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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Templating Languages & Extensions
  4. CSS Pre Processors Extensions
  5. Autoprefixer vs Stylus

Autoprefixer vs Stylus

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Stylus
Stylus
Stacks447
Followers411
Votes331
GitHub Stars11.3K
Forks1.1K
Autoprefixer
Autoprefixer
Stacks3.8K
Followers55
Votes0

Autoprefixer vs Stylus: What are the differences?

## Introduction
In web development, tools like Autoprefixer and Stylus play a crucial role in improving CSS workflow and efficiency. Understanding the key differences between these tools can help developers make informed decisions on which one to use for their projects.

1. **Syntax**: Autoprefixer is a postprocessor that automatically adds vendor prefixes to CSS rules based on the provided browser support while Stylus is a preprocessor that allows users to write CSS in a more concise and readable syntax with features like variables, nesting, and mixins.
   
2. **Browser Compatibility**: Autoprefixer focuses on automatically handling vendor prefixes to ensure better browser compatibility for CSS properties, while Stylus is primarily focused on simplifying CSS writing through its preprocessor features and does not address browser compatibility.

3. **Output**: Autoprefixer modifies the CSS file directly by adding necessary vendor prefixes, making it easier to maintain and update the code, while Stylus generates a separate CSS file from the stylus code, allowing developers to keep the original stylus files clean and organized.

4. **Dependency**: Autoprefixer is typically used as a plugin in build tools like Grunt or Gulp, enhancing the CSS output during the build process, whereas Stylus needs to be explicitly included in the project and compiled separately before the final CSS file is generated.

5. **Community Support**: Autoprefixer has a large community and is widely used in the industry, with frequent updates and maintenance to address new CSS features and browser support, while Stylus has a smaller but dedicated community that focuses on improving the preprocessor's functionalities.

6. **Learning Curve**: Autoprefixer is easy to integrate into existing projects as a plugin, requiring minimal configuration and setup, while Stylus may have a steeper learning curve for developers due to its unique syntax and features, which might take time to master.

In Summary, understanding the key differences between Autoprefixer and Stylus can help developers choose the right tool based on their specific project requirements and workflow preferences.

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Advice on Stylus, Autoprefixer

Anonymous
Anonymous

CEO at ME!

Jun 17, 2020

Needs adviceonSassSassStylusStylusPostCSSPostCSS

Originally, I was going to start using @{Sass}|tool:1171| with Parcel, but then I learned about @{Stylus}|tool:1172|, which looked interesting because it can get the property values of something directly instead of through variables, and @{PostCSS}|tool:3339|, which looked interesting because you can customize your Pre/Post-processing. Which tool would you recommend?

547k views547k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Stylus
Stylus
Autoprefixer
Autoprefixer

Stylus is a revolutionary new language, providing an efficient, dynamic, and expressive way to generate CSS. Supporting both an indented syntax and regular CSS style.

It is a CSS post processor. It combs through compiled CSS files to add or remove vendor prefixes like -webkit and -moz after checking the code.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
11.3K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
1.1K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
447
Stacks
3.8K
Followers
411
Followers
55
Votes
331
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 69
    Simple
  • 54
    Indented syntax
  • 38
    Efficient
  • 33
    Built for node.js
  • 32
    Open source
No community feedback yet
Integrations
Node.js
Node.js
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Stylus, Autoprefixer?

Sass

Sass

Sass is an extension of CSS3, adding nested rules, variables, mixins, selector inheritance, and more. It's translated to well-formatted, standard CSS using the command line tool or a web-framework plugin.

Less

Less

Less is a CSS pre-processor, meaning that it extends the CSS language, adding features that allow variables, mixins, functions and many other techniques that allow you to make CSS that is more maintainable, themable and extendable.

PostCSS

PostCSS

PostCSS is a tool for transforming CSS with JS plugins. These plugins can support variables and mixins, transpile future CSS syntax, inline images, and more.

Bourbon

Bourbon

Bourbon is a library of pure sass mixins that are designed to be simple and easy to use. No configuration required. The mixins aim to be as vanilla as possible, meaning they should be as close to the original CSS syntax as possible.

Compass

Compass

The compass core framework is a design-agnostic framework that provides common code that would otherwise be duplicated across other frameworks and extensions.

CSS Modules

CSS Modules

It is a CSS file in which all class names and animation names are scoped locally by default. The key words here are scoped locally. With this, your CSS class names become similar to local variables in JavaScript. It goes into the compiler, and CSS comes out the other side.

astroturf

astroturf

It lets you write CSS in your JavaScript files without adding any runtime layer, and with your existing CSS processing pipeline.

PreCSS

PreCSS

It combines Sass-like syntactical sugar — like variables, conditionals, and iterators — with emerging CSS features — like logical and custom properties, media query ranges, and image sets.

Animate.css

Animate.css

It is a bunch of cool, fun, and cross-browser animations for you to use in your projects. Great for emphasis, home pages, sliders, and general just-add-water-awesomeness.

css-loader

css-loader

The css-loader interprets @import and url() like import/require() and will resolve them.

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