Building Better UIs: Why ShadCN and Radix Are Worth Your Attention

When it comes to building modern, scalable, and visually appealing React applications, ShadCN and Radix are a developer’s best buddies.

These tools focus on making your life easier while ensuring your UI is sleek, accessible, and completely in your control. Let’s break them down in a chill, no-fuss way.

ShadCN: Not Just Another Library

What’s ShadCN?

ShadCN isn’t your typical component library or UI framework.

It’s more like a collection of reusable components that you can copy and paste directly into your project.

Yup, you literally own the code once you paste it into your repo.

Why is that cool?

• No Forced Updates: Your components don’t magically change unless you update them. As long as your dependencies are locked to specific versions, your UI stays rock solid.
• Future-Proof: Sure, if browsers decide to deprecate something 10 years down the line, you might need to fix it. But hey, that’s an issue with any code.
• Minimal Logic: ShadCN doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It mostly leans on Radix UI and other libraries for the heavy lifting.

Comparison Time

ShadCN UI

Material UI (MUI)

Ant Design

	ShadCN UI	Material UI (MUI)	Ant Design
GitHub Stars	78k	94k	93k
Bundle Size	NIL	93.7kb	429kb
Components	48	66	65
Maturity	Young and fast-growing	Established library	Established library
Best For	Small or personal projects	Small to large projects	Small to large projects

GitHub Stars<script> // Detect dark theme var iframe = document.getElementById('tweet-1879560380336521537-907'); if (document.body.className.includes('dark-theme')) { iframe.src = "https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1879560380336521537&theme=dark" } </script>

78k

94k

93k

Bundle Size

NIL

93.7kb

429kb

Components

48

66

65

Maturity

Young and fast-growing

Established library

Established library

Best For

Small or personal projects

Small to large projects

Small to large projects

Extras to Explore

• Themes: ShadCN Themes
  

• Blocks: ShadCN Blocks
  

• Charts: ShadCN Charts
  

---

Radix: The Backbone of Modern UI

What’s Radix UI?

Radix is a set of unstyled, accessible UI primitives

for React.

Think of it as the building blocks for your custom UI components.

Launched in November 2020, Radix has quickly gained popularity among developers who love full control over their designs.

Why Radix Rocks

• Accessibility First
: It’s built with WAI-ARIA standards, so you don’t have to sweat the small stuff.
• Highly Composable
: You can use just the parts you need without adding unnecessary bloat.
• Unstyled Freedom
: Style your components however you like. Tailwind? Plain CSS? The choice is yours.
• Real-World Use: Even Vercel
uses Radix primitives. (That’s saying something!)

Case Studies

Check out Radix’s case studies, including Vercel’s implementation.

Comparison Time

	Radix UI	Headless UI (Tailwind)	Base UI (MUI)
GitHub Stars	16k	26k	2k
Bundle Size	248b	33.8kb	48.7kb
Components	28	10	20
Playground	✅	❌	❌

	Radix UI	Headless UI (Tailwind)	Base UI (MUI)
<script> // Detect dark theme var iframe = document.getElementById('tweet-1879560380336521537-907'); if (document.body.className.includes('dark-theme')) { iframe.src = "https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1879560380336521537&theme=dark" } </script>GitHub Stars	16k	26k	2k
Bundle Size	248b	33.8kb	48.7kb
Components	28	10	20
Playground	✅	❌	❌

Podcast Alert!

Want to know more? Check out

Bonus: AI-Generated Components with V0

Did you know about V0? It’s Vercel’s chatbot-like generative AI tool for building UI components.

Powered by ShadCN UI and Tailwind CSS, it generates component code based on your prompts.

Perfect for when you’re short on time but want sleek, functional components.

Final Thoughts

ShadCN and Radix make a killer combo for developers who want accessible, customizable, and lightweight components.

They’re perfect for personal projects and mostly scalable for larger applications.

With ShadCN themes, blocks, and charts, you get a head start on building something awesome.

By the way, I used ShadCN to build LiveAPI—a Super-Convenient API Docs Generation tool for backend developers to generate API documentation with just a few clicks.

It’s just 2-4 clicks and doesn’t require installing Swagger or writing docs manually. Check it out!

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