Head-to-Head: Astroturf vs Material Design Lite Analysis
astroturf
v1.2.0(7 months ago)
Astroturf is a zero-runtime CSS-in-JS library for React. It allows you to write CSS styles in JavaScript using a familiar CSS syntax, and then generates optimized CSS at build time. This eliminates the need for runtime CSS processing and improves performance.
Alternatives: styled-components, emotion, linaria
Tags: javascriptcss-in-jsreactstylingperformance
material-design-lite
v1.3.0(almost 7 years ago)
Material Design Lite (MDL) is a lightweight front-end framework that implements Material Design, Google's design language. It offers a range of pre-built UI components and provides easy-to-follow guidelines for designing clean and modern web interfaces. With MDL, you can quickly and easily create responsive websites and web apps that are both visually appealing and easy to use.
Material Design Lite (MDL) has been widely adopted and used in numerous projects, especially those that follow the Material Design guidelines. Astroturf, on the other hand, is more niche and targeted towards developers who prefer CSS-in-JS solutions. MDL has a larger user base and more community support.
Functionality
Material Design Lite is a comprehensive library that provides a range of components, styles, and guidelines for building modern web interfaces that adhere to Material Design principles. Astroturf, on the other hand, is focused on providing a powerful and efficient CSS-in-JS solution for styling React components. While MDL offers a broader range of UI components, Astroturf excels in providing a seamless developer experience for managing CSS-in-JS styling.
Integration
Both packages can be integrated with React applications, but they serve different purposes. MDL requires a separate CSS and JavaScript file to be included in the project, while Astroturf allows you to write CSS-in-JS directly in your React components. Astroturf integrates smoothly into the build process and plays well with popular bundlers like webpack.
Community and Support
Material Design Lite has a larger community and has been around for a longer time. It has extensive documentation, community forums, and multiple examples and resources available. Astroturf, although more niche, also has an active community with regular updates and support available through its GitHub repository.
Performance
Astroturf, being a CSS-in-JS solution, generates optimized, scoped CSS at runtime, resulting in minimal CSS bundle sizes and better performance. In contrast, Material Design Lite relies on pre-compiled CSS files, which may result in larger CSS bundles and potentially impact performance in larger applications.
