as width/height and padding/margin for a uniform design, as well as media breakpoints for an encouraged mobile-first layout. This can be extended and customised to be as restrictive or broad as you like.

Useful Resources