UI Libraries & Design Systems
Want to propose a change, disagree with a placement, or add an interesting new technology? Please reach out to @Damian Szafranek. This Tech Radar is a living document - we keep it useful by updating it together as our projects, tools, and experiences evolve.
Scope
Libraries that provide UI components, such as buttons, forms and modals, and the tools for building, documenting and maintaining a design system. The underlying styling approach belongs in Styling: a utility framework or a preprocessor goes there, a set of components goes here.
Overview
ADOPT
Proven technologies we have high confidence in; our default choices.
Technologies Breakdown
shadcn/ui ADOPT
Recommended approach for building custom UIs in React/Next.js projects. Use its CLI to add components directly into the codebase. Requires Tailwind CSS.
Provides highly customizable and accessible components by leveraging Radix UI and Tailwind CSS. The approach of copying components into the project gives teams full ownership and control. Proven effective and preferred by development teams for building bespoke interfaces efficiently.
Material UI (MUI) ADOPT
Approved component library for React projects, particularly suitable for internal tools or projects where rapid development with pre-built components is prioritized and alignment with the Material Design aesthetic is acceptable or desired.
Comprehensive set of components, good documentation, and strong community support. Our team has considerable experience with it. Provides a faster path to building complex UIs compared to building everything from scratch, especially for back-office applications.
coss ui ADOPT
A large open-source component collection to pull from when building a UI, rather than a framework to commit to. Copy the pieces you need and keep them in your own codebase.
This is the library we adopted as Origin-UI. It is now published as coss ui and has been rebuilt on top of Base UI, so our experience with it predates that change and the status is worth revisiting on the next project that uses it. Base UI itself is not on the radar yet, which is a gap if we keep depending on this.
Recharts ADOPT
Worth using for React charts where one component tree needs to produce stacked bars, multi-axis lines, grids, tooltips and legends. Load it lazily: it is large enough that it should never enter the main bundle.
It drew the dashboards on the LLM platform we delivered in 2026, including sparklines from the same library, which avoided a second charting dependency. The cost is documented rather than discovered: roughly a hundred kilobytes gzipped and thirty-eight extra packages, one of which pulls in Redux transitively even on a project that deliberately has no Redux. That was accepted on the condition it sits behind a lazy import.
Chakra UI TRIAL
Explore on specific new React projects (especially internal tools or PoCs) as an alternative to MUI or the shadcn/ui and coss ui stack, particularly where its specific component set or style-prop DX is desired.
Offers a highly accessible, composable set of React components with a strong focus on developer experience (style props). Trialing continues to evaluate its niche compared to our adopted solutions, particularly for projects where MUI or shadcn/ui might be overkill or less suitable.
Ant Design (Antd) TRIAL
Explore on specific new React projects, particularly complex data-intensive applications or back-office systems where its vast component set (tables, forms, data visualization) could provide significant value.
A very comprehensive, enterprise-focused UI library with a distinct aesthetic and a huge number of out-of-the-box components. Trialing to evaluate its suitability for specific types of complex applications, assess its customization capabilities (theming), performance implications, and compare its developer experience to MUI and other alternatives for building feature-rich interfaces quickly.
Tailwind UI ASSESS
Investigate as a potential accelerator for projects using Tailwind CSS that require professionally designed, complex components quickly. Evaluate component quality, variety, cost, and licensing model.
A commercial offering from the creators of Tailwind CSS, providing a large library of pre-built, fully responsive UI components and templates. As we heavily use Tailwind CSS, this is a relevant resource to be aware of.
Storybook ASSESS
Evaluating its potential benefits for component development, documentation, and testing. Investigate setup, workflow, and maintenance requirements through small PoCs or on non-critical projects.
Storybook is recognized as an interesting and powerful tool for developing UI components in isolation, widely used in the industry. However, our team currently lacks significant prior experience with its setup, maintenance, and integration into different project types.
Bootstrap HOLD
Avoid for all new projects. Used in some legacy applications which should be considered for UI upgrades or migration.
While foundational, it has largely been superseded by utility-first frameworks (Tailwind) and more modern component libraries (MUI, shadcn/ui, coss ui) within our stack. Often requires significant customization and overrides, reducing its benefits compared to newer approaches.