A Guide to Building with Shadcn UI

In modern web development, creating beautiful, functional, and accessible user interfaces can be a time-consuming process. Shadcn UI offers a different approach. It is not a traditional component library but a collection of reusable components that you copy and paste into your app, giving you complete ownership and control over the code.

This guide provides a detailed overview of Shadcn UI, covering its unique philosophy, core features, and implementation. We will walk through practical examples, discuss its advantages and potential drawbacks, and help you determine if it is the right fit for your next project.

What Is Shadcn UI?

Shadcn UI is a collection of beautifully designed components built with Radix UI and Tailwind CSS. Unlike libraries like Material-UI or Bootstrap, it is not a dependency you install via npm. Instead, you use a CLI tool to pick the components you need, and the tool adds the source code directly into your project.

This fundamental difference means you are not just using a component library; you are building your own. The components live in your codebase, allowing you to style and modify them to fit your exact needs without fighting against library-specific APIs or style overrides.

Core Philosophy

• Ownership: You own the code. Once a component is added to your project, it is yours to customize, extend, or refactor.
• Composability: Built on top of Radix UI primitives, the components are highly composable and accessible out of the box.
• Customization: Since the components use Tailwind CSS for styling, you can easily tweak their appearance using utility classes or by extending your tailwind.config.js file.

Getting Started with Shadcn UI

Integrating Shadcn UI into a React or Next.js project is a streamlined process. The setup involves initializing your project with the necessary configurations and then adding components as needed.

Step 1: Project Initialization

First, you need a React-based project, typically created with Next.js or Vite. Navigate to your project's root directory and run the Shadcn UI init command:

npx shadcn-ui@latest init

The CLI will ask you a series of questions to configure your project, including:

• Your preferred JavaScript flavor (TypeScript or JavaScript).
• Your tailwind.config.js location.
• Where to store global CSS and CSS variables.
• The alias for importing components (e.g., @/components).

This command automatically sets up your tailwind.config.js, adds required dependencies like tailwindcss-animate, and defines CSS variables for theming.

Step 2: Adding Components

Once initialized, you can add components using the add command. For example, to add a button and a dialog component, run:

npx shadcn-ui@latest add button
npx shadcn-ui@latest add dialog

This command places the source code for the Button and Dialog components into your project, typically under components/ui/.

Real-World Component Examples

With the components added to your project, you can import and use them like any other local component.

Example 1: Implementing Buttons

The Button component is highly versatile and comes with several pre-defined variants.

import { Button } from "@/components/ui/button";

function ButtonShowcase() {
  return (
    <div className="flex gap-4">
      <Button>Default</Button>
      <Button variant="destructive">Destructive</Button>
      <Button variant="outline">Outline</Button>
      <Button variant="ghost">Ghost</Button>
      <Button variant="link">Link</Button>
    </div>
  );
}

Customization: To change the primary button color, you can modify the CSS variables in your globals.css file. This single change will propagate across all components that use the primary color.

Example 2: Creating a Modal Dialog

The Dialog component is built on Radix UI's accessible dialog primitive, making it robust and easy to use for creating modals.

import {
  Dialog,
  DialogContent,
  DialogDescription,
  DialogHeader,
  DialogTitle,
  DialogTrigger,
  DialogFooter,
} from "@/components/ui/dialog";
import { Button } from "@/components/ui/button";

function DeleteConfirmationDialog() {
  return (
    <Dialog>
      <DialogTrigger asChild>
        <Button variant="destructive">Delete Account</Button>
      </DialogTrigger>
      <DialogContent>
        <DialogHeader>
          <DialogTitle>Are you absolutely sure?</DialogTitle>
          <DialogDescription>
            This action cannot be undone. This will permanently delete your
            account and remove your data from our servers.
          </DialogDescription>
        </DialogHeader>
        <DialogFooter>
          <Button type="submit">Confirm</Button>
        </DialogFooter>
      </DialogContent>
    </Dialog>
  );
}

This code creates a complete modal flow with a trigger, content area, and footer, all while handling accessibility concerns like focus trapping automatically.

Example 3: Using a Dropdown Menu

The DropdownMenu is perfect for user profiles, action menus, or settings toggles.

import {
  DropdownMenu,
  DropdownMenuContent,
  DropdownMenuItem,
  DropdownMenuLabel,
  DropdownMenuSeparator,
  DropdownMenuTrigger,
} from "@/components/ui/dropdown-menu";
import { Button } from "@/components:ui/button";

function ProfileMenu() {
  return (
    <DropdownMenu>
      <DropdownMenuTrigger asChild>
        <Button variant="outline">Open Menu</Button>
      </DropdownMenuTrigger>
      <DropdownMenuContent>
        <DropdownMenuLabel>My Account</DropdownMenuLabel>
        <DropdownMenuSeparator />
        <DropdownMenuItem>Profile</DropdownMenuItem>
        <DropdownMenuItem>Billing</DropdownMenuItem>
        <DropdownMenuItem>Settings</DropdownMenuItem>
        <DropdownMenuItem>Logout</DropdownMenuItem>
      </DropdownMenuContent>
    </DropdownMenu>
  );
}

Advantages and Disadvantages of Shadcn UI

Shadcn UI's unique model comes with a distinct set of pros and cons.

Pros

1. Full Ownership and Control: Since the component code is in your repository, you can customize it limitlessly. There are no black boxes or style overrides to fight.
2. No Unnecessary Bloat: You only add the components you need, keeping your project's bundle size minimal.
3. Excellent Developer Experience: The CLI makes it easy to add and manage components, and because they are just React components, they integrate seamlessly into your existing workflow.
4. Accessibility by Default: By using Radix UI, Shadcn components are built with accessibility best practices, including keyboard navigation and ARIA attributes.
5. Easy Theming: The use of CSS variables for theming makes it simple to implement consistent design systems, including dark mode.

Cons

1. You Are Responsible for Updates: This is the most significant trade-off. If a bug is fixed or a feature is added to a component upstream, you will not get it by running npm update. You must manually apply the changes or re-add the component, which could overwrite your customizations.
2. Dependency on Radix UI and Other Libraries: A breaking change in an underlying dependency (like Radix UI or cmdk) can break Shadcn components. The community is generally quick to find fixes, but you are responsible for implementing them in your own code.
3. Not a "Complete" Component Library: Shadcn provides beautifully crafted primitives and common components but lacks more complex, specialized components like advanced data grids or organizational charts. It is intended to be a starting point, not an all-in-one solution.

Conclusion

Shadcn UI represents a paradigm shift in how we think about component libraries. By giving developers direct ownership of the code, it offers unparalleled flexibility and control. It is an excellent choice for teams that want to build a custom design system without starting from scratch and for projects where customization and a minimal footprint are top priorities.

While the responsibility for code maintenance is a significant consideration, the benefits of owning your components often outweigh the drawbacks. For developers comfortable with managing their own codebase, Shadcn UI provides a powerful, efficient, and elegant foundation for building modern web applications.