When building a website, one of the fundamental decisions you’ll face is how to handle your CSS. Should you rely on a utility-first framework like Tailwind CSS, or write custom CSS from scratch? Each approach has its strengths and trade-offs, and the right choice depends on your project’s requirements, developer preferences, and future scalability.
In this blog, we will explore both Tailwind and custom CSS, diving into what makes them unique, their benefits, and when to choose one over the other. By the end, you'll have a clearer understanding of which method best suits your next project.
Let’s get started.
Tailwind is a utility-first CSS framework that provides low-level utility classes to help you style your elements directly in your HTML. Unlike traditional CSS frameworks that come with predefined components (like Bootstrap), Tailwind allows you to build custom designs by combining utility classes without writing any actual CSS.
For example:
<div class="bg-blue-500 text-white p-4 rounded-lg"> This is a Tailwind-styled div </div>
Instead of creating custom class names and writing CSS rules for them, you use pre-built utility classes like bg-blue-500 for background color, text-white for text color, p-4 for padding, and so on.
Custom CSS refers to writing your own styles from scratch. This involves defining your class names and assigning CSS properties and values to control the appearance of elements. You have complete freedom over how you write your styles, including organizing them into reusable components or creating a design system tailored to your needs.
Here’s an example:
<div class="custom-div">
This is a custom CSS styled div
</div>
<style>
.custom-div {
background-color: #3490dc;
color: white;
padding: 16px;
border-radius: 10px;
}
</style>
In this case, you define a custom class (custom-div) and manually apply your CSS properties in a