Emotion vs Glamorous vs styled-components: What are the differences?

Introduction:

In the realm of CSS-in-JS libraries, Emotion, Glamorous, and styled-components are popular choices for styling React components.

1. Syntax: Emotion uses a lower-level API that allows for greater control and customization, making it a good choice for advanced users who want more flexibility in their styling. On the other hand, Glamorous and styled-components provide more user-friendly APIs that abstract away some of the complexities, making them easier to use for beginners or those looking for a simpler solution.

2. Performance: In terms of performance, Emotion generally performs better than Glamorous and styled-components due to its optimized rendering approach. Emotion's dynamic styles allow for efficient updates and minimal re-renders, contributing to a smoother user experience.

3. Server-side rendering: Emotion has built-in server-side rendering support, making it a seamless choice for server-rendered applications. Glamorous also offers server-side rendering capabilities, but styled-components require additional setup and configuration for server-side rendering.

4. Community and ecosystem: Styled-components boasts a large and active community, with extensive documentation, tutorials, and support available. While Emotion and Glamorous also have dedicated communities, styled-components' extensive ecosystem makes it easier to find solutions to common issues and access a wide range of third-party tools and plugins.

5. Theming: Both Emotion and styled-components handle theming well, providing easy ways to create and manage themes for consistent styling across an application. However, Glamorous does not have built-in theming capabilities, requiring manual implementation for theme management.

In summary, Emotion offers more control and performance optimizations, styled-components has a strong community and ecosystem, and Glamorous is beginner-friendly.