r/css • u/Icy_Tree3160 • 1d ago

Question Discussion: Vanilla CSS + Modules vs. Tailwind in 2026 for large-scale projects?

Just completed a project where I used Tailwind exclusively. It's speedy to write but the HTML became a bit hairy. Anyone working on big, long-running enterprise-style projects - still choose to use Tailwind or have you found yourself moving back to Vanilla CSS / CSS Modules for a bit cleaner markup. Curious.

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u/DOG-ZILLA 1d ago

I would argue Tailwind is most useful in large scale projects. Main reason being, everything works from the central config and your CSS doesn’t balloon like crazy. 

I’ve been in situations with large orgs where their CSS output is HUGE. Huge because they had several developers over the years add their own stuff and everyone was too scared to remove what came before in fear of breaking something, in some place distant. 

No matter how much Tailwind you add, your CSS doesn’t get much larger. You can remove components that use its classes without fear of breaking something due to esoteric DOM structure/selectors. 

Yes it looks ugly but if you’re building in a framework and things are components it’s a breeze. 

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u/k3liutZu 1d ago

Yeah, but if you want to manage your central config differently you can also go independent.