Styles & SASSy: Choosing the Right React Styling Solution
summary
Comparing CSS Modules, Tailwind v4 and styled‑components by implementing the same button (primary/secondary/empty, disabled, loading, icon, sizes) reveals concrete tradeoffs: Tailwind now ships CSS‑first config and a faster engine (up to 3.5× full builds, 8× incremental), CSS Modules give zero runtime cost and SSR friendliness, and styled‑components shows runtime overhead and context limits with React 19 (useFormState, useOptimistic, server components). The repo contains the three implementations and Tailwind emerges as the pragmatic default for speed and scalable design systems.
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chapters (16)
- 0:00Introduction and context
- 2:07State of React styling in 2025
- 4:09CSS modules overview
- 5:13Tailwind CSS explained
- 6:40Styled components deep dive
- 7:41React 19’s impact on styling
- 10:31Styled components leaving the chat
- 11:35Tailwind V4’s major changes
- 13:18Modern CSS features
- 15:03Button demo setup
- 16:06CSS modules in practice
- 18:13Tailwind implementation
- 20:41Styled components demo
- 22:03Making the styled components choice
- 23:25How to choose a styling method
- 25:53Final recommendations and Q&A
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