Styled Components vs CSS Modules

Developers should learn Styled Components when building React applications that require maintainable, scalable, and dynamic styling, especially in component-driven architectures meets developers should use css modules when building component-based applications where style isolation is critical to avoid naming collisions and improve code maintainability. Here's our take.

Styled Components

Nice Pick

Developers should learn Styled Components when building React applications that require maintainable, scalable, and dynamic styling, especially in component-driven architectures

Pros

• It is ideal for projects needing theme support, server-side rendering, or where CSS-in-JS benefits like colocation of styles and logic are prioritized
• Related to: react, css-in-js

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

CSS Modules

Developers should use CSS Modules when building component-based applications where style isolation is critical to avoid naming collisions and improve code maintainability

Pros

• It is particularly useful in large-scale projects with multiple developers, as it allows for local scoping without relying on naming conventions like BEM
• Related to: react, vue-js

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Styled Components is a library while CSS Modules is a methodology. We picked Styled Components based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Styled Components wins

Based on overall popularity. Styled Components is more widely used, but CSS Modules excels in its own space.