@shopify/restyle vs emotion vs styled-components vs styled-system
CSS-in-JS Libraries
@shopify/restyleemotionstyled-componentsstyled-systemSimilar Packages:

CSS-in-JS Libraries

CSS-in-JS libraries allow developers to write CSS styles directly within JavaScript files, providing a more dynamic and component-centric approach to styling in web applications. These libraries enable scoped styles, theme management, and often come with additional features like responsive design utilities and theming capabilities. They help streamline the styling process, making it easier to manage styles in large applications and ensuring that styles are co-located with the components they affect, which enhances maintainability and readability.

Npm Package Weekly Downloads Trend

3 Years

Github Stars Ranking

Stat Detail

Package
Downloads
Stars
Size
Issues
Publish
License
@shopify/restyle03,38492.2 kB36a year agoMIT
emotion0---5 years agoMIT
styled-components041,0182 MB1411 days agoMIT
styled-system0---6 years agoMIT

Feature Comparison: @shopify/restyle vs emotion vs styled-components vs styled-system

Theming Support

  • @shopify/restyle:

    @shopify/restyle provides built-in theming capabilities that allow you to define a design system with consistent spacing, colors, and typography. This makes it easy to switch themes or apply a consistent style across your application.

  • emotion:

    Emotion supports theming through its ThemeProvider, enabling you to define a theme object that can be accessed throughout your application. This allows for easy customization and consistent styling based on the theme.

  • styled-components:

    styled-components offers a ThemeProvider that allows you to define a theme for your application. You can easily access theme values in your styled components, promoting consistency and reusability of styles.

  • styled-system:

    styled-system is designed with theming in mind, allowing you to create a design system that can be easily applied across your components. It provides a set of utility functions to help manage styles based on your theme.

Performance

  • @shopify/restyle:

    @shopify/restyle is optimized for performance in React Native applications, ensuring that styles are only recalculated when necessary, which helps maintain smooth animations and transitions.

  • emotion:

    Emotion is known for its performance, utilizing a highly optimized runtime that minimizes the overhead of CSS-in-JS. It supports server-side rendering and critical CSS extraction, making it suitable for production applications.

  • styled-components:

    styled-components has a small runtime overhead but is generally performant for most applications. It supports server-side rendering, which can improve initial load times and SEO.

  • styled-system:

    styled-system focuses on performance by providing utility functions that reduce the need for complex style calculations. It promotes a responsive design approach that can be efficiently managed.

Learning Curve

  • @shopify/restyle:

    @shopify/restyle has a moderate learning curve, especially for developers familiar with React Native. Its API is straightforward, but understanding the design system concepts may take some time.

  • emotion:

    Emotion has a relatively easy learning curve, especially for developers already familiar with CSS and JavaScript. Its API is intuitive, and it provides clear documentation to help new users get started quickly.

  • styled-components:

    styled-components is easy to learn for developers familiar with React. Its syntax is straightforward, allowing you to create styled components with minimal setup, making it accessible for beginners.

  • styled-system:

    styled-system may have a steeper learning curve due to its utility-first approach and the need to understand design tokens and responsive design principles. However, once mastered, it can significantly speed up development.

Flexibility

  • @shopify/restyle:

    @shopify/restyle offers flexibility in styling components, allowing you to create responsive styles and easily switch between different design tokens based on your theme.

  • emotion:

    Emotion provides high flexibility with both styled components and the CSS prop, allowing developers to choose their preferred styling method. This dual approach caters to different coding styles and project requirements.

  • styled-components:

    styled-components is flexible in that it allows you to create styled components with dynamic styles based on props, enabling a high degree of customization while maintaining a clean component structure.

  • styled-system:

    styled-system is highly flexible, allowing you to create responsive styles using a utility-based approach. It enables rapid prototyping and can be easily integrated with other styling solutions.

Integration

  • @shopify/restyle:

    @shopify/restyle is specifically designed for React Native, making it a great choice for mobile applications. It integrates seamlessly with React Native components and APIs.

  • emotion:

    Emotion can be used with any React application, making it versatile for both web and mobile projects. It integrates well with existing CSS frameworks and libraries.

  • styled-components:

    styled-components is primarily for React applications and integrates well with the React ecosystem, making it easy to use alongside other libraries and tools.

  • styled-system:

    styled-system can be integrated with any React application and works well with styled-components and Emotion, allowing developers to leverage its utility-first approach alongside other styling methods.

How to Choose: @shopify/restyle vs emotion vs styled-components vs styled-system

  • @shopify/restyle:

    Choose @shopify/restyle if you are building a React Native application that requires a consistent design system and responsive utilities. It is particularly useful for projects that need to maintain a cohesive look and feel across different screen sizes and devices.

  • emotion:

    Choose Emotion if you need a highly flexible and performant solution that supports both styled components and CSS prop syntax. It is ideal for projects that require dynamic styling and theming capabilities, especially when you want to leverage the full power of CSS-in-JS with a focus on performance.

  • styled-components:

    Choose styled-components if you prefer a straightforward API for creating styled components with a focus on component-based styling. It is great for React applications where you want to encapsulate styles within components, making it easy to manage and reuse styles across your application.

  • styled-system:

    Choose styled-system if you want to build a design system with a focus on responsive design and utility-first styling. It is particularly beneficial for projects that require a consistent spacing, typography, and color system, allowing for rapid prototyping and theming.

README for @shopify/restyle

Restyle Image

Getting startedInstallationPlaygroundDiscord

Build a consistent, themed UI in minutes.

RestyleTheme 2020-02-25 17_43_51

The Restyle library provides a type-enforced system for building UI components in React Native with TypeScript. It's a library for building UI libraries, with themability as the core focus.

This library assumes that the UI is built upon a design system that (at the very least) defines a set of colors and spacing constants that lays as a foundation. While the library acknowledges that there can be exceptions to the system by allowing any style to be overridden, it keeps the developer most productive when one-off values are kept to a minimum.

Installation

Add the package to your project using one of the following:

yarn add @shopify/restyle
npm install @shopify/restyle
npx expo install @shopify/restyle

Usage

See Usage in the documentation, or see below for the fixture app.

App / Playground

The fixture is an example app to showcase the library's usage.

Running the Documentation site locally

To run the Documentation site locally, please follow the steps below:

  1. cd documentation
  2. yarn
  3. yarn start
  4. Go to http://localhost:3000/restyle/

Migrating to restyle v2

Read more about migration to v2 here

Inspiration

Restyle is heavily inspired by https://styled-system.com.

Contributing

For help on setting up the repo locally, building, testing, and contributing please see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Code of Conduct

All developers who wish to contribute through code or issues, take a look at the CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.md for details.