Base UI
Hacker ApprovedRanked 6 of 14 UI component libraries by recommenders
Free, unstyled React components with strong low-level primitives for complex widgets. Caveat: unstyled inputs look bare, and forms can feel hard to ship.
Free, unstyled React components with strong low-level primitives for complex widgets. Caveat: unstyled inputs look bare, and forms can feel hard to ship.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 74%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Strong primitives for complex components
“found the primitives very pleasant to work with, especially if one wants to compose more complex components”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Shadcn/UI now defaults to Base UI instead of Radix” “if you hand-craft most of your site, but need a well-thought-out complex widget, use Base UI”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Shadcn/UI now defaults to Base UI instead of Radix” “base ui has generally better primitives and is being actively developed”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “LiftKit – UI where "everything derives from the golden ratio"” Actively developed and stable v1
“base ui has generally better primitives and is being actively developed”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “LiftKit – UI where "everything derives from the golden ratio"” “already upgraded to v1 from beta.6 without issue”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Base UI v1.0 Unstyled UI Components from the Creators of Radix and MUI” “Great to see this finally become stable.”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Base UI v1.0 Unstyled UI Components from the Creators of Radix and MUI” Satisfied users and good reports
“I'm thrilled to incorporate it into my projects.”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Base UI v1.0 Unstyled UI Components from the Creators of Radix and MUI” “I've been pretty satisfied with base UI so far”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Shadcn/UI now defaults to Base UI instead of Radix” “have only heard good things”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Base UI v1.0 Unstyled UI Components from the Creators of Radix and MUI” Unstyled, low-level, not opinionated
“I removed the CSS styling provided in the example to test that it works perfectly without it.”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Base UI v1.0 Unstyled UI Components from the Creators of Radix and MUI” “Base UI is more low-level, a lot less opinionated and doesn’t force you into certain layouts.”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Shadcn/UI now defaults to Base UI instead of Radix”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Unstyled inputs look barely visible
“An unstyled text input doesn't look like a nearly invisible thin light gray rectangle.”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Base UI v1.0 Unstyled UI Components from the Creators of Radix and MUI” “Barely visible thin light gray lines where the input is supposed to be are endemic.”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Base UI v1.0 Unstyled UI Components from the Creators of Radix and MUI” Forms hard for shipping products
“I tried to use baseUI and gave up. Forms are a bit different”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Shadcn/UI now defaults to Base UI instead of Radix” “Great for design systems, exhausting for shipping a product.”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “Show HN: Cladd – React UI kit for editors, dashboards, and dense app UIs”
Other UI component libraries people recommend
The four most recommended other UI component libraries, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| shadcn/ui | 82 | 54 | 60% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | — |
| Jelly UI | 41 | 38 | 52% | 1 | — | — |
| Tailwind UI | 38 | 28 | 58% | 3 | — | — |
| Performative-UI | 38 | 8 | 83% | 2 | — | — |
| Base UIThis page | 14 | 5 | 74% | 4 | — | Approved |
What people said
21 of the 22 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“For companies with the resources to, they do just start with BaseUI.”
“if you hand-craft most of your site, but need a well-thought-out complex widget, use Base UI”
“It bothers me that these popular UI toolkits render copious amounts of divs.”
“I've been pretty satisfied with base UI so far”
“they switched from Radix to Base UI”
“Imagine building a brand new component library to replace your already quite successful component library”
“as opposed to Radix or Base UI”
“I tried to use baseUI and gave up. Forms are a bit different”
“Base UI is more low-level, a lot less opinionated and doesn’t force you into certain layouts.”
“found the primitives very pleasant to work with, especially if one wants to compose more complex components”
“Great for design systems, exhausting for shipping a product.”
“they have component libraries to study”
“base ui has generally better primitives and is being actively developed”
“Check out Base UI (or React Aria) instead.”
“An unstyled text input doesn't look like a nearly invisible thin light gray rectangle.”
“I removed the CSS styling provided in the example to test that it works perfectly without it.”
“Barely visible thin light gray lines where the input is supposed to be are endemic.”
“I'm thrilled to incorporate it into my projects.”
“Great to see this finally become stable.”
“already upgraded to v1 from beta.6 without issue”
“have only heard good things”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.