React has become one of the most popular libraries for building user interfaces, largely due to its component-based architecture and extensive ecosystem. For developers looking to save time and create polished, responsive designs, leveraging open-source UI libraries can make a significant difference.
React UI libraries are a lifesaver when it comes to building web applications. These libraries provide pre-designed, customizable components—such as buttons, menus, and stunning charts—that can be effortlessly integrated into your React project.
By using these libraries, you can save significant time on front-end development while still delivering a web application with exceptional design and user experience.
Let’s dive into the best React UI libraries you should explore in 2025 to create visually appealing web applications with ease:
1. Material-UI (MUI)
MUI is one of the most widely used UI libraries for React, offering a suite of tools designed to streamline the development of beautiful and functional interfaces. Rooted in Google’s Material Design principles, MUI provides developers with a variety of libraries to suit different project needs, with MUI Core being the most prominent.
MUI Core is a collection of foundational libraries built to help developers ship features quickly and efficiently. It includes the following:
- Material UI: A comprehensive library of React components implementing Google’s Material Design, offering a polished and professional look.
- Joy UI: A vibrant library of React components designed to enhance creativity and bring joy to the development process.
- MUI Base: A library of unstyled, headless components and hooks, giving developers complete control over styling and functionality.
- MUI System: A set of CSS utilities that make it easy to create custom layouts and designs rapidly.
MUI is ideal for projects requiring modern, responsive UIs that comply with Material Design. However, some users feel that the adherence to Material Design principles can make MUI’s aesthetics appear monotonous or outdated. While this works well for internal apps, it might not always be the best fit for client-facing designs requiring high visual appeal.
2. Ant Design
Ant Design (AntD) is a leading UI library built for enterprise-level web applications. Its proprietary design language ensures professional and consistent interfaces.
With 72 components, including forms, tables, and charts, it meets most enterprise UI needs. Built-in internationalization (i18n) makes it suitable for global applications.
However, AntD has limitations, such as difficulties in creating highly customized designs. Some users have also noted documentation inaccuracies and language barriers in discussions.
Despite this, AntD remains highly popular, with 90K+ GitHub stars and 1.4M weekly NPM downloads. Its extensive feature set and active community make it a reliable choice.
3. Chakra UI
Chakra UI is a modern React UI library known for its simplicity, accessibility, and ease of use. It offers pre-styled, ARIA-compliant components with built-in dark mode support.
Designed with consistent patterns and modularity, Chakra UI enables rapid prototyping while maintaining a clean, accessible design. It is open-source and widely adopted by React developers.
However, some users feel its popularity has declined as the team shifts focus to projects like ArkUI. Additionally, its use of CSS-in-JS has sparked debate, though others highlight ongoing improvements like PandaCSS for precompiled styling and Chakra’s evolving API.
As of May 2024, Chakra UI has 36K+ GitHub stars and 500K+ weekly downloads, remaining a solid choice for accessible and modern design.
4. React Bootstrap
React Bootstrap is a React-specific implementation of the widely used Bootstrap framework. It eliminates jQuery dependencies, offering responsive, mobile-first components built for React.
With 27 components, React Bootstrap ensures compatibility with the Bootstrap ecosystem, allowing developers to use themes, utilities, and design patterns seamlessly. Its accessible, production-ready components provide a consistent user experience.
However, some pre-built components can add unnecessary code to your application, potentially causing bloat. Additionally, compatibility issues with the latest Bootstrap versions might require using older, stable versions, limiting access to new features. Carefully selecting components can help mitigate these challenges.
As of May 2024, React Bootstrap has 22K+ GitHub stars and over 1 million weekly NPM downloads, making it a reliable choice for developers who value Bootstrap’s simplicity with React integration.
5. Mantine
Mantine is a free, open-source React components library offering 134 responsive components across 25 categories, including navbars, sliders, and blog cards. It’s gaining popularity, especially among developers familiar with Material UI.
Mantine v6 provides a seamless upgrade path for Material UI v5 users due to their shared Emotion styling syntax. However, Mantine v7 shifts to standard CSS for customization, giving developers more flexibility in design approaches.
Developers praise Mantine for its high-quality components that often require less customization compared to Material UI. Features like multi-selects and date pickers are particularly intuitive and user-friendly.
With over 24K GitHub stars and 350K weekly NPM downloads as of May 2024, Mantine is a trusted choice for building modern, customizable React applications.
6. Next UI
Next UI is a React library that offers a wide range of visually appealing pre-built components. It is known for its clean, modern design and easy-to-use interface.
While Next UI excels in aesthetics, some users have reported performance issues, particularly with slow loading times and freezing when changing themes on the desktop. This can impact the user experience, especially for projects requiring smooth, seamless interaction.
Despite its name, Next UI is not directly affiliated with Next.js, the popular React framework. This might cause some confusion, but the library still works well in React-based projects.
As of May 2024, Next UI has accumulated 19K+ GitHub stars and over 100K weekly downloads on NPM, maintaining its popularity among developers.
7. Evergreen
Evergreen is a React UI component library known for its minimalist design and utility components. It’s built primarily for desktop web apps, making it less suitable for mobile-responsive sites.
While some users criticized it for not supporting mobile optimization, this decision aligns with its focus on enterprise web apps that don’t need to be accessed from multiple devices. It’s a solid choice for internal tools and desktop-only applications.
With a relatively small bundle size, Evergreen offers a low-level design ideal for developers looking to build lightweight, maintainable enterprise apps for desktop browsers.
As of May 2024, Evergreen has earned 12K+ GitHub stars and over 8K weekly NPM downloads, proving its continued popularity among developers.
8. Onsen UI
Onsen UI is an excellent choice for mobile-first projects, offering components that replicate the look and feel of native iOS and Android apps. Its touch-friendly interface and native-style animations enhance the user experience for mobile users.
However, there are some drawbacks. The cost of Onsen UI has increased recently, and users have reported bugs that take time to resolve. Additionally, Android apps built with Onsen UI can sometimes feel sluggish.
While iOS performance is solid, integrating native functionalities like maps requires separate plugins, adding complexity.
As of May 2024, Onsen UI has garnered 8K+ GitHub stars and over 24K weekly downloads on NPM, maintaining its presence in the mobile UI library landscape.
9. Blueprint
Blueprint is a React UI toolkit designed to build data-intensive interfaces for web applications. It includes over 30 core components like Buttons, Cards, Menus, and File Inputs to create rich interfaces.
In addition to the core package, Blueprint offers NPM packages for handling dates (Datetime, Datetime2), managing icons (with 300+ vector icons), and creating interactive lists and tables, perfect for enterprise-level applications.
Developed by Palantir, Blueprint is highly praised for its modularity and scalability, making it ideal for enterprise desktop apps. It efficiently handles large datasets without compromising performance.
However, it’s geared toward data-dense interfaces, making it less suitable for mobile or touch-focused apps that require simpler, more streamlined designs. As of May 2024, Blueprint boasts over 20K stars on GitHub.
10. PrimeReact
PrimeReact is a free and open-source React library that offers a wide range of features for building responsive web applications. It provides both simple components like buttons and complex elements like data tables, with customizable CSS to match your design.
While it’s easy to use, PrimeReact has a learning curve and might not be as popular as some other libraries. It also offers a limited selection of icons and lacks a built-in vertical navbar, which could be a drawback for certain projects.
Despite these limitations, its extensive set of features, customization options, and free availability make PrimeReact a solid choice for many web applications.
As of May 2024, PrimeReact has gained 5.5K GitHub stars and over 134K weekly downloads on NPM.
Wrapping up
React developers are spoiled for choice when it comes to open-source UI libraries. Each library has its unique strengths and ideal use cases, from MUI’s polished Material Design to Chakra UI’s accessible components and Tailwind’s design flexibility. When choosing the right library, consider factors like design requirements, customization needs, accessibility, and project complexity.
