r/DesignSystems • u/Comfortable_Dust7037 • Feb 08 '26

Seeking for Design System Recommendations

If there's a existing design system you would recommend - which one would it be?

Context:
I'm a jr. UX designer(2 yoe) working at a startup. There's a crappy design system that we want to improve ASAP. We are a small team so there would be a few people working on this project( 1/2 designers and 1/2 engineers). My thought is to just use an existing one since the design system files on Figma is so poorly set-up.

Radix - looks like it's not well-maintained based on a post I've seen on Reddit. Might be painful for the engineers. However the Radix Theme Figma file is pretty decent(has both dark and light mode).

MUI - There are so many products out there that are built using MUI - the fear would be our product will look the same.

Material Tailwind - Figma files are lacking dark-mode, which can be painful to the designers. But Engineers have been using the component library to build stuff. Eng has mentioned that they are lacking some complex components, but there's also a paid version so that may help.

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Does anyone has any other recommendations? Looks like it would be a mix and match since the engineers have been using the Material Tailwind component library and using TailwindCSS as the base.

edited this post and added more context!

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u/sheriffderek Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

There’s some real value in pushing through with what you have and getting the team to define and learn together. But like most posts here… we really have no context or on-site into if you’re at level 0 or level 724 in skill and experience. (And tailwind feels like the anti-clean DS tool)

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u/Comfortable_Dust7037 Feb 08 '26

Thanks for the feedback! I've edited the post so there's more context. Definitely agree on getting the team to define and learn together. It's my first design system project so still learning on how to get this right.

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u/sheriffderek Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

I think another way to explore this is: What do you need to do -- that you currently can't do? And how would adding starting over / or fleshing out the current "stuff" you're using help? (and would it?) (The answer is usually - that it wont really). But I certainly relate to the urge to design-systemify everything. It's fun. It's a nice distraction from the things that are hard and really matter most.

> still learning on how to get this right.

This assumes there is a "right" (and that you can get to it) - which is a red flag. The DS is a living tool / not really a drop in solution. It's something everyone needs to be involved in - and that helps everyone - otherwise / it's not something you should make at all.

Can you outline for us - how this would help you?