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What's with all the negativity here on HN, especially about the pricing? The Tailwind team created one of the most used CSS frameworks ever and charge nothing

What's with all the negativity here on HN, especially about the pricing? The Tailwind team created one of the most used CSS frameworks ever and charge nothing for it. The framework needs a revenue stream to enable continued investment. Rails has basecamp. Bootstrap had twitter. React has meta. Tailwind has Tailwind UI. I find it great value. It's a one-off cost comparable to hiring a designer or front-end developer for a day, and you get a bunch of usable components + future upgrades. Usually HN isn't as negative about revenue streams for open-source developers.

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tipiirai 3y ago
I think it's the surprisingly poor quality of Catalyst compared to their other products and also how limited it is considering the price.
- deleted 3y ago
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- mokkol 3y ago
  This is an extra thing on top of everything they made. I praise them for not adding any extra costs. It is never enough for some people. They have a one off price for so much stuff. Absolutely no brainer for a lot of people.
  - dsissitka 3y ago
    > This is an extra thing on top of everything they made. I praise them for not adding any extra costs. Only if you're an all access customer. Otherwise it's $149. I like the Tailwind folks but $149 for Catalyst in its current state is a bit steep.
    - iamacyborg 3y ago
      It’s only a £30 surcharge for me and I don’t have all access.
- joshmanders 3y ago
  > I think it's the surprisingly poor quality It's also a friggen preview and uncompleted thing. They could have waited for the whole thing to be done and polished but everyone was barking at them "just release it I don't care if it's not done" Judging by your previous comments, you're not even a customer of theirs and have very misguided views on the product and it's pricing. I have a feeling you have a competing product and are just trying to drum up negativity about Tailwind. edit:// yep, I just checked your history, you're the creator of that nue thingy that is trying to compete with next/astro/nuxt/tailwind/etc all at once.
  - tipiirai 3y ago
    Obviously not the reason for my feedback on Catalyst
  - engineercodex 3y ago
    This makes so much more sense now. Thanks for investigating
sarathyweb 3y ago
The developers are very generous too. 4 years back when I was in college I reached out to them and asked for a student discount. They gave me free access to Tailwind UI ( under a restricted license).
redact207 3y ago
I paid for the UI kit early last year and think it's good value. The amount of time its saved me has more than paid for itself, and it's just nice to have something that isn't a subscription model, or licensed per project.
uxp8u61q 3y ago
> one of the most used CSS frameworks ever Any evidence for this claim?
- anthonys 3y ago
  [dead]
- Two4 3y ago
  I'd say I see more tailwind than bootstrap for newer sites, but that's anecdotal.
- andruby 3y ago
  74K stars on github is _some_ evidence. https://github.com/tailwindlabs/tailwindcss https://github.com/tailwindlabs/tailwindcss
- sam_goody 3y ago
  You can see it clearly by watching the trends in any of the NPM tracking sites, such as npmcharts[1]. [1]: https://npmcharts.com/compare/bulma,tailwindcss,bootstrap,uikit,foundation-sites,pure,tachyons,materialize-css https://npmcharts.com/compare/bulma,tailwindcss,bootstrap,ui...
- hoofhearted 3y ago
  Tailwind and Hero Icons eclipsed Bootstrap and Font Awesome in NPM downloads a year or more ago.
  - ehutch79 3y ago
    Most people using bootstrap wern't getting it through npm. It was a script tag importing off a cdn.
    - hoofhearted 3y ago
      ReactStrap is npm though. That was the last time I used bootstrap about 2-3 years ago before going all in on Hero Icons, Headless-UI, and css design tokens and utility classes (Tailwind)
AlchemistCamp 3y ago
I agree with you on the pricing. I'm a Tailwind UI customer and have found it more than worth the money. That said, it is disappointing to see recent work all tied to React. I generally prefer Phoenix LiveView (or Rails + Hotwire, etc) over a React/Angular/Vue approach. By tying it to React, they destroy most the value this kit would have otherwise had to me. They already earned my money, though. I still enthusiastically recommend Tailwind UI to people.
- andruby 3y ago
  Yeah. I’m also not using React. Vue would be nice and so would Phoenix. I think they might add Vue support, as they do for headless-ui. Phoenix is less likely imo. The paid nature makes it hard for the community to fill in that gap, which is a shame. I’d love to collaborate on a Phoenix version of Catalyst.

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tipiirai 3y ago

I think it's the surprisingly poor quality of Catalyst compared to their other products and also how limited it is considering the price.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mokkol 3y ago
This is an extra thing on top of everything they made. I praise them for not adding any extra costs. It is never enough for some people. They have a one off price for so much stuff. Absolutely no brainer for a lot of people.
- dsissitka 3y ago
  > This is an extra thing on top of everything they made. I praise them for not adding any extra costs. Only if you're an all access customer. Otherwise it's $149. I like the Tailwind folks but $149 for Catalyst in its current state is a bit steep.
  - iamacyborg 3y ago
    It’s only a £30 surcharge for me and I don’t have all access.
joshmanders 3y ago
> I think it's the surprisingly poor quality It's also a friggen preview and uncompleted thing. They could have waited for the whole thing to be done and polished but everyone was barking at them "just release it I don't care if it's not done" Judging by your previous comments, you're not even a customer of theirs and have very misguided views on the product and it's pricing. I have a feeling you have a competing product and are just trying to drum up negativity about Tailwind. edit:// yep, I just checked your history, you're the creator of that nue thingy that is trying to compete with next/astro/nuxt/tailwind/etc all at once.
- tipiirai 3y ago
  Obviously not the reason for my feedback on Catalyst
- engineercodex 3y ago
  This makes so much more sense now. Thanks for investigating

sarathyweb 3y ago

The developers are very generous too. 4 years back when I was in college I reached out to them and asked for a student discount. They gave me free access to Tailwind UI ( under a restricted license).

redact207 3y ago

I paid for the UI kit early last year and think it's good value. The amount of time its saved me has more than paid for itself, and it's just nice to have something that isn't a subscription model, or licensed per project.

uxp8u61q 3y ago

> one of the most used CSS frameworks ever Any evidence for this claim?

anthonys 3y ago
[dead]
Two4 3y ago
I'd say I see more tailwind than bootstrap for newer sites, but that's anecdotal.
andruby 3y ago
74K stars on github is _some_ evidence. https://github.com/tailwindlabs/tailwindcss https://github.com/tailwindlabs/tailwindcss
sam_goody 3y ago
You can see it clearly by watching the trends in any of the NPM tracking sites, such as npmcharts[1]. [1]: https://npmcharts.com/compare/bulma,tailwindcss,bootstrap,uikit,foundation-sites,pure,tachyons,materialize-css https://npmcharts.com/compare/bulma,tailwindcss,bootstrap,ui...
hoofhearted 3y ago
Tailwind and Hero Icons eclipsed Bootstrap and Font Awesome in NPM downloads a year or more ago.
- ehutch79 3y ago
  Most people using bootstrap wern't getting it through npm. It was a script tag importing off a cdn.
  - hoofhearted 3y ago
    ReactStrap is npm though. That was the last time I used bootstrap about 2-3 years ago before going all in on Hero Icons, Headless-UI, and css design tokens and utility classes (Tailwind)

AlchemistCamp 3y ago

I agree with you on the pricing. I'm a Tailwind UI customer and have found it more than worth the money. That said, it is disappointing to see recent work all tied to React. I generally prefer Phoenix LiveView (or Rails + Hotwire, etc) over a React/Angular/Vue approach. By tying it to React, they destroy most the value this kit would have otherwise had to me. They already earned my money, though. I still enthusiastically recommend Tailwind UI to people.

andruby 3y ago
Yeah. I’m also not using React. Vue would be nice and so would Phoenix. I think they might add Vue support, as they do for headless-ui. Phoenix is less likely imo. The paid nature makes it hard for the community to fill in that gap, which is a shame. I’d love to collaborate on a Phoenix version of Catalyst.