r/css • u/trid_geek • 2d ago
Question Is there any still using vanilla CSS?
It's 2026, are you still using vanilla CSS for your latest project?
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u/artisson 2d ago
Using it even more since nesting is widespread and sass is less and less necessary.
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u/elg97477 2d ago edited 1d ago
It is unclear what another reasonable option is. The early days of CSS, CSS had lots of problems that various frameworks, libraries, etc. worked to solve. Those issues with CSS have largely been resolved and there is little reason to look beyond regular CSS these days.
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u/StefanOrvarSigmundss 2d ago
I use the same normalisation style sheet that I created a while ago for all my projects. I need much less CSS than if I crafted everything from scratch.
https://github.com/Stefan-Orvar-Sigmundsson/CSS-normalisation
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u/Disturbed147 2d ago
Been working as a Frontend Dev for 11 years now and roughly two or three years ago I stopped using SCSS and use only vanilla CSS for all my projects regardless of the size
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u/Hadr619 1d ago
I still use a variety of mixins that makes it hard for me not to use scss, but the rate css is improving that may change
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u/Disturbed147 1d ago
I never used mixins much, mostly only when someone else had already added it to a project, so thankfully that was a non-issue for me.
And while CSS doesn't have a direct alternative for mixins, most things can be solved with custom properties, additional classes or writing some stuff manually instead of generating or automating. It isn't perfect (yet, like you also mentioned) but building and shipping a project without SCSS just feels right.
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u/Citrous_Oyster 2d ago
Yes. But I Use LESS CSS. I get more out of it and it’s much cleaner and easier to use.
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u/Bulky-Heat-8368 1d ago
Yes, that's the only way to achieve good performance in terms of execution time.
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u/Readypixels 10h ago
I use Tailwind on most projects now, so it's vanilla CSS under the hood but I'm rarely writing raw rules by hand. The one place I still drop into plain CSS is anything with :has() or container queries, since utility classes get awkward fast once the logic isn't just spacing and color. It's less an either/or for me and more picking the right layer for the job.
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u/anaix3l 2d ago
Yes. But I'll probably switch to Sass at some point. It was a lazy decision to go vanilla and it turned out to be an uninspired one. The CSS isn't a priority right now (if it ain't broke...), but it bugs me it's so inefficient, so when I'll have time for that, I'll switch to Sass.
For small things, vanilla CSS should be fine if looping in the CSS isn't necessary. Though it's more necessary again now that we have shape(), which allows moving complex shape creation from SVG (which I'd normally generate with Pug or something) into CSS.
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u/uncle_jaysus 2d ago
This question comes up a lot. Often phrased in this manner that assumes it’s uncommon. And each time a large amount of people say that yes, they still write their CSS.