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
semantic-ui
v2.5.0(12 months ago)
Semantic UI is a comprehensive front-end development framework that utilizes human-friendly HTML to create responsive, mobile-friendly websites. The framework provides a wide range of UI components, including buttons, menus, forms, and modals, along with many pre-built themes that can be customized to suit your project. Semantic UI is also built with accessibility in mind, adhering to WAI-ARIA standards to ensure compatibility with assistive technologies like screen readers.
Semantic UI has been around for longer and is a well-established front-end framework with a large user base and community support. Astroturf, on the other hand, is a relatively newer package and is gaining popularity in the React ecosystem, but it is not as widely used or known as Semantic UI.
Functionality
Semantic UI is a comprehensive UI framework that provides a wide range of pre-designed components and utilities for building user interfaces. It offers a consistent and visually appealing design language. Astroturf, on the other hand, is a library for writing CSS-in-JS using a similar syntax to styled-components. It focuses more on providing a solution for styling components rather than providing a complete UI framework like Semantic UI.
Development Experience
Astroturf aims to provide a seamless development experience by allowing developers to write CSS-in-JS directly within their JavaScript or TypeScript files. It offers better type safety and tooling integration compared to traditional CSS approaches. Semantic UI, on the other hand, follows a more traditional approach where styles are defined in separate CSS files and linked to the components, which might feel familiar to developers who are used to this approach.
Customization
Semantic UI offers a wide range of customization options, allowing developers to customize themes, colors, and component styles. It provides a theming system and allows easy customization through variables and overrides. Astroturf, being a CSS-in-JS solution, offers more flexibility for styling customization as it allows dynamic styling based on component props and state. However, it may require more initial setup and configuration for advanced customization needs.
Community and Support
Semantic UI has a large and active community with ample documentation, tutorials, and community-contributed resources. It also has official support for various frameworks and libraries. Astroturf, being a newer and smaller library, has a comparatively smaller community but still has active development and support from its maintainers.
