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Material UI alternatives

9 tools you can use instead of Material UI, ranked by live GitHub stars and npm downloads. Tailwind CSS, Radix UI and shadcn/ui are the most used. Stats updated 16 hours ago.

When Material UI is not a good fit

Material UI (MUI) is a React component library implementing Google's Material Design, offering over 40 free, open source components under the MIT license through MUI Core. MUI also sells MUI X, a set of advanced components like data grids, date pickers and charts, with paid Pro, Premium and Enterprise tiers priced per developer per year, from $299 a year for Pro.

It is a weaker choice for:

  • Teams that want a distinctive, non-Material visual identity without significant custom theming work
  • Projects on a tight budget that need MUI X's advanced grid or picker features, given the per-developer annual pricing
  • Non-React frameworks, since MUI is React-specific
Material UI pricing, features and usage

The alternatives

Most used first.

1

Tailwind CSS

Utility-first CSS framework for building custom designs directly in markup, now owned by Shopify.

Pricing FreemiumPaid from Tailwind Plus (paid components/templates) is closed to new customers as of the Shopify acquisitionOpen source yesStars 97.8knpm a week 162M
View Tailwind CSS
2

Radix UI

Unstyled, accessible React component primitives for building your own design system.

Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 19.4knpm a week 91M
Material UI vs Radix UI
3

shadcn/ui

Copy-paste, customizable UI components built with Tailwind CSS, not installed as a package.

Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 125knpm a week 13M
View shadcn/ui
4

Ant Design

Enterprise-focused React component library and design system, maintained by Alibaba's Ant Group.

Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 99.7knpm a week 4.4M
View Ant Design
5

Headless UI

Unstyled, accessible UI components from the Tailwind CSS team, for React and Vue.

Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 28.8knpm a week 8.7M
View Headless UI
6

Mantine

Full-featured, styled React component library with over 100 components and hooks.

Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 31.8knpm a week 3.2M
View Mantine
7

Chakra UI

Styled, accessible React component library with a simple, composable styling API.

Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 40.7knpm a week 2M
View Chakra UI
8

DaisyUI

Component class plugin for Tailwind CSS, adding semantic component names like btn and card.

Pricing FreemiumOpen source yesStars 42.5knpm a week 1.2M
View DaisyUI
9

Ant Design Pro

Free, open source React boilerplate for enterprise admin dashboards, built on Ant Design.

Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 38.8knpm a week 146k
View Ant Design Pro

Material UI and its alternatives, side by side

ToolPricingFree planPaid fromOpen sourceGitHub stars
Material UIFreemiumYes: MUI Core's 40+ components are free and open source$299 a developer a year for MUI X ProYes, MIT (MUI Core); MUI X components are proprietary on paid tiers99.1k
Tailwind CSSFreemiumYes, Tailwind CSS itself is completely free and open sourceTailwind Plus (paid components/templates) is closed to new customers as of the Shopify acquisitionYes, MIT97.8k
Radix UIOpen sourceYes, Radix UI is completely freeNot listedYes, MIT19.4k
shadcn/uiOpen sourceYes, shadcn/ui is completely freeNot listedYes, MIT125k
Ant DesignOpen sourceYes, Ant Design is completely freeNot listedYes, MIT99.7k
Headless UIOpen sourceYes, Headless UI is completely freeNot listedYes, MIT28.8k
MantineOpen sourceYes, Mantine and Mantine UI are both freeNot listedYes, MIT31.8k
Chakra UIOpen sourceYes, Chakra UI is completely freeNot listedYes, MIT40.7k
DaisyUIFreemiumYes, the core DaisyUI plugin is completely freeNot listedYes, MIT42.5k
Ant Design ProOpen sourceYes, completely free and open sourceNot listedYes, MIT38.8k

Pricing facts come from each tool's official pricing page, with the checked date on the tool's own page.

Questions

What is the most popular alternative to Material UI?

By GitHub stars, Tailwind CSS is the most used alternative to Material UI listed on ScratchDB, with 97.8k stars.

Which Material UI alternatives are open source?

Tailwind CSS, Radix UI, shadcn/ui, Ant Design, Headless UI, Mantine, Chakra UI, DaisyUI and Ant Design Pro are open source.

Which Material UI alternatives have a free plan?

Tailwind CSS, Radix UI, shadcn/ui, Ant Design, Headless UI, Mantine, Chakra UI, DaisyUI and Ant Design Pro have a free plan. The table on this page shows what each one includes.

All UI Libraries tools

Material UI alternatives: 9 options compared (2026) | ScratchDB