I think the folks building Tailwind are talented and nice people. But at a pure technical level, I simply don’t like Tailwind. Whoever it was built for, it was not built for me.

Kirill Kurko

Anthropic

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The author explains why they do not like Tailwind CSS, citing concerns about its HTML structure, compatibility issues with other CSS frameworks, reliance on non-standard features like `@apply`, lack of support for web components, and encouragement of div/span-tag soup in markup.

Why Tailwind Isn't for Me

Reason 1: Tailwind promotes ugly-ass HTML. #

Reason 2: @apply is fundamentally incompatible and non-standard (and largely unnecessary). #

Reason 3: Tailwind’s focus on design systems and tokens could mostly be replaced by CSS Custom Properties (aka variables)—which IS a standard. #

Reason 4: Tailwind forgets that web components exist. #

Reason 5: Finally, Tailwind encourages div/span-tag soup. #

Conclusion: If you like Tailwind, use it! But don’t try to convince me it’s the future. #

<blockquote>
@apply mt-3 in a CSS file only works if you use Tailwind. It requires the presence of Tailwind in your build process. If you remove Tailwind from your build process, that statement doesn’t work and your CSS is broken.
</blockquote>
Removing the core of your CSS framework will cause your CSS framework to no longer work - more news at 6

I started web development at the beginning of this century. Back then, I would love to work with something like Tailwind, because of cross-browser differences, but unfortunately, it didn’t exist. Today, I am not a big fan of Tailwind, but for slightly different reasons: I just don’t see any substantial benefit in using it. The only reason I accept is that it is an industry standard now, lowering developer’s mental load while moving between projects. I personally prefer to write CSS manually. Yes, CSS has a quirky syntax, but Tailwind’s syntax is awkward, too. IMO, Tailwind is just moving the problem from CSS to HTML without solving anything.

I still love Tailwind 💜
Happy to see other opinions though, luckily we don’t all do and like the same things.

Great article! In my case, I find that Tailwind does save some development time. What I don’t particularly like is the way many use it, which resembles putting everything in inline CSS. I prefer using only the essentials with Tailwind, such as margins, paddings, and for grid layouts. I believe it offers a quick solution for these aspects. Beyond that, I enjoy creating my own CSS.

I’m not an experienced developer, but I’ve worked with tailwind and bootstrap, and I fully agree with the author.
Reading the markup on “css frameworks” makes my eyes bleed, in fact, modern ide/code editors allow you to write code quite quickly and without abbreviations like “mb-8” in case of emergency to make snippets, although with the same “github copilot” and they are almost useless.