Differences between Tailwind and Bootstrap?

Phoenix Forum Questions / Help
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Can someone sum up the differences between Tailwind and Bootstrap? I did two web searches and skimmed five articles, and they’re all super-spammy.

Is Tailwind less semantic? Does it encourage you to not create your own classes? Is that a problem?

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I can try: Bootstrap is a component library with some utility classes on the side, whereas tailwind is a pure utility library with no components.

With Bootstrap, you get a set of predefined components you can use right away (buttons, modals, cards etc.). Tailwind on the other hand doesn’t have any components, but it makes it relatively easy to build them by offering utility classes, which allow you to style your HTML without having to write almost any CSS at all.

Bootstrap does have some utility classes, but it doesn’t embrace the concept as much as tailwind.

I came to tailwind from bootstrap and I wasn’t very happy initially because, even though I really liked the idea of styling everything using classes, I was missing a set of predefined components I could just use. I don’t like having to style my own buttons, modals and so on.

Luckily, if you want to use off-the-shelf components, there are excellent component libraries based on Tailwind. The best one IMO is daisyui :heart:

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I usually drive the point home with this: Tailwind classes abstract CSS, Bootstrap classes abstract complete and pieces of (prebuild) UI. If the goal is to use CSS features to build UI then Tailwind is great. If the goal is to not need to bother doing that then Bootstrap is likely a better fit. Component libraries like daisy UI are great because it’s usually easier to fall back from the “don’t bother” to “ok I need to bother” state for required customizations than it would be with e.g. Bootstrap.

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Thanks for the DaisyUI link. I’m in the same boat as you, and eventually dropped the money for TailwindUI. But because it’s not open source, you can’t find pre-made Phoenix components for it.

Is there anything like that for DaisyUI? I just wanna mix deps.get daisy-ui or something and be off to the races.

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@olivermt is allegedly building one for Daisy.

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Ooooh I should get it published right after xmas. Just been a nuts period in my dayjob last couple of months

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