Is the easiest path always the best one?
For years, many of us in the web development world, myself included, have relied heavily on Tailwind CSS. Back in 2018, I remember discovering it and feeling like I’d found a secret weapon for structuring my CSS. It felt like a revelation, especially when I didn’t have a solid grasp on how to organize my styles. And honestly, for a long time, it was excellent. Jerome Gill even noted on LinkedIn that in 2026, Tailwind CSS is still seen as the standard for frontend styling.
But something interesting is happening this year. Developers are starting to reconsider this default. We’re seeing a shift, a quiet migration away from Tailwind CSS towards more traditional CSS methods. This isn’t about rejecting utility-first CSS entirely, but rather about seeking greater control and a more personal touch in web design.
The Quest for Deeper Control
The core of this movement centers on a desire for better structure and flexibility. Tailwind, with its utility classes, offers incredible speed. You can build interfaces very quickly by applying pre-defined classes directly in your HTML. However, this convenience can sometimes come at the cost of understanding the underlying CSS. As one developer on Hacker News put it, this situation leads “people being led to believe that Tailwind is just a sort of subset of CSS, then years later” they realize the distinction.
This realization is sparking a trend towards what’s often called “vanilla CSS” — writing your own custom styles from scratch. This approach, paired with semantic HTML, emphasizes giving meaning to your web page’s structure. Instead of just adding utility classes like text-xl font-bold, you might use an <h1> tag and style it directly in your CSS. This gives you finer control over every design aspect and can result in more unique, nuanced visual styles.
Beyond the Defaults
Julia Evans recently shared her journey of moving personal sites from Tailwind CSS to vanilla CSS with semantic HTML. Her experience highlights the practical steps and benefits of this transition. It’s about taking ownership of the design process, understanding how every pixel and every element is styled, rather than relying on a framework’s defaults.
This isn’t to say Tailwind is bad; it’s a powerful tool that has its place, especially for rapid prototyping or projects where design consistency across many components is paramount. But for those looking for improved design flexibility and a more personalized aesthetic, the current trend suggests a longing for something more. It’s about moving towards approaches that enable developers to craft truly custom and distinct web experiences.
What This Means for You
If you’re building websites or even just interested in how they’re put together, this shift is worth paying attention to. It signals a maturation in web development, where the initial excitement of speed and convenience is being balanced with a deeper appreciation for craft and control. Understanding traditional CSS and semantic HTML isn’t just about moving away from a particular tool; it’s about gaining a more profound understanding of how the web works and how to shape it to your exact vision.
The web is constantly evolving, and so are the tools and philosophies that shape it. This current movement toward more traditional CSS methods and semantic HTML isn’t a rejection of progress, but rather an evolution towards more thoughtful, structured, and ultimately, more personalized web design.
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