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It lets you apply styles to a single element without it messing up the whole rest of the page/site/app. i.e. it disabled the primary feature of CSS, the thing most people don't want from it.

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I agree that the primary feature of CSS is what people don't want from it anymore. If you're building your app with components (web components, react, etc), those become the unit of reuse. You don't need CSS to offer an additional unit of reuse, it only complicates things at that point.

> You don't need CSS to offer an additional unit of reuse

Erm. Isn't this one of tailwind's selling points? That you have a set of classes that you keep reusing?

This is technically true, but misses the point. Tailwind classes are fine grained utility classes, the fact that they are CSS classes at all is pretty much an implementation detail.

Compare tailwind classes to bootstrap classes and you'll see what I mean.

This is a great point. Style reuse was the dream of CSS, but we have all mostly settled that that's too fine grained for anything beyond a simple website. It's much easier to build, share, reuse a bunch of components.

Why do people prefer it over CSS modules? They also solve the style containment problem, and do not require any effort to set up, or any additional library to learn?

You're probably confusing something with something?

CSS Modules are a JS-only third party solution re-invented/re-implemented in a dozen different ways for various JS frontend frameworks. Requires setting up, requires learning an additional library.

If you mean these CSS modules: https://github.com/css-modules/css-modules?tab=readme-ov-fil... then they need to be supported by whatever build chain you use. And you literally need to use them slightly different than normal CSS. E.g. for Vite yuo need to have `.module.css` extension. And they often rely on additional libraries to learn. E.g. you can enable Lightning CSS with aforementioned Vite which comes with its own CSS flavour: https://lightningcss.dev/css-modules.html

If you mean CSS import attributes, they only appeared in 2024 in Chrome and Firefox, early 2025 in mobile Android etc. and they don't provide magical local scoping out of the box: https://caniuse.com/wf-css-modules

Well no, none of them ?

This is what OP was talking about:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Guides/Nest...

No, he's not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46570846

Ignore it then, CSS nesting and layers are the real deal

Nesting is the bee's knees.

I still don't understand what layering is, and why you would use it.

I meant the CSS modules that are implemented by a build tool. And yes, mea culpa, they are probably a js-only solution, requiring a build tool to correctly interpret a css import (.module.css in the file name is a common convention; but it is tweakable), and the author to use the imported object instead of plain strings, when referring to the class names. But I don't know if having to write `class="styles.foo"` as opposed to `class="foo"` counts as learning. And apart from that, there isn't anything else to learn.

But, given that one would need build tools for tailwind as well, the requirement for build tools couldn't have played a role in the choice between the two.

The problem is having to look in a different file for styling a component, and having to come up with a name for (at least one) CSS class per component. In traditional CSS, classes are intended to be reusable. You write a class definition once, and then use it in a bunch of different elements.

When working with a component-based UI (like in React), the components are typically the unit of reuse. Those CSS classes are used in one place: the component they're defined for. It's annoying to have to come up with a name for them, and to have to work in a separate file, especially if I just want `padding-inline: 4px` or `display: flex`.

Some argue separation of concerns, but CSS is inherently tightly coupled to the structure of your HTML: there's no getting around that. `.foo > ul` breaks if you replace that `ul` child with an `ol`.

I do agree that more intricate styling is harder to read with Tailwind, and I have some other gripes, too, but in general it's a good trade-off for component-based UIs.

> CSS Modules are a JS-only third party solution re-invented/re-implemented in a dozen different ways for various JS frontend frameworks. Requires setting up, requires learning an additional library.

I mean, Tailwind is not that different here - you must use a build tool to tree shake the styles, etc.

Which means most people don’t understand the basics of what they’re working on.

I think that’s what people are talking about when they say they don’t see the benefit.

There’s already a style attribute on every html element that does exactly that, and works fine in components.

“There must be something more…?” But it turns out there’s not. Just shorthand class names to save you having to type padding-left:4px

lg:dark:hover:bg-red-500

> on large screens

> in dark mode

> when hovering

> bg should be red-500

The above is an unrealistic example, but, you can't achieve that with the style attribute. You'd have to go into your stylesheet and put this inside the @media query for the right screen size + dark mode, with :hover, etc.

And you'd still need to have a class on the element (how else are you going to target that element)?

And then 6 months later you get a ticket to change it to blue instead. You open up the HTML, you look at the class of the element to remind yourself of what it's called, then you go to the CSS looking for that class, and then you make the change. Did you affect any other elements? Was that class unique? Do you know or do you just hope? Eh just add a new rule at the bottom of the file with !important and raise a PR, you've got other tickets to work on. I've seen that done countless times working in teams over the past 20 years - over a long enough timeline stylesheets all tend to end up a mess of overrides like that.

If you just work on your own, that's certainly a different discussion. I'd say Tailwind is still useful, but Tailwind's value really goes up the bigger the team you're working with. You do away with all those !important's and all those random class names and class naming style guide discussions.

I used to look at Tailwind and think "ew we were supposed to do CSS separate from HTML why are we just throwing styles back in the HTML". Then I was forced to use it, and I understood why people liked it. It just makes everything easier.

I can already do the same with plain CSS. How is this better?

How is that different than inline styles?

Very different :-) Inline styles do not have access to @-rules.

@scope[0] is perhaps a better comparison.

[0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/A...

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