Tailwind CSS is a utility-oriented css framework. Unlike traditional CSS frameworks, Tailwind does not offer ready-made components. Instead, it provides a set of atomic service classes that can be combined to style each element, allowing you to quickly build a unique design directly in HTML.
The Utility-First concept is the main feature of Tailwind: each Tailwind class corresponds to a specific CSS property: e.g. bg-blue-500 for a blue background, p-[8px] for an 8px indent, rounded-lg for strongly rounded corners. This allows you to create complex layouts without writing custom CSS.
Tailwind is adaptive out of the box – prefixes such as md:text-center or lg:hidden are used to work with different screen sizes, making it easy to create responsive designs.
Tailwind has good optimization – when building, Tailwind leaves only those classes in the stylesheet that are actually used in the project: Just-In-Time (JIT or “just-in-time”) mode is used – CSS compilation happens during development, and styles are generated only as they are needed.
The framework is ideal for developers who value design control and prefer to avoid off-the-shelf solutions. It is especially useful in teams where it is important to maintain uniform standards, and in projects with a requirement for deep customization.
Today Tailwind is one of the most popular CSS frameworks (85k stars on GitHub). At the beginning of 2025 the 4th version of this framework has already been released, we have already updated many of our projects and were happy to note the high backward compatibility – the transition to the new major version was quite painless.
Tailwind CSS is a powerful tool that, despite its unusual nature, has become a popular choice among frontenders. The framework’s laid back approach saves time, provides flexibility, and helps you create clean, maintainable code, as well as providing good isolation of component css code.