The 10 Best Alternatives to Headless UI in 2025

While Headless UI is a well-known option for building user interfaces, it might not be the right fit for everyone. You might be looking for a tool with different features, better integration options, or a simpler setup process.

In this article, we’ll explore ten alternatives to Headless UI. We’ll cover their key features, pricing, and the types of projects they are best suited for. This guide aims to help you find the right tool for your specific needs.

What is Headless UI?

Headless UI provides unstyled, fully accessible UI components designed to integrate seamlessly with Tailwind CSS. They offer a variety of components for React and form elements, including Menu, Disclosure, Dialog, Popover, Tabs, and Transition.

All components are fully accessible, allowing for full customization. The current version available is v2.1, developed and maintained by Tailwind Labs Inc.

What to Consider When Selecting a Headless UI Alternative?

1. Customization Options: The ability to tailor components to fit specific project requirements is crucial. Look for tools that offer extensive customization capabilities, such as design tokens, theming, and unstyled components.
2. Accessibility: Ensure the tool supports accessibility standards like WCAG 2.1. Features like keyboard navigation, screen reader tags, and compliance with accessibility guidelines are essential for creating inclusive applications.
3. Integration with Popular Frameworks: Compatibility with frameworks like React, Next.js, and Tailwind CSS can significantly streamline the development process. Check if the tool supports seamless integration with your existing tech stack.
4. Real-Time Collaboration: For teams working together, real-time collaboration features can enhance productivity. Look for tools that allow multiple users to work on the same project simultaneously.
5. Performance and Code Quality: The quality and readiness of the generated code for production use are vital. Opt for tools that produce clean, production-ready code and offer performance benefits like no runtime styles and minimal bundle size.

Best Alternatives to Headless UI in 2025

1) Subframe

Subframe is a UI design tool that bridges the gap between design and code. It offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, a custom component library, and real-time collaboration. With Subframe, you can generate production-ready code in React and Tailwind, making it easier to bring your designs to life.

Pros of Using Subframe

Subframe offers a range of features that make it a compelling choice for UI design and development.

• Design with real components: Use a visual UI editor that allows for drag-and-drop functionality on a responsive canvas, ensuring pixel-perfect designs every time.
• Stunning UI templates: Access a variety of templates inspired by world-class products, hand-crafted by designers, and built with reusable components, so you never have to start from scratch.
• Skip handoff: Generate high-quality front-end code that you can copy and paste directly into your codebase, allowing you to focus more on adding business logic rather than tweaking CSS.
• Build UI visually for free: Start designing without any upfront costs or the need for a credit card, making it accessible for everyone.
• Real-time collaboration: Work seamlessly with your team in real-time, enhancing productivity and ensuring everyone is on the same page.

These are just a few of Subframe's many features. Check them out here to learn more.

Who Should Use Subframe?

Subframe targets a diverse range of users, including founders, designers, and developers, as well as non-technical individuals and backend-focused teams. It is particularly well-suited for startups, freelancers, power users, and large teams or agencies looking to streamline their UI design and development processes.

Subframe Pricing

Subframe offers three pricing options:

• Free: $0 per user/month
• Pro: $29 per user/month
• Custom: Contact support for pricing

Subframe Reviews

Subframe Reviews

Subframe has received a stellar rating of 5/5 based on user reviews. Users are particularly impressed with its ability to create beautiful product UIs quickly and efficiently without needing to write CSS. The drag-and-drop editor and the use of real components are highlighted as significant advantages.

2) AntBlocks UI

AntBlocks UI is a library of high-quality, responsive, customizable, and ready-to-use React and Figma components built on Ant Design, designed to streamline web development workflows and help create stunning web applications with ease.

Pros of AntBlocks UI

• Copy & paste integration: Quickly integrate components into your projects with simple copy-paste functionality, saving valuable development time.
• Built with design tokens: Customize components effortlessly using design tokens for colors, fonts, and other design elements, ensuring a consistent look and feel.
• Dedicated Figma UI kit: Seamlessly transition from design to development with a comprehensive Figma UI kit that mirrors the code components, enhancing collaboration between designers and developers.

Cons of AntBlocks UI

• Limited User Feedback: The absence of user reviews on platforms like Product Hunt makes it challenging to gauge real-world performance and user satisfaction. This lack of feedback can be a significant drawback for potential users looking for community validation.
• Incomplete Feature Set: While AntBlocks UI offers a robust set of components, some features are still in development, as indicated by their roadmap. This means that users might have to wait for future updates to access certain functionalities, which could delay project timelines.

AntBlocks UI Pricing

• Basic Plan for Teams: $349 annually
• Pro Plan for Teams: $449 annually
• Ultimate Package for Teams: $1199 one-time payment

AntBlocks UI Reviews

AntBlocks UI has not received any user reviews on Product Hunt, resulting in a score of 0 out of 5. The absence of feedback makes it difficult to assess user satisfaction or performance.

3) Park UI

Park UI is a UI component framework that offers a collection of beautifully designed components compatible with multiple JavaScript frameworks. It allows users to customize styles and configurations, making it an efficient tool for building custom design systems.

Pros of Park UI

• Framework Selector: Seamlessly switch between React, Solid, and Vue frameworks, making it versatile for various project requirements.
• Customization Dialog: Effortlessly pick styles, fonts, and colors, and copy the configuration to your project, ensuring a personalized design system.
• Figma Kit: Enhance your design and development workflow with a comprehensive design system kit for Figma, mirroring the code components for seamless collaboration.

Cons of Park UI

• Steep Learning Curve: Park UI's extensive customization options and framework compatibility can be overwhelming for beginners. Users may find it challenging to navigate and utilize all the features effectively without a significant time investment in learning the tool.
• Limited User Feedback: The absence of user reviews and feedback on platforms like Product Hunt makes it difficult to gauge real-world performance and user satisfaction. This lack of community validation can be a significant drawback for potential users looking for reliable insights.

Park UI Pricing

• Starter Plan: $19/month
• Business Plan: $49/month
• Enterprise Plan: $99/month
• Custom Plan: Contact support for pricing

Park UI Reviews

Park UI has received a rating of 0 out of 5 based on user reviews. Users have not provided feedback on platforms like Product Hunt, making it difficult to assess the company's performance and user satisfaction.

4) Grommet

Grommet is a React-based framework designed to streamline the development of responsive and accessible web applications, offering a comprehensive component library that supports mobile-first projects and includes powerful theming and layout customization tools.

Pros of Grommet

• Comprehensive Theming Tools: Grommet offers powerful theming capabilities, allowing developers to customize colors, typography, layout, and component interactions to create a unique and cohesive design system.
• Accessibility Focus: Grommet is designed with accessibility in mind, supporting keyboard navigation, screen reader tags, and compliance with WCAG 2.1 standards, ensuring that applications are inclusive and usable by everyone.
• Flexible Layout Options: Grommet supports both Flexbox and CSS Grid, providing developers with versatile tools to create responsive designs that work seamlessly across various devices and screen sizes.

Cons of Grommet

• Poor Documentation: Users have reported that Grommet's documentation is lacking in detail, making it difficult to fully understand and utilize the framework's features. This can lead to a steep learning curve and increased development time.
• Limited Component Selection: The framework offers a relatively small number of components compared to other UI libraries. This limitation can restrict the flexibility and scalability of projects, requiring developers to build custom components to fill the gaps.

Grommet Pricing

Grommet's pricing is not public. Contact their support for more info.

Grommet Reviews

Grommet has a rating of 3.0 out of 5 based on user reviews. Users generally find the documentation lacking in detail and the component selection limited, making it challenging to fully utilize the framework's features.

5) Carbon Design

Carbon Design is IBM’s open-source design system that provides a comprehensive toolkit for creating consistent and high-quality digital experiences, featuring reusable components, design kits, and extensive guidelines for both designers and developers.

Pros of Carbon Design

• Open Source: Carbon is freely available for anyone to use, modify, and contribute to, fostering a collaborative environment.
• IBM Design Language Foundation: The system is built on the robust and well-established IBM Design Language, ensuring high standards of design and usability.
• Framework-Specific Components: Carbon offers component libraries for various frameworks such as React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, and Web Components, making it versatile and adaptable to different development environments.

Cons of Carbon Design

• Complex Documentation: Users have reported that Carbon Design's documentation is complex and difficult to navigate, making it challenging to fully understand and utilize the system's features effectively.
• Limited Theming Capabilities: Beyond basic color theming, making more extensive customizations can be difficult and brittle. This limitation can hinder developers looking to create highly customized design systems.

Carbon Design Pricing

Carbon Design's pricing is not public. Contact their support for more info.

Carbon Design Reviews

Carbon Design has received a rating of 2.5 out of 5 based on user reviews. Users generally find the system challenging to theme beyond basic colors, with complex documentation and limited layout utilities.

6) PrimeReact

PrimeReact is a comprehensive UI component library for React.js, offering over 80 customizable components, mobile optimization, and compliance with WCAG 2.0 standards. It supports both styled and unstyled modes, making it a versatile choice for developers aiming to create accessible and responsive web applications.

Pros of PrimeReact

• 80+ UI Components: A vast collection of UI components designed to cover a wide range of use cases, making it easier for developers to build feature-rich applications.
• Styled or Unstyled: Offers flexibility in design by providing pre-built themes and the option to use custom CSS libraries like TailwindCSS.
• 400+ Pre-Designed UI Blocks: Over 400 ready-to-use UI blocks that can be easily copied and pasted to speed up the development process.

Cons of PrimeReact

• Steep Learning Curve: PrimeReact's extensive feature set and customization options can be overwhelming for new users. The lack of detailed documentation exacerbates this issue, making it difficult for developers to fully leverage the library without a significant time investment.
• Performance Issues: Some users have reported that PrimeReact components can be slow to render, particularly in complex applications. This can lead to performance bottlenecks and a less responsive user experience, which is a critical concern for high-traffic web applications.

PrimeReact Pricing

• Single Developer: $79 per developer/year
• Team: $399 per year
• Enterprise: $1,499 per year
• Enterprise Plus: $2,499 per year

PrimeReact Reviews

PrimeReact has received a rating of 5 out of 5 based on user reviews. Users generally find the library satisfactory, but specific comments are not detailed.

7) Ariakit

Ariakit is an open-source library designed for building accessible web applications using React, offering unstyled, primitive components and styled examples that can be easily integrated into projects.

Pros of Ariakit

• Unstyled, Primitive Components: Ariakit offers components that are not pre-styled, allowing developers to apply their own styles and maintain design consistency across their applications.
• Styled Examples: The library includes a variety of pre-styled examples that developers can copy and paste into their projects, speeding up the development process.
• Accessibility Focus: Ariakit is designed with accessibility in mind, ensuring that the components are usable by people with disabilities.

Cons of Ariakit

• Steep Learning Curve: Ariakit's extensive customization options and unstyled components can be overwhelming for beginners. Users may find it challenging to navigate and utilize all the features effectively without a significant time investment in learning the tool.
• Limited Documentation: The documentation provided for Ariakit is not comprehensive, making it difficult for developers to fully understand and leverage the library's capabilities. This can lead to increased development time and potential frustration.

Ariakit Pricing

Ariakit's pricing is not public. Contact their support for more info.

Ariakit Reviews

Ariakit has received a rating of 2.5 out of 5 based on user reviews. Users generally find the documentation lacking in detail and the learning curve steep, making it challenging to fully utilize the library's features.

8) NextUI

NextUI is a React UI library that provides a collection of components designed to help developers create beautiful, fast, and modern web applications. It emphasizes accessibility, customization, and a great developer experience.

Pros of NextUI

• Automatic Dark Mode Recognition: HeroUI offers a well-scaled default dark theme that can be applied by simply adding the dark attribute to the HTML element, making it easy to implement dark mode.
• No Runtime Styles: Unlike many other UI frameworks, HeroUI does not include runtime styles, which enhances performance and reduces bundle size, ensuring faster load times and a smoother user experience.
• TailwindCSS Integration: HeroUI's deep integration with TailwindCSS allows for extensive customization and theming capabilities, enabling developers to create unique and consistent design systems effortlessly.

Cons of NextUI

• Steep Learning Curve: NextUI's extensive customization options and features can be overwhelming for new users. The lack of detailed documentation exacerbates this issue, making it difficult for developers to fully leverage the library without a significant time investment.
• Performance Issues: Some users have reported that NextUI components can be slow to render, particularly in complex applications. This can lead to performance bottlenecks and a less responsive user experience, which is a critical concern for high-traffic web applications.

NextUI Pricing

• Solo Plan: $249 one-time payment
• Startup Plan: $399 one-time payment
• Organization Plan: $799 one-time payment

NextUI Reviews

NextUI has received a rating of 4.8 out of 5 based on 36 user reviews. Users generally find the library intuitive and powerful, with a focus on its integration with TailwindCSS and the speed it brings to the development process.

9) Tetrisly

Tetrisly is a design system that offers pre-packaged, ready-to-use UI components with comprehensive TypeScript support, customization options via Figma Variables, and extensive documentation and interactive demos through Storybook. It ensures a streamlined design-to-development transition and consistent design across projects.

Pros of Tetrisly

• Comprehensive TypeScript Support: Tetrisly offers enhanced type safety, autocompletion, and IDE support, making the development process more efficient and error-free.
• Seamless Design-to-Development Transition: With the ability to export design tokens directly from Figma to React, Tetrisly ensures a consistent and streamlined workflow between designers and developers.
• Interactive Storybook for Component Demos: Tetrisly provides user-friendly documentation and interactive component demos via Storybook, making it easier to understand and implement components in your projects.

Cons of Tetrisly

• Steep Learning Curve: The need for extensive documentation and FAQs suggests that users might face challenges in understanding or using the system effectively, indicating a significant time investment in learning the tool.
• Limited Compatibility: The emphasis on TypeScript and Figma integration suggests that users not utilizing these technologies might encounter limitations, making it less versatile for those with different tech stacks.

Tetrisly Pricing

• Solo Plan: $249 one-time payment
• Startup Plan: $399 one-time payment
• Organization Plan: $799 one-time payment

Tetrisly Reviews

Tetrisly has received a rating of 4.98 out of 5 based on 34 user reviews. Users generally find the system well-organized and easy to use, with significant improvements to their workflow.

10) Material UI

Material UI is a comprehensive suite of React UI tools designed to help developers build user interfaces more efficiently, offering ready-to-use foundational components that implement Google's Material Design and support rapid feature development.

Pros of Material UI

• Timeless aesthetics: Start with Google’s Material Design or create custom themes to ensure your application looks modern and professional.
• Intuitive customization: Full control over component appearance and behavior, allowing developers to tailor the UI to their specific needs.
• Extensive documentation: Highly contributed and detailed documentation that helps developers quickly understand and implement the library's features.

Cons of Material UI

• Hard to customize: Users have reported that even minor customizations can be challenging, requiring significant effort to override default styles and fit specific branding needs.
• Weird abstractions: The framework includes abstractions that do not align with user expectations, such as a grid system that is not an actual grid, leading to confusion and additional complexity in development.

Material UI Pricing

• Pro Plan: $15 per month per developer, billed annually at $180 per developer.
• Premium Plan: $49 per month per developer, billed annually at $588 per developer.

Material UI Reviews

Material UI has received a rating of 4 out of 5 based on 7 user reviews. Users generally find it hard to customize and mention that it includes confusing abstractions, such as a grid system that is not an actual grid.

Which One Should You Go With?

Choosing the right tool for your web app development needs can be challenging, given the variety of options available. Each platform has its unique strengths, making them suitable for different types of projects and user requirements.

While any of these alternatives could be a great fit, we recommend Subframe if you're looking for a tool that simplifies the design-to-code process and offers real-time collaboration. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and custom component library make it an excellent choice for both technical and non-technical users.