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Material UI vs React Storybook: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Material UI and React Storybook are both popular tools used in frontend development with React. While both serve different purposes, they have key differences that set them apart. This article aims to highlight these differences and provide a clear understanding of when to use each one.

  1. Component library vs. Development environment: Material UI is a component library that provides pre-built UI components with consistent design styles and functionality. It focuses on providing ready-to-use components for faster development. On the other hand, React Storybook is a development environment that allows developers to build, test, and showcase individual UI components in isolation. It provides a sandbox environment for developers to work on components independently.

  2. Design system vs. Component documentation: Material UI follows the principles of Material Design, which is a well-established design system created by Google. It provides guidelines and patterns for visual and interactive design. React Storybook, on the other hand, is mainly focused on documenting and showcasing components. It provides a UI component explorer where developers can inspect and test the different states and props of a component.

  3. Styling options: Material UI comes with its own set of pre-defined styles and themes that can be easily customized and overridden using its API. It provides a consistent and cohesive look and feel across all its components. React Storybook, on the other hand, does not have built-in styling options. It allows developers to use any styling solution they prefer, such as CSS or CSS-in-JS libraries, to style their components independently.

  4. Development workflow: Material UI is integrated into the development workflow of a React application and requires developers to import and use its components directly within the codebase. It provides a seamless development experience within the React ecosystem. React Storybook, on the other hand, is not integrated directly into the codebase but runs as a separate development environment. It allows developers to experiment and iterate on components without affecting the main application.

  5. Focus on front-end vs. Component-driven development: Material UI is more focused on providing ready-to-use front-end components that developers can use to build user interfaces quickly. It is suitable for projects that prioritize front-end development and require a cohesive design system. React Storybook, on the other hand, focuses on component-driven development and is especially useful for projects that require building and managing a large set of reusable components.

  6. Ease of setup and configuration: Material UI is relatively easy to set up and configure, as it provides a comprehensive documentation and guides to get started. It includes a wide range of configuration options that can be customized based on project requirements. React Storybook, on the other hand, requires additional setup and configuration to integrate with a React project. It involves installing and configuring additional dependencies and requires more initial effort to set up compared to Material UI.

In summary, Material UI is a component library that provides pre-built UI components and follows the principles of Material Design. It focuses on ready-to-use components, styling options, and seamless integration within the React ecosystem. On the other hand, React Storybook is a development environment that allows developers to build, test, and showcase individual UI components independently. It is more focused on component-driven development, component documentation, and the ability to work on components in isolation.

Decisions about Material-UI and React Storybook

Fonts and typography are fun. Material Design is a framework (developed by Google) that basically geeks out on how to assemble your typographical elements together into a design language. If you're into fonts and typography, it's fantastic. It provides a theming engine, reusable components, and can pull different user interfaces together under a common design paradigm. I'd highly recommend looking into Borries Schwesinger's book "The Form Book" if you're going to be working with Material UI or are otherwise new to component design.

https://www.amazon.com/Form-Book-Creating-Printed-Online/dp/0500515085

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Pros of Material-UI
Pros of React Storybook
  • 141
    React
  • 82
    Material Design
  • 60
    Ui components
  • 30
    CSS framework
  • 25
    Component
  • 14
    Looks great
  • 12
    Responsive
  • 12
    Good documentation
  • 9
    LESS
  • 8
    Ui component
  • 7
    Open source
  • 6
    Code examples
  • 6
    Flexible
  • 5
    JSS
  • 3
    Angular
  • 3
    Very accessible
  • 3
    Fun
  • 3
    Supports old browsers out of the box
  • 2
    Typescript support
  • 2
    # of components
  • 2
    Interface
  • 2
    Designed for Server Side Rendering
  • 1
    Support for multiple styling systems
  • 1
    Css
  • 1
    Easy to work with
  • 1
    Accessibility
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    Cons of Material-UI
    Cons of React Storybook
    • 34
      Hard to learn. Bad documentation
    • 27
      Hard to customize
    • 20
      Hard to understand Docs
    • 7
      Bad performance
    • 6
      Extra library needed for date/time pickers
    • 6
      For editable table component need to use material-table
    • 1
      Typescript Support
    • 0
      # of components
    • 5
      Hard dependency to Babel loader

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    What is Material-UI?

    Material UI is a library of React UI components that implements Google's Material Design.

    What is React Storybook?

    You just load your UI components into the React Storybook and start developing them. This functionality allows you to develop UI components rapidly without worrying about the app. It will improve your team’s collaboration and feedback loop.

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    What companies use Material-UI?
    What companies use React Storybook?
    See which teams inside your own company are using Material-UI or React Storybook.
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    What tools integrate with Material-UI?
    What tools integrate with React Storybook?

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    What are some alternatives to Material-UI and React Storybook?
    Kendo UI
    Fast, light, complete: 70+ jQuery-based UI widgets in one powerful toolset. AngularJS integration, Bootstrap support, mobile controls, offline data solution.
    Flat UI
    Flat UI is a beautiful theme for Bootstrap. We have redesigned many of its components to look flat in every pixel.
    Ant Design
    An enterprise-class UI design language and React-based implementation. Graceful UI components out of the box, base on React Component. A npm + webpack + babel + dora + dva development framework.
    react-md
    React MD is Google's Material Design specifications implemented with Sass and React. The goal of the project is to create components that adhere to the Material Design specifications.
    Angular Material
    Sprint from Zero to App. Hit the ground running with comprehensive, modern UI components that work across the web, mobile and desktop. It allows to create material styled angular apps fast and easy.
    See all alternatives