One of the most endless processes in building and maintaining a large-scale web or application project is its User Interface. Check out websites such as YouTube, Facebook, etc., and how their UI has evolved throughout their existence. It is one of the most vital components of any modern web application.
React UI libraries are helpful tools for creating visually appealing interfaces for React-based software apps and websites. Although you can hire ReactJS developers and create your code for each feature or functionality that you wish to add to your design, asking them to utilize a component library simplifies and speeds up the process.
With all that in mind, we thought it best to list out some of the best React UI libraries available for free in the year 2023. But first, let us get an overview of what exactly are these so-called ‘libraries’.
What Are React UI Component Libraries?
A React UI component library is a tool or software system that contains pre-built components for usage in React-based applications and website development. These component libraries serve to accelerate software development while also providing several benefits to developers and enterprises.
A component library can contain tables, charts, buttons, maps, colors, and so forth. Furthermore, many tools can be customized and used in your applications based on their design or style. ReactJS UI libraries are created to make app development easier.
Advantages of React UI components library:
- Accelerated Development
- Stunning UI
- Streamlined Coding
- User-Friendly
- Browser Compatibility
10 Best Free React UI Component Libraries in 2023
Now, with that out of the way, it is time to mention our picks for the 10 best free React UI libraries in 2023. You can then make an informed decision about top React UI libraries that might be best for your web or application development needs.
MUI
MUI comprises UI tools and libraries for developing great designs in no time at all! Its standout feature is MUI Core, featuring 4 foundational libraries:
- Material UI: Implements Google’s Material Design with React UI components.
- Joy UI: Crafted to infuse joy into development, Joy UI offers beautifully designed React components.
- MUI Base: Provides headless React UI components and low-level hooks.
- MUI System: Offers CSS utilities for rapid custom design layouts using MUI components.
Ant Design (AntD)
For robust enterprise-grade product development using React, consider Ant Design – a choice that balances enjoyment and productivity. Esteemed by giants like Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, it furnishes numerous UI components for application enhancement
Key features include:
- Comprehensive Components: Access 50+ pre-designed components, eliminating the need for building from scratch.
- Ant Design Packages: Beneficial packages tailored for mobile, data visualization, graphic solutions, and beyond.
- Ant Design Pro: An extension of AntD, Ant Design Pro encompasses templates and a design kit alongside components, streamlining application design.
VechaiUI
VechaiUI is a relatively new React component library that includes theming and dynamic colors for your components and works with create-react-app out-of-the-box. Forms, data display, navigation, media, icons, notifications, and many other components are included in the library.
Features:
- Accessibility Feature: It offers a bunch of accessibility React components and pre-designed UI for adding accessibility features to your app.
- Written in JS Typescript: VechaiUI is written in TypeScript, which makes it easy to handle during app development.
- Dark UI Components: It also provides access to built-in dark mode and supports Dark UI components.
- Themes: It offers powerful theme customization features
Chakra UI
Chakra UI is a streamlined, accessible, and modular component library used for building React applications. It provides essential building blocks to enrich your app’s features and captivate users.
Advantages of Chakra UI:
- Customization: Tailor components effortlessly to align with your design vision, from theming to templates, enhancing design cohesion.
- Dark and Light UI: Optimized for diverse color modes, Chakra UI empowers you to craft stunning UIs in both dark and light themes.
- Developer Efficiency: Unlock heightened productivity by exploiting the library’s customization, composability, and feature-rich toolkit
Semantic UI
Enhance your projects by combining React with Semantic UI React, a customizable UI component library. It streamlines site and app development using concise HTML and a declarative API.
Benefits:
- Pre-built Components: Access various components like buttons, headers, containers, and icons, complete with shorthand props for automatic markup creation.
- Responsiveness: Build responsive interfaces catering to mobile and tablet devices, optimizing content and design elements placement.
- Versatile Integrations: Apart from React, Semantic UI React integrates with Angular, Ember, Meteor, etc., harmonizing user interface and application logic.
NextUI
NextUI, a React and Next.js UI library, empowers you to create stunning and contemporary web applications. Tailored for design enthusiasts, it offers 25 diverse components in various iterations.
What sets NextUI apart:
- Design-Centric Approach: Crafted with design excellence in focus, NextUI caters to those dedicated to exceptional design outcomes.
- Customization: Embrace flexibility with NextUI’s high customizability. Adapt colors, fonts, breakpoints, and more to suit your vision. Moreover, automatic dark mode recognition enhances user experience
Headless UI
Headless UI, crafted by Tailwind Labs, introduces fully accessible, unstyled UI components tailored for seamless integration with Tailwind CSS.
Highlights of Headless UI
- Separation of Logic and Visuals: Perfect for UI creation, Headless UI effectively detaches app logic from visual components, streamlining HTML-integrated app development.
- Diverse UI Components: Abundant UI components include menus, list boxes, switches, combo boxes, dialogs, disclosures, radio groups, popovers, transitions, tabs, auto-complete, and more.
- Personalization: Components are easily customizable through clear examples and styling guidance, ensuring tailor-made features suited to your app’s requirements.
Mantine
Mantine, a free and open-source React components library, furnishes 134 fully responsive components that bridge 25 categories. From navbars to blog cards, comments to sliders, it’s ready for production use.
Advantages of Mantin:
- Customizability: Enjoy extensive customization with options to improve themes, fonts, colors, and more to match your preferences.
- Light and Dark Mode: Many components seamlessly support both light and dark modes, enhancing versatility and user experience
Retool
Retool is the ideal solution for crafting internal applications, eliminating UI library, data source challenges, and access control complexities. Designed for businesses of all scales, from startups to Fortune 500s, Retool facilitates remarkable internal app creation.
Key Aspects:
- Robust Building Blocks: With 90+ potent components like tables, charts, and forms, Retool expedites UI assembly without separate coding efforts.
- Seamless Integration: Connect with diverse databases through GraphQL, gRPC API, and REST. Retool seamlessly integrates with various tools like MongoDB, Google Sheets, AWS Lambda, and more.
- Developer-Friendly: Retool’s JavaScript-friendly environment empowers developers to write reusable code, customize components, and debug with ease.
Fluent
Fluent, formerly known as Fabric React, is an open-source, cross-platform design tool by Microsoft. It empowers developers and designers to effortlessly integrate design elements into their applications.
Key Highlights:
- Pre-built Components: Fluent equips you with an array of pre-built components, aligning your application with Microsoft Office’s design language.
- Enhanced Controls: Gain finer control over your designs with tools like Datepickers, people pickers, persona, and more.
- Cross-platform: Whether it is the web, iOS, macOS, Android, or Windows, Fluent functions seamlessly across platforms.
Conclusion
ReactJS UI libraries assist you in creating visually appealing interfaces for your business’s apps and website development needs.
This makes it easier to create features and designs without having to spend time coding for common components. Using a ReactJS UI component library can also help newcomers get started quickly and construct apps.
And, if you are a skilled programmer, you can customize the components you desire and include them in your app design. Choosing a React UI component library from the list above is entirely dependent on your design requirements.
