CSS Modules
Hacker ApprovedCSS module system in Developer tools
Scopes class names locally so styles don't leak across a site while staying close to plain CSS; critics note it needs setup and another library to learn.
Scopes class names locally so styles don't leak across a site while staying close to plain CSS; critics note it needs setup and another library to learn.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 84%
Recommended in 8 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: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 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
Solves global CSS conflicts
“Css modules gets away from the larger sins of the massive global css files.”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Modern CSS Code Snippets: Stop writing CSS like it's 2015” “This problem was solved a long time ago with CSS Modules.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Modern CSS Code Snippets: Stop writing CSS like it's 2015” “CSS Modules are a simpler solution to cascading problems.”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “Moving away from Tailwind, and learning to structure my CSS” - Comment from 4 Oct 2026 in “Why don't more developers “use the platform”?”
- Comment from 17 May 2026 in “Moving away from Tailwind, and learning to structure my CSS”
Stays close to vanilla CSS
“it just made more sense for us to stay closer to web fundamentals since our styles are used across different tech stacks”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “Shopify acquires Tailwind” “CSS Modules comes with the same benefits while feeling much more like a natural extension to the web platform”
Comment from 2 Aug 2026 in “I don't recommend Tailwind CSS” “it's CSS but the classnames and animation names are locally by default”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 in “I spent years trying to make CSS states predictable” - Comment from 18 May 2026 in “The tyranny of single page apps”
- Comment from 17 May 2026 in “Moving away from Tailwind, and learning to structure my CSS”
Pleasant to work with
“css modules with react are really nice to work with”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “Moving away from Tailwind, and learning to structure my CSS” “I find a lot of value in CSS modules.”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Vanilla CSS is all you need” “it’s genuinely great to work with”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “The Future of CSS” Easy to migrate and combine
“You can migrate CSS to Sass to CSS modules to Emotion CSS to etc mostly just by copying them over”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “Moving away from Tailwind, and learning to structure my CSS” “You can do anything with css modules, or use any other CSS extension.”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Claude Design”
What people said
23 of the 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it’s genuinely great to work with”
“Scoping now is much easier with CSS Modules”
“We migrated a >1M LOC codebase to CSS Modules from VE for a ~30% build time speed improvement”
“For typical systems, I consider the hash approach to be foolish”
“it just made more sense for us to stay closer to web fundamentals since our styles are used across different tech stacks”
“I'd still prefer css modules over tailwind”
“CSS Modules comes with the same benefits while feeling much more like a natural extension to the web platform”
“It compiles classnames into unique identifiers, so there's no need for BEM or SMACSS conventions”
“I'd always advocate for Mantine and css modules anywhere early enough to use premade UI solutions.”
“It's very easy to use, and stays very close to vanilla CSS.”
“The only thing they solve is side effects, but you'll still want shared conventions across your modules.”
“CSS modules solve all of these problems.”
“where you can just write straight up CSS”
“You can migrate CSS to Sass to CSS modules to Emotion CSS to etc mostly just by copying them over”
“CSS Modules are a simpler solution to cascading problems.”
“css modules with react are really nice to work with”
“it's CSS but the classnames and animation names are locally by default”
“You can do anything with css modules, or use any other CSS extension.”
“Css modules gets away from the larger sins of the massive global css files.”
“I prefer almost anything to CSS modules”
“This problem was solved a long time ago with CSS Modules.”
“Requires setting up, requires learning an additional library.”
“I find a lot of value in CSS modules.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.