Which is Better CSS-in-JS Libraries?
styled-components vs emotion vs theme-ui vs rebass
1 Year
styled-componentsemotiontheme-uirebassSimilar Packages:
What's CSS-in-JS Libraries?

CSS-in-JS libraries allow developers to write CSS directly within JavaScript files, enabling dynamic styling based on component state and props. They provide a modern approach to styling in React applications, promoting better encapsulation and component-based design. These libraries facilitate the creation of reusable styles and themes, making it easier to manage styles in large applications. Each library has its unique features and design philosophies, catering to different needs in styling and theming.

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styled-components5,384,77840,5031.76 MB2982 months agoMIT
emotion587,642---4 years agoMIT
theme-ui52,9195,30380.4 kB6318 days agoMIT
rebass40,8897,941-985 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: styled-components vs emotion vs theme-ui vs rebass

Theming Support

  • styled-components: Styled-components offers a robust theming API that allows you to create a ThemeProvider to pass theme values down the component tree. This makes it easy to manage and switch themes across your application, promoting design consistency.
  • emotion: Emotion provides a powerful theming solution that allows you to create a theme object and access it within your styled components. It supports dynamic theming, enabling you to switch themes at runtime based on user preferences or application state.
  • theme-ui: Theme UI is specifically designed for theming and provides a powerful theming API that allows you to define design tokens and easily apply them across your components. It supports responsive styles and is highly customizable.
  • rebass: Rebass has built-in theming capabilities that allow you to define a theme object and use it throughout your components. It encourages consistent design by providing a set of predefined design tokens for spacing, colors, and typography.

Performance

  • styled-components: Styled-components can introduce some overhead due to its dynamic nature, but it offers features like server-side rendering and automatic critical CSS extraction to mitigate performance issues. Proper usage can lead to optimized performance.
  • emotion: Emotion is optimized for performance, utilizing a runtime that generates styles on the fly and minimizes the CSS output. It also supports server-side rendering, which can improve initial load times and SEO.
  • theme-ui: Theme UI is designed to be performant with a focus on design tokens and responsive styles. It leverages Emotion under the hood, ensuring efficient style generation while maintaining a small bundle size.
  • rebass: Rebass is lightweight and built for performance, focusing on minimal CSS output while providing a set of responsive components. It leverages styled-components under the hood, ensuring efficient style generation.

Learning Curve

  • styled-components: Styled-components has a relatively easy learning curve for developers familiar with React. Its syntax is intuitive, and the concept of styled components aligns well with React's component-based architecture.
  • emotion: Emotion has a moderate learning curve, especially if you are new to CSS-in-JS. However, its API is straightforward, and once you grasp the concepts of styled components and theming, it becomes easy to use.
  • theme-ui: Theme UI may have a slightly steeper learning curve due to its focus on design tokens and theming. However, once you understand its principles, it provides a powerful way to manage styles and themes in your application.
  • rebass: Rebass has a gentle learning curve, especially for those familiar with styled-components. Its component-based approach and predefined design tokens make it easy to get started and build consistent UIs quickly.

Extensibility

  • styled-components: Styled-components is designed for extensibility, allowing you to create higher-order components and mixins. You can also extend existing styled components to create variations without duplicating code.
  • emotion: Emotion is highly extensible, allowing you to create custom styled components and utility functions. It supports theming and can be integrated with other libraries, making it suitable for complex applications.
  • theme-ui: Theme UI is highly extensible, allowing you to define custom styles and themes. It provides a flexible API for creating responsive designs and integrating with other libraries or frameworks.
  • rebass: Rebass is built on top of styled-components, making it extensible and customizable. You can easily create your own components or modify existing ones while maintaining a consistent design system.

Component Library

  • styled-components: Styled-components is primarily a styling solution rather than a component library. However, it can be used to style any React components, making it versatile for various applications.
  • emotion: Emotion itself is not a component library but can be used to style components in any React application. It gives you the flexibility to create your own components or integrate with existing libraries.
  • theme-ui: Theme UI is not just a styling library; it also provides a set of components that are designed to work seamlessly with its theming capabilities, making it ideal for building design systems.
  • rebass: Rebass is a component library that provides a set of pre-built, responsive UI components styled with styled-components. It is designed to help you build consistent and accessible interfaces quickly.
How to Choose: styled-components vs emotion vs theme-ui vs rebass
  • styled-components: Opt for styled-components if you want a robust solution for styling React components with a focus on component-level styles. It allows for easy theming and supports server-side rendering, making it suitable for larger applications that require a cohesive styling approach.
  • emotion: Choose Emotion if you need a highly flexible and performant solution that supports both styled components and traditional CSS syntax. It is ideal for projects that require dynamic styling based on props and state, and it provides excellent theming capabilities.
  • theme-ui: Use Theme UI if you are building a design system or need a library that emphasizes theming and design tokens. It integrates well with Gatsby and provides a powerful theming API, making it ideal for projects that prioritize design consistency and customization.
  • rebass: Select Rebass if you are looking for a lightweight, responsive UI component library that is built on top of styled-components. It is perfect for building consistent and accessible design systems with a focus on simplicity and minimalism.
README for styled-components

Visual primitives for the component age. Use the best bits of ES6 and CSS to style your apps without stress 💅

downloads: 600k/month Discord gzip size module formats: umd, cjs, esm Code Coverage

Upgrading from v5? See the migration guide.

Utilizing tagged template literals (a recent addition to JavaScript) and the power of CSS, styled-components allow you to write actual CSS code to style your components. It also removes the mapping between components and styles – using components as a low-level styling construct could not be easier!

const Button = styled.button`
  color: grey;
`;

Alternatively, you may use style objects. This allows for easy porting of CSS from inline styles, while still supporting the more advanced styled-components capabilities like component selectors and media queries.

const Button = styled.button({
  color: 'grey',
});

Equivalent to:

const Button = styled.button`
  color: grey;
`;

styled-components is compatible with both React (for web) and React Native – meaning it's the perfect choice even for truly universal apps! See the documentation about React Native for more information.

Supported by Front End Center. Thank you for making this possible!


Docs

See the documentation at styled-components.com/docs for more information about using styled-components!

Quicklinks to some of the most-visited pages:


Example

import React from 'react';

import styled from 'styled-components';

// Create a <Title> react component that renders an <h1> which is
// centered, palevioletred and sized at 1.5em
const Title = styled.h1`
  font-size: 1.5em;
  text-align: center;
  color: palevioletred;
`;

// Create a <Wrapper> react component that renders a <section> with
// some padding and a papayawhip background
const Wrapper = styled.section`
  padding: 4em;
  background: papayawhip;
`;

function MyUI() {
  return (
    // Use them like any other React component – except they're styled!
    <Wrapper>
      <Title>Hello World, this is my first styled component!</Title>
    </Wrapper>
  );
}

This is what you'll see in your browser:


Looking for v5?

The main branch is for the most-current version of styled-components, currently v6. For changes targeting v5, please point your PRs at the legacy-v5 branch.


Built with styled-components

A lot of hard work goes into community libraries, projects, and guides. A lot of them make it easier to get started or help you with your next project! There are also a whole lot of interesting apps and sites that people have built using styled-components.

Make sure to head over to awesome-styled-components to see them all! And please contribute and add your own work to the list so others can find it.


Contributing

If you want to contribute to styled-components please see our contributing and community guidelines, they'll help you get set up locally and explain the whole process.

Please also note that all repositories under the styled-components organization follow our Code of Conduct, make sure to review and follow it.


Badge

Let everyone know you're using styled-componentsstyle: styled-components

[![style: styled-components](https://img.shields.io/badge/style-%F0%9F%92%85%20styled--components-orange.svg?colorB=daa357&colorA=db748e)](https://github.com/styled-components/styled-components)

Contributors

This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute. [Contribute].


Backers

Thank you to all our backers! 🙏 [Become a backer]


Sponsors

Support this project by becoming a sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website. [Become a sponsor]


License

Licensed under the MIT License, Copyright © 2016-present Glen Maddern and Maximilian Stoiber.

See LICENSE for more information.


Acknowledgements

This project builds on a long line of earlier work by clever folks all around the world. We'd like to thank Charlie Somerville, Nik Graf, Sunil Pai, Michael Chan, Andrey Popp, Jed Watson & Andrey Sitnik who contributed ideas, code or inspiration.

Special thanks to @okonet for the fantastic logo.