Material UI vs. Milligram CSS

What is Material UI ?

Material UI also known as MUI is a popular ui framework that helps developers build modern, good-looking websites. MUI provides a collection of ready-made components like buttons, forms, menus, and cards that follow Google’s Material Design which is a clean and consistent visual style.

As it built on React, MUI saves you time by letting you use these predesigned parts instead of starting everything from scratch.

Whether you're building a small personal project or a large web application, MUI helps make your site look professional and work well on both computers and mobile devices.

Key Features of Material UI

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• Rich Component Set: Buttons, dialogs, data grids, pickers, more.
• Accessibility: Prefers WCAG best practices and ARIA attributes.
• Material Theming: Customizable palettes, typography, and spacing.
• CSS-in-JS: Dynamic styling via Emotion or styled-components.
• Dark Mode Support: Easy theme toggling built-in.
• Tree Shaking: Supports importing specific components to reduce bundle.

Advantages of Material UI

• Comprehensive Component Library: It covers almost every common UI need: buttons, forms, grids, modals, tables, tooltips, and more. It constantly updated with new components and features.
• Customizable Themes: Lets you easily change colors, typography, spacing, and more. plus you can create your own design system or match an existing brand style as well.
• Enterprise-Ready: It is used in production by large companies and apps as its stable, well-documented, and actively maintained by a strong development team.
• Responsive Design Support: Components that adapt to different screen sizes with built-in responsive utilities.
• Internationalization (i18n) Support: Easily supports multiple languages and right-to-left (RTL) layouts.
• Layout System: Built-in grid and flexbox systems simplify layout creation.
• Seamless Integration with React: It is designed specifically for React, with hooks, states, and props handled smoothly.

Disadvantages of Material UI

• Styling Confusion: Multiple styling options like styled components, emotion, sx prop, makeStyles etc, can be overwhelming or inconsistent.
• Learning Curve: New developers may find MUI's system like themes, styling with sx, custom breakpoints complex at first time.
• Some Features Are Paid: MUI X Pro and Premium components like advanced data grid require a commercial license.
• Look Can Be Generic: Many apps using MUI may look similar if not customized enough. Extra effort is needed to give your app a unique appearance.
• Too Tied to React: MUI only works with React. Not usable in plain HTML/JS or other frameworks like Vue or Angular.
• Bundle Size: It can increase the size of your app bundle if not optimized specially with MUI X.

What is Milligram CSS?

Milligram CSS is a minimalist CSS framework that weighs in at just 2KB gzipped, making it one of the lightest options available for developers who value speed and efficiency. It follows a clean, modern design approach with sensible defaults, so you can get started quickly without having to overwrite a ton of styles. Milligram uses the flexible grid system powered by Flexbox, making layouts intuitive and responsive right out of the box.

What makes Milligram stand out is its balance between simplicity and usability. Unlike heavier frameworks, it doesn’t come bundled with unnecessary UI components, which keeps your project lean and fast.

Key Features of Milligram CSS

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• Easy to Use: Available via npm, Yarn, Bower, CDN, or CLI starter projects for quick setup.
• Roboto Typography: Uses Google’s Roboto font for clean text styling; easy to override if needed.
• Minimal Reset + Base Styles: Comes with normalization and essential styles for clean coding.
• Super Lightweight: Just ~2 KB when gzipped, making it lightning-fast.
• Essential UI Elements: Includes styles for typography, buttons, lists, forms, tables, blockquotes, grids, and utilities.
• Flexbox Grid System: Responsive, flexible layout using modern Flexbox, with customizable max width.

Advantages of Milligram CSS

• Ultra Lightweight: Minimal file size ensures speedy load times.
• Quick Setup: Plug-and-play means just include the CSS and you're good to go.
• Clean Base Style: Neutral, design-agnostic foundation for custom styling.
• Modern Layouts: Flexbox grid offers flexibility and responsiveness.
• Ideal for Prototypes: Great when you need a fast, clean UI baseline.
• No Build Required: Works without any preprocessing or configuration.

Disadvantages of Milligram CSS

• Not for Complex UIs: Best suited for simple layouts, not rich interactive interfaces.
• Limited Components: Does not include advanced UI like modals, dropdowns, or navbars.
• Smaller Ecosystem: Fewer templates, plugins, or community resources available.
• No JavaScript Support: Pure CSS, interactivity must be built separately.
• Typography Dependency: Defaults to Roboto, adds an external request unless changed.