React has seen enormous growth since its release in 2013, and developers have wholeheartedly started using React JS in their applications. One of the main reasons for the growth of React JS is its component libraries. These simple libraries enable developers to create user interfaces for web, desktop, and hybrid applications. According to the most commonly used framework, React is utilized by 60% of professionals, followed by Vue (33%), Angular.JS (21%), and Angular (20%).
This article will teach you about many React JS component libraries that excel in aspects including the design framework, user interface, components, utilities, animations, and layout. Because of their popularity, there are numerous user-interface frameworks available to assist you in developing a stunning user interface for your React project. We have researched and prepared the best React JS component libraries available in 2024. The functionality and the user-friendliness of the component libraries were considered while preparing the list.
What are React Component Libraries?
React component libraries are reusable UI components that can be used inside a Javascript file to add different components to the UI. These libraries provide a variety of components, such as buttons, forms, tables, and charts, allowing developers to design complex and interesting user interfaces. React UI component libraries are pre-coded user interface elements that speed up software development. React UI component libraries are designed to make it easier for developers to construct user interfaces by offering building blocks and pieces that adhere to best practices in design and accessibility.
Best React Component Libraries
There are a variety of React component libraries available. Each component library enhances the user interface in a slightly different way. Depending on your development needs, you can select the one best suited for you. Here are the best React component libraries you should consider including in your projects in 2024.
1. MUI (Earlier known as Material UI)
MUI or Material UI is an open-source React library that implements Google’s Material Design. Material-UI has a large library of Material Design-inspired components and provides a clean and modern appearance that is both visually appealing and useful. Key features of MUI are:
- Pre-built components: A large collection of pre-built components, such as buttons, forms, tables, and charts.
- Developer-friendly: The documentation is well-written, which helps the developers quickly understand and utilize the library in their projects. The components are very simple to import and implement.
- Responsive Design: The components of the MUI are responsive, which means the UI will look good on devices of different shapes and sizes.
- Customization: MUI offers customization options in its components that allow developers to easily customize the components and themes according to their preferred designs.
- Strong community support: MUI has a vast and active user and contributor base.
2. Ant Design
Ant Design is specifically used for building enterprise-level applications. Ant Design offers a complete set of components, with an emphasis on uniformity and usability. The documentation for Ant Design is well written, and it includes high-quality React components. Key features of Ant Design are:
- Enterprise-level components: Ant Design provides lots of components required in enterprise-level applications, such as data tables,form layouts, and organization charts.
- Multiple language support:Ant Design supports multiple languages and includes built-in internationalization features for global users.
- Customization: Ant Design allows developers to customize their UI by giving them control over typography, style, and colors to fit their preferred design.
- Professional UI: Ant Design is inspired by Chinese design principles and hence gives a more graceful and professional appearance.
- Community Support: The library has a big and active developer community that maintains, contributes to, and improves it. There are additional articles to assist you while you create.
3. Chakra UI
Chakra UI is a fast-growing, popular, and easily accessible React UI library. Chakra UI is best known for its flexibility and theming capabilities. With Chakra UI, developers can easily create accessible and configurable designs. Key features of the Chakra UI are:
- Modular Structure: Chakra UI is designed in a modular way, so you can easily import and use only the needed components.
- Extensibility: Chakra UI can be extended easily, which means you can easily create your own custom components and themes.
- Theme: Chakra UI is dark mode compatible by default. You can also customize the theme to your preferred color mode.
- Accessibility: Chakra UI is dedicated to accessibility, and all of its components adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards.
- Developer Community: Chakra UI has a strong and growing development community. Other than the core team, over a hundred developers are working on it, so you can be sure to see new resources and enhancements in the future.
4. React BootStrap
React Bootstrap is a fast-growing library that implements the Bootstrap CSS framework. It offers a complete list of components that can be used right into production, thus speeding up the development process. Key features of React Bootstrap are:
- Responsive Design: React Bootstrap is built with Flexbox and is fully responsive. The React Bootstrap grid system ensures that the user interface looks good on screens of different shapes and sizes.
- Customization: React Bootstrap allows developers to customize the application according to their preferred designs.
- Community Support: React BootStrap provides extensive documentation that describes how to use the library. The vast and active community and the online articles are always there to help you whenever you are stuck with any bug.
- React Hooks Support: React BootStrap components work with React hooks. This means that the state may be supplied as a prop within the React Bootstrap component, making it easy to manage your states and effects.
- Bootstrap components:React BootStrap provides a diverse set of Bootstrap components, including buttons, forms, navigation, modals, and more.
5. Headless UI
Headless UI is a popular React component library that provides a set of unstyled UI components that can be used to build custom UI components. This makes it the best choice for developers who want to have total control over the user interface of the application. This tool can segregate app logic from visual components, making it a fantastic choice if you’re creating a user interface for your application. It allows you to effortlessly build applications without leaving your HTML. Key features of Headless UI are:
- Unstyled components: The components in Headless UI are unstyled, giving you complete control over their look. This allows you to easily develop custom UI components that match your preferred design of the application.
- Customization: Each component can be easily customized because you will be provided with clear examples. In this manner, you can design features that are tailored to your app’s demands.
- Accessible: All of the Headless UI components are designed to be accessible, ensuring that your applications are usable by people with disabilities.
- Well-Documented:The documentation of the Headless UI is well written, making it easier for developers to learn it quickly and use it in their applications.
6. Next UI
The Next UI is built on top of React and Tailwind CSS. Its components support server-side rendering across different browsers. It delivers a complete collection of pre-built components that are fast, lightweight, and easy to use. Key features of NextUI are:
- Custom themes: Next UI includes a custom TailwindCSS plugin that allows you to modify the predefined themes or build your own.
- Server-side rendering: The Next UI components enable cross-browser server-side rendering, which you can easily integrate into your applications.
- Dark Mode: Next UI comes with a full-fledged default dark theme that you can apply to your application by just adding the dark attribute to your HTML.
- Customization: Next UI is built on top of the CSS-in-JS framework Stitches; it’s simple to alter the components using the CSS prop, native CSS selectors, or styled functions.
- Faster: The Next UI removes unneeded style props during runtime. This makes the tool more performant than existing React UI libraries.
7. Mantine
Mantine is a full-featured React UI component toolkit that allows you to quickly construct online applications and websites. It includes a collection of responsive, adaptable, and accessible components that may be used to create modern web apps. Mantine is open-source and free with its packages. It’s built on TypeScript and supports a variety of frameworks. Key features of Mantine are:
- Components: Mantine contains more than 100 components, including over 20 input components, carousels, text editors, date pickers, overlays, and navigation.
- Customization: Every component in Mantine can be customized by using props. This allows you to quickly create a prototype and continue experimenting by tweaking the components.
- Theme engine: Mantine includes a robust theme engine that allows you to change the appearance of your application. The theme engine is also extensible, so you may develop your own unique themes by customizing them to your preferred design.
- Hooks library: Mantine offers a range of hooks for managing state and side effects in React applications. The hooks are designed in such a way that they are easy to use and can work well with developers.
Conclusion
React JS provides lots of component libraries that are free to use. These libraries can make achieving the required functionality in an application very easy. Writing the entire code from scratch for that specific functionality will take lots of time; instead, you can use the aforementioned React UI component libraries to select the components you desire. Select the library that corresponds with your project’s specific requirements and design goals. While deciding, you can analyze the pros and cons of a particular library in the context of your project. You can gain more insights about the libraries by reading the community forums and discussion groups. Being part of this community will provide you with extra knowledge that was not covered in this article.