Tailwind Without Components? You’re Doing It Wrong 🚀

💡 Tailwind is everywhere, but are we using it the right way?

A lot of us have heard about Tailwind by now and are using it in every project. It’s like a trend—when something becomes popular, we all jump on it, making it a default choice for every new project.

Maybe in your estimation meetings with your boss, you want to impress project managers. Or during story-point discussions, you confidently suggest Tailwind.

Especially when your team starts working on an old project with legacy code, you might think, Boom, I'll tell them to use Tailwind! It's fast, it's modern, and hey, we don’t even need to write CSS files anymore, just use predefined classes and get a nice style!

But… is it really that simple? 🤔

Wait a minute. Ever noticed that Tailwind is mostly introduced alongside React, Angular, or Vue? That’s no coincidence.

Ever wondered why? It’s because these frameworks use a component-based architecture. 🏗️

---

1. Why Tailwind Works Best with Components 🛠️

Let’s break it down. Say you have a button that’s used throughout your project. In a component-based framework, you would create a reusable Button component and use it everywhere. Simple, right? Now let’s say your boss suddenly tells you, “Hey, remove the rounded effect from all buttons. We have a client demo in 5 minutes.” 😨

No problem! You go to your Button component, remove the rounded class, push the change, get a quick review, merge, and deploy. Maybe the entire process takes 2 minutes, easy! ✅

But now, imagine a different scenario...

---

2. The Nightmare: Using Tailwind in Legacy HTML/JQuery Projects 😵‍💫

Let’s say you're working on an old PHP project with no structure, drowning in legacy code. Maybe it's still using Bootstrap 3 (ouch). This is the kind of project where if you open it in PHPStorm, JetBrains might call you personally, saying their IDE is down because you've hit the error/warning inspection limit. 😂

Now, in this exciting scenario, you suggest: “Let’s use Tailwind!” You bravely convince the team, everything works fine, and you even manage to remove all CSS files while maintaining the theme. Amazing, right? 🎉

Then your boss hits you with the same request: “Remove the rounded effect from all buttons. Client demo in 5 minutes.”

And that’s when you realize…

🔴 Step 1: PANIC.
🔵 Step 2: Hope there’s a single button file. (There isn’t.) 😬
🟡 Step 3: Start manually editing every button. (Cry internally.) 😭
🟢 Step 4: Search Everywhere in JetBrains. (Why are there so many results?!) 🤯
🟣 Step 5: Discover some buttons are dynamically created in jQuery. (Great.) ⏳
🔴 Step 6: Accept your fate. The demo will happen with rounded buttons. 😵

At this point, you realize: There is NO way you can do this in 5 minutes. Heck, even 8 hours might not be enough! 😵

And that was just removing one simple rounded class. Of course, it's not like the whole demo is ruined because of a rounded button—this is just an example. Now, imagine something actually important, like having to change an entire card layout from grid to flex, or replacing all spacing values across the project to match new design guidelines. Suddenly, you’re digging through countless files, manually updating class names, and hoping you didn’t miss one. Yeah... Yikes. 🫠

---

3. The Takeaway: Tailwind is for Components 🎯

So now you get it, right? Tailwind is meant for projects that use components. If you’re working in a framework like React, Vue, or Svelte, Tailwind is a dream because styles are encapsulated within components, making updates easy and centralized. ✨

But if you’re dealing with a legacy codebase full of plain HTML and jQuery, using Tailwind can become a maintenance nightmare. In such cases, traditional CSS (or even a framework like Bootstrap) might be a better choice. 👀

Before using Tailwind, ask yourself: “Do I have a component-based architecture?” If not, you might just be doing it wrong. 😉

Comments

[Peter Vivo]

Great question? I think yes tailwind is always good. I am big fan of TW. In my game this is the only dependecy which I used. So technically that is a HTML project but a new one. Instead of React I used a few functions to make a JSX and state handling. At the end I was using a component.

In my mindset I make a distinct between using Tailwind for layout, or using tailwind for look and feel.

example a vertical list is:

<section class="grid gap-2">
  <h1>...</h1>
  <p>...</p>
  <p>...</p>
</section>

To work with legacy jQuery project a good step to use TW and some component based framework - or use simple js as component based solution.

[Nandini Singh]

True, Tailwind CSS is most effective when used within component-based frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular. In such environments, styles are encapsulated within components, allowing for centralized and efficient updates. I personally love this tailwind CSS components library. They provide free tailwind CSS components for free.

[HichemTech]

Thanks for suggesting the tailwind library i liked it. ;)

[Nandini Singh]

Good to hear that!!

[Makafui]

For a minute i thought you can create tailwind style components that u can call on to give consistent styling throughout your project. like the way you can create a color or dimensions variables that you can give unique names and call them in your code. eg bg-hero-bg.