windicss
Windi CSS is a utility-first CSS framework that generates styles on demand by scanning your HTML/CSS, offering Tailwind-compatible utilities with faster build times and HMR. The project has been officially sunset and is no longer recommended for new projects.
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[](https://opensources.dev/resource/windicss)MITPermissive — free to use in commercial and proprietary software, with attribution.View license →
Production readiness
4/5- Actively maintainedNo commits in over a year
- No known vulnerabilitiesNo OSV advisories
- Clear, usable licenseMIT (permissive)
- Proven adoptionWidely used
- Has documentationDocumentation indexed
npm install windicssOur analysis
Windi CSS is a utility-first CSS framework (a Tailwind CSS-compatible alternative) that compiles only the utilities actually used in your markup by scanning source files on demand, eliminating the need for a purge step.
When to use windicss
Historically a good fit for projects wanting Tailwind-style utilities with faster dev compilation and HMR, plus extras like attributify mode, variant groups, and shortcuts. Today it is mainly relevant only for maintaining existing codebases already built on it.
When not to
Do not adopt it for new projects — it has been officially sunset. Use UnoCSS (from the same core contributors) or Tailwind CSS, which now has its own on-demand JIT engine that closed Windi's original performance gap.
Strengths
- On-demand generation removes purge configuration and yields fast HMR
- Largely Tailwind-compatible API plus innovations like attributify mode, variant groups, and shortcuts
- First-class integrations across Vite, Webpack, Rollup, Nuxt, Svelte, and a VSCode IntelliSense extension
- MIT licensed and written in TypeScript
Trade-offs
- Officially sunset — no further development and explicitly not recommended for new work
- Many of its ideas were superseded by Tailwind JIT and UnoCSS
- Ecosystem plugins and integrations are effectively frozen
- Migration cost for projects locked into Windi-specific syntax
Maturity
End-of-life. Despite ~6.5k stars and a once-active integration ecosystem, the maintainers have publicly sunset the project and steer users toward alternatives, most notably UnoCSS.
Why Windi CSS? 🤔
A quote from the author should illustrate his motivation to create Windi CSS:
When my project became larger and there were about dozens of components, the initial compilation time reached 3s, and hot updates took more than 1s with Tailwind CSS. - @voorjaar
By scanning your HTML and CSS and generating utilities on demand, Windi CSS is able to provide faster load times and a speedy HMR in development, and does not require purging in production.
Read more about it in the Introduction.
Integrations
Windi CSS provides first-class integrations for your favorite tools, select yours and get started.
FrameworksPackageVersionCLIBuilt-in
Plugins 🛠
Check out plugins available for windicss.
Documentation 📖
Check the documentation website.
Discussions
We’re using GitHub Discussions as a place to connect with other members of our community. You are free to ask questions and share ideas, so enjoy yourself.
Contributing
If you're interested in contributing to windicss, please read our contributing docs before submitting a pull request.
Sponsors
Backers
License
Distributed under the MIT License.