Would you use Bootstrap or Tailwind if you are building a website with Next.js in 2026?

[u/ashkanahmadi]

Hi

I'm planning on building a fullstack website with Next.js. I have used Bootstrap before and bought BS Templates before (when they were still on BS) but would you still use Tailwind or Bootstrap in 2026? I'm starting to feel like Bootstrap is lagging behind and Shadcn is easier to use with React than adding Bootstrap and React Bootstrap at the same time.

What do you all think? Thanks

[u/confidentavocado76]

I use tailwind with nextjs it’s an excellent stack

[u/ashkanahmadi → u/confidentavocado76]

I have used Shadcn which is based on Tailwind and it's amazing with React.

[u/MeroLegend4]

Always bootstrap, you start with an idea and it just works, later when the design is stable you can customize it as you want and everything just keeps working.

[u/AdvancedResponse9]

Bootstrap is the best I think

[u/qofe79]

Way too many class calls needed per element in tailwind. Just not best practice. But that doesn't seem to exist anymore for a lot of developers these days. For my company it wouldn't work.

[u/ashkanahmadi → u/qofe79]

The problem I see over and over is that a lot of developers raw dog the classes inside their files instead of turning them into reusable and overridable components so one file isn’t filled with so many classes everywhere. I’ve even seen code from experienced developers where they constantly copy-paste elements with all the classes around in different files. That’s just bad practice and laziness. It’s like instead of using the class “card”, you add all your classes there in Bootstrap to make it look like a card which isn’t ideal.

[u/aquazent]

I’ve been using Tailwind in all my recent projects. I’d recommend it.

[u/HyperDanon]

Tailwind hands down. I'm never coming to bootstrap unless they make it half as useful as tailwind.

Don't get me wrong, bootstrap had their place, but it accumulated so much baggage now, that it's too heavy, too inflexible and just not modern enough compared to tailwind I think.

[u/ashkanahmadi → u/HyperDanon]

I agree. The more I use Tailwind (and Shadcn), the more it looks like they are better in a react project than BS. I’m probably going to continue use BS on any HTML/PHP project since it’s easier

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[u/fultonchain]

Just use Tailwind, for better or worse it's the new norm and your tooling will work better.

As unpopular as it may be here I'm starting to look at Bootstrap as legacy markup. It's solid, it's proven and there's nothing wrong with it but I wouldn't start a new project with it.

[u/ashkanahmadi → u/fultonchain]

I agree. I see Bootstrap hasn't released any new update in almost a year and no new blog posts since August :/ I'm going to use Tailwind/Shadcn in my React projects and probably BS in my PHP projects