@emotion/css is a popular CSS-in-JS library that allows developers to write styles in JavaScript code. It provides a simple and intuitive API for styling React components, giving you complete control over how your styles are defined and applied. Additionally, it supports a wide range of CSS features and allows you to use custom CSS properties and variables. With its powerful composition features, @emotion/css enables developers to easily create reusable style components that can be shared across multiple projects.
Tachyons is a functional CSS framework that enables rapid and consistent development of responsive user interfaces in an efficient and maintainable way. It is built around the concept of atomic design, providing a library of small, single-purpose classes that can be easily composed to build complex components.
Both @emotion/css and Tachyons are popular npm packages in the front-end development community. However, Tachyons has been around for longer and has a larger user base and community support.
Approach
@emotion/css is a CSS-in-JS library that allows you to write CSS styles directly in your JavaScript code using the Emotion syntax. It offers a more component-based and modular approach to styling. Tachyons, on the other hand, is a utility-first CSS framework that focuses on providing a set of predefined classes for rapid styling.
Performance
In terms of performance, @emotion/css generates CSS styles dynamically at runtime, which can have a small overhead. Tachyons, on the other hand, relies on static CSS classes, resulting in faster rendering times. However, the difference in performance is usually negligible for most applications.
Developer Experience
@emotion/css offers a rich and familiar JavaScript-like syntax for styling, making it convenient for developers who are already comfortable with JavaScript. It also provides support for CSS features like nesting and variables. Tachyons, on the other hand, requires developers to work with predefined utility classes, which may need a learning curve to grasp.
Flexibility
While @emotion/css offers more flexibility and fine-grained control over styling due to its inline CSS approach, Tachyons provides a more opinionated and consistent styling system with its utility classes. Tachyons promotes a consistent and reusable set of class names across the project, which can be beneficial for maintaining a consistent design system.
Size
In terms of size, @emotion/css has a slightly larger footprint due to the runtime CSS generation and additional JavaScript required. Tachyons, on the other hand, is a lightweight framework with a small file size, especially when using it with tree-shaking in a build pipeline.
