Tailwind CSS vs traditional CSS: my choice

The eternal debate

Tailwind CSS divides the community. Some love it, others hate utility classes. Here's my experience after several projects.

What I liked about traditional CSS

• Clear separation between structure and style
• Semantic class names
• Total control over every property

Why I switched

Productivity

With Tailwind, I style a component 2 to 3 times faster. No more navigating between HTML and CSS files, no more inventing class names.

Consistency

Tailwind's design token system (spacing, colors, sizes) enforces consistency. No more random padding: 13px — everything follows a defined scale.

Maintenance

Delete a component? Its styles disappear with it. No orphaned CSS, no ghost styles accumulating.

Tailwind v4

Version 4 simplifies things further: configuration directly in CSS with @theme, plugins via @plugin, and improved performance.

The trade-offs

• Readability: long class strings can be intimidating at first
• Learning curve: you need to memorize utility names (but IDE helps a lot)
• Custom design: sometimes you need to break out with arbitrary values [value]

My verdict

For modern projects with React/Next.js, Tailwind CSS has become my default choice. The productivity and maintainability it brings more than compensate for the learning curve.