When building web applications, we often rely on our go-to CSS frameworks like Bootstrap or TailwindCSS. These frameworks are packed with useful utilities that help speed up our development process and normalize our UI across browsers. However, they also come with a lot of bloat — a significant portion of the framework's CSS often goes unused in most projects.
Even if you build and maintain your own Design System from scratch, you’ll still end up with unused CSS across different projects. This is where PurgeCSS becomes incredibly useful.
What is PurgeCSS?
PurgeCSS is a powerful tool that helps remove unused CSS, leaving you with a leaner, faster stylesheet that only contains the styles your project actually uses. In my personal projects, after integrating PurgeCSS, I’ve seen CSS file size reductions of 70% to 90%, along with noticeable performance improvements in render times.
Compatibility & Usage
PurgeCSS works well with most modern JavaScript bundlers and web build tools. It also offers a CLI tool for direct use. Personally, my favorite setup is using PurgeCSS with TailwindCSS in Next.js projects, where the integration is seamless.
Example & Guide
If you're looking for a practical example, here’s a helpful guide along with a GitHub repository I created when I was experimenting with PurgeCSS and TailwindCSS. It walks through my setup and shows how easy it is to get started.
👉 Check out PrugeCSS for more details.
Recommended Reading
I also recently came across an excellent article on freeCodeCamp titled "How I dropped 250KB of dead CSS weight with PurgeCSS" It offers some great insights into real-world improvements you can achieve with PurgeCSS — highly recommended!
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re working on small projects or large-scale applications, optimizing your CSS footprint is critical for performance. Tools like PurgeCSS make this process simple and highly effective.
Have you used PurgeCSS in your projects? I’d love to hear about your experience!
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