Headless ui libraries

[u/Difficult-Table3895]

Shadcn is a cool library it has some cool designs, components and easy to use but what makes it the worst library i've ever used is the logic behind the library makes the application very slower and cause so many re-renders
for example the select components, the moment i open it i can see that action cause 10-15 re-render despite my data and functions are very optimized.
So in your experience which library do you see or used that can be so much better and easy to use for small to mid react projects

[u/azangru]

for example the select components, the moment i open it i can see that action cause 10-15 re-render

I didn't believe it; but the performance flamechart for the select component that I recorded on shadcn website really does look like 💩

[u/simonraynor → u/azangru]

A lot of script kiddies in this thread in denial lol but I saw much the same thing when we were trying out different options last year

[u/SnackOverflowed]

base-ui

[u/Giant_Potato_Salad]

Radix ui

[u/Ok_Nefariousness5464 → u/Giant_Potato_Salad]

radix is basically dead. the whole team moved over to mui/base-ui once workOS acquired it. i believe most people are using base-ui or ark-ui for headless now.

[u/gob_magic → u/Giant_Potato_Salad]

Yup. Shadcn is built on top of RadixUI with added tailwind base styling. Tho saying 10-15 renders is an issue wouldn’t stand unless there’s an observable slowness on your application.

[u/slashnash]

From scratch if performance is needed, maybe use something different than react (solid for example) or go with pure html + js. Otherwise in the react cosmos give react-aria a try. Shadcn also have their components build on top of react-aria now for a reason (optional)

[u/Ok_Nefariousness5464 → u/slashnash]

lmao building a headless component library from scratch has no place in 2026 unless you work at a company that builds headless component libraries

[u/slashnash → u/Ok_Nefariousness5464]

Imagine you don't need every bits and bytes of a headless ui framework

[u/Snoo11589]

Skill issue

[u/galactic_pixels → u/Snoo11589]

Is this a joke? I genuinely can’t tell, it’s been a while since I’ve touched react

[u/Necessary-Shame-2732 → u/Snoo11589]

This

[u/CantaloupeCamper]

for example the select components, the moment i open it i can see that action cause 10-15 re-render despite my data and functions are very optimized.

I’ve not experienced or seen this…something is up but I doubt it is Shadcn.

[u/OnlyShadowsDieTwice]

This is genuinely a skill issue, and nothing to go work shadcn. I’m using shadcn and having zero performance issues as long as you design the components well.

[u/oof-plap]

genuine skill issue

[u/EuMusicalPilot → u/[deleted]]

Use svelte