Compare shadcn/ui with daisyUI
daisyUI aims to make adding components to Tailwind CSS simple. Its method relies on CSS classes, unlike shadcn/ui which often uses JavaScript components.
shadcn/ui is a collection of re-usable components that you can copy and paste into your apps. It is not a traditional component library. Instead, it provides you with the source code for each component, allowing you to customize and integrate them directly into your project.
daisyUI is a component library for Tailwind CSS that provides pre-designed components with theming capabilities. It is framework-agnostic, meaning it can be used in any web project, and it doesn't ship any JavaScript to the browser.
daisyUI is trusted by thousands of developers, as evidenced by its GitHub popularity. The library of components in shadcn/ui is helpful. daisyUI's library of components is larger than shadcn/ui's. daisyUI consistently maintains zero dependencies as a core feature
daisyUI has 61 components, 57 of them are unique – for example pagination and button group are considered as same.
Weekly downloads from NPM
The library of components in shadcn/ui is helpful. daisyUI's library of components is larger than shadcn/ui's.
daisyUI has 61 components, 57 of them are unique – for example pagination and button group are considered as same.
daisyUI uses CSS variables for theming. This makes switching themes very simple compared to shadcn/ui, which might involve configuration files or JS.
daisyUI has 35 themes
daisyUI is trusted by thousands of developers, as evidenced by its GitHub popularity. shadcn/ui sees considerable usage. daisyUI shows higher adoption numbers based on weekly NPM downloads
Based on GitHub's public repositories
Weekly downloads from NPM
As of April 2025
Avoid shadcn/ui if you prefer a component library with pre-built themes and styles that require minimal customization. Also, if you're not comfortable with manually integrating and maintaining individual components, shadcn/ui might not be the best choice.
Use daisyUI when you want to rapidly prototype or build a project with a consistent design system based on Tailwind CSS. It's well-suited for projects where you need a large variety of customizable components and theme options without writing a lot of custom CSS.
1. Install daisyUI as a Node package:
npm i -D daisyui@latestpnpm add -D daisyui@latestyarn add -D daisyui@latestbun add -D daisyui@latestdeno i -D npm:daisyui@latest2. Add daisyUI to app.css:
@import "tailwindcss";
@plugin "daisyui";This comparison is for informational purposes only. Information is based on GitHub public data, NPM registry data and official documentation websites. If you found any outdated information, please open a PR to update it.