React has slowly become the most popular frontend JavaScript library on which most modern web applications are built. However, like with any web development, styling plays an important role; you want your application to be nice to look at and use. That’s where CSS frameworks come in handy.
Top 10 CSS Frameworks for React [2024]CSS frameworks are great for making your web application more beautiful and easier to style. They can save you from a lot of hassle and provide you with prebuilt styles, components, and utilities that can be helpful while building a React application. Below are the top 10 most used CSS frameworks for React in 2025, ranging from utility-based frameworks to component libraries.
What are CSS Frameworks?
CSS frameworks are vital tools these days in developing the web. They provide a predefined structure that enables developers to focus on functionality without worrying about designing every single element from scratch. These frameworks, together with React, speed up the development process even more by providing ready components, grids, utilities, and many other elements.
With React still gaining speed in the landscape of front-end development, the need for a developer to make choices with respect to a CSS framework that best complements your projects becomes necessary. Let's dive into the top 10 CSS frameworks you should use in 2025 for your React applications.
Why Use a CSS Framework with React?
While React does a great job of providing mechanisms for building dynamic user interfaces, it doesn't include any pre-styled components out of the box. This means you'll need to style your application manually using CSS, which consumes a lot of time and becomes difficult to manage for big applications. CSS frameworks solve this problem by providing reusable styles, components, and utilities that you can directly integrate into your React components.
Benefits of Using CSS Frameworks with React:
- Consistency: Ensures a consistent design across the application.
- Productivity: Boosts productivity by reducing the need to write repetitive CSS.
- Responsiveness: Many frameworks offer responsive design out of the box.
- Customization: CSS frameworks are often customizable, allowing you to tailor the design to your project’s needs.
Top 10 CSS Frameworks for React
1. Tailwind CSS
Tailwind CSS is a highly popular utility-first CSS framework that enables you to build custom designs quickly and efficiently. Instead of predefined components like traditional CSS frameworks, Tailwind provides a set of utility classes that you can mix and match to style your React components. This approach gives developers complete control over their designs without needing to write custom CSS.
Features of Tailwind CSS
- Utility-first approach
- Highly customizable
- No need to override styles
- Built-in dark mode support
Example:
function Button() {
return <button className="bg-blue-500 hover:bg-blue-700
text-white font-bold py-2 px-4 rounded">Click Me</button>;
}Why Use It with React?
Tailwind CSS integrates seamlessly with React and allows you to style components directly in your JSX. Its utility-first approach makes it ideal for developers who prefer custom design without being constrained by predefined styles.
2. Material UI (MUI)
Material UI (MUI) is a comprehensive React component library that follows Google’s Material Design guidelines. MUI offers a vast range of prebuilt components, including buttons, cards, dialogs, and more, making it one of the best choices for developers looking for a fully-featured design system.
Features of Material UI
- Follows Material Design guidelines
- Rich component library
- Easy theming and customization
- Well-documented and active community
Example:
import Button from '@mui/material/Button';
function App() {
return <Button variant="contained" color="primary">Click Me</Button>;
}
Why Use It with React?
MUI is built specifically for React, which ensures seamless integration. The extensive collection of components means you can quickly build production-ready apps with minimal custom styling.
3. Bootstrap
Bootstrap is one of the most widely used CSS frameworks and comes with a powerful grid system, responsive utilities, and a collection of ready-to-use components. React-Bootstrap is the React implementation of Bootstrap, allowing you to use its components natively in your React projects.
Features of Bootstrap
- Predefined components (buttons, modals, alerts, etc.)
- Responsive grid system
- Cross-browser compatibility
- Extensive documentation
Example:
import { Button } from 'react-bootstrap';
function App() {
return <Button variant="primary">Click Me</Button>;
}Why Use It with React?
Bootstrap is great for building responsive, mobile-first applications. Its extensive component library and grid system are perfect for developers who want to get started quickly.
4. Chakra UI
Chakra UI is a modern React component library that focuses on accessibility, ease of use, and simplicity. It offers a range of customizable, composable components, such as buttons, forms, modals, and more. Chakra UI also has built-in support for dark mode.
Features of Chakra UI:
- Focus on accessibility
- Simple and composable components
- Built-in theming and dark mode support
- Flexbox utilities for responsive design
Example:
import { Button } from '@chakra-ui/react';
function App() {
return <Button colorScheme="blue">Click Me</Button>;
}Why Use It with React?
Chakra UI is a perfect choice for React developers looking for simple, yet highly customizable, components. Its accessibility features make it stand out in modern web development.
5. Ant Design
Ant Design is a comprehensive design system and React component library developed by Alibaba. It is primarily used in enterprise-level applications and provides a vast set of high-quality components designed for professional web apps.
Features of Ant Design:
- Large set of components
- Enterprise-focused design
- Internationalization support
- Built-in theme customization
Example:
import { Button } from 'antd';
function App() {
return <Button type="primary">Click Me</Button>;
}Why Use It with React?
Ant Design is ideal for building large, enterprise-level applications with a consistent design language. The built-in support for internationalization and themes makes it a powerful tool for global applications.
6. Bulma
Bulma is a lightweight, flexbox-based CSS framework that is easy to use and integrates well with React. It provides a modern grid system, responsive utilities, and a range of simple components. Although not React-specific, Bulma can be easily integrated with JSX.
Features of Bulma:
- Flexbox-based grid system
- Simple, lightweight components
- Mobile-first design
- CSS only (no JavaScript dependencies)
Example:
function App() {
return <button className="button is-primary">Click Me</button>;
}Why Use It with React?
Bulma’s simplicity and minimalism make it a great choice for developers who want to avoid the overhead of more complex frameworks. It’s easy to use, lightweight, and highly customizable.
7. Foundation
Foundation is another popular CSS framework that offers a powerful, flexible grid system and a range of responsive components. It’s highly customizable and is often used for building large-scale applications.
Features of Foundation:
- Advanced grid system
- Responsive, mobile-first design
- ARIA support for accessibility
- SASS-based for customization
Example:
function App() {
return <button className="button">Click Me</button>;
}Why Use It with React?
Foundation provides flexibility for developers who want a customizable grid system and responsive components. While not React-specific, it’s highly compatible with JSX.
8. Semantic UI React
Semantic UI React is the official React integration of the Semantic UI framework. It provides a set of components designed to make web development intuitive and human-friendly, with an emphasis on clean HTML and responsiveness.
Features of Semantic UI:
- Human-friendly, intuitive component names
- Responsive and mobile-friendly
- Wide variety of UI components
- Easy to customize
Example:
import { Button } from 'semantic-ui-react';
function App() {
return <Button primary>Click Me</Button>;
}Why Use It with React?
Semantic UI React is perfect for developers who want to write clean, human-readable code. The components are intuitive and provide a great user experience out of the box.
9. Styled Components
Styled Components is a CSS-in-JS library that enables developers to write component-level styles directly in their JavaScript files. Styled Components leverages tagged template literals in ES6 and supports theming, nesting, and more.
Features of Styled Components:
- Component-based styling
- Dynamic styling based on props
- Theme support
- No external CSS required
Example:
import styled from 'styled-components';
const Button = styled.button`
background-color: blue;
color: white;
padding: 10px;
border-radius: 5px;
&:hover {
background-color: darkblue;
}
`;
function App() {
return <Button>Click Me</Button>;
}
Why Use It with React?
Styled Components is perfect for developers who prefer keeping styles within the component file. It provides flexibility and scalability for large React applications.
10. Mantine
Mantine is a React component library that provides over 100 customizable components and hooks to help you build complex and accessible web applications. Mantine is highly flexible, supports dark mode, and includes hooks for state management and animations.
Features of Mantine:
- 100+ customizable components
- Built-in support for dark mode
- Flexible theming
- Modern design and responsive utilities
Example:
import { Button } from '@mantine/core';
function App() {
return <Button color="blue">Click Me</Button>;
}Why Use It with React?
Mantine offers a modern, flexible approach to building React applications. Its rich component set, theming capabilities, and support for hooks make it ideal for developers building complex, scalable apps.
How to Choose the Right CSS Framework
When deciding which CSS framework to use with React, consider the following factors:
- Project Requirements: Does your project need a highly customizable design, or is a prebuilt design system sufficient?
- Ease of Use: Some frameworks are easier to learn and use than others. Tailwind CSS, for example, has a steep learning curve if you're unfamiliar with utility-first frameworks.
- Component Availability: If you need many prebuilt components, frameworks like MUI or Ant Design may be more suitable than utility-based frameworks like Tailwind.
- Performance: Consider the performance impact of the CSS framework, particularly when building large-scale applications.
Conclusion
Choosing the right CSS framework can significantly impact your development speed and the quality of your final product. Whether you prefer a utility-first framework like Tailwind CSS or a full-featured component library like Material UI or Ant Design, the frameworks discussed in this article offer a wide range of tools to meet your styling needs in 2025.
By carefully considering your project requirements, design preferences, and component needs, you can select the best CSS framework to complement your React applications and build stunning, responsive user interfaces.
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