9 posts tagged with "react"

This started for me in 2024, when Bulma v1 came out. I went looking for a React package that supported it. There wasn't one yet.

So you've got a React app built on react-bulma-components. It works. It also hasn't had a release since 2022, it targets Bulma 0.9, and every v1 feature you actually want (CSS variables, dark mode that just happens, the Grid components) sits on the far side of a rewrite nobody has budget for.

A coding agent can't one-shot a library its training data barely saw. Ask one for a dashboard in an under-represented library and you get one of two failures: it quietly reaches for the incumbent it has seen a million times, or it stays loyal and invents props that don't exist. bestax's answer is to make the real, current API machine-legible so one shot is enough, and this post is everything that ships today.

A form in bestax-bulma is plain React: state goes in, props come out, and nothing new sits in between. There's no bundled form library and none is coming; the library's job ends at rendering Bulma correctly, so your form state stays yours. By the end of this post you'll have a validated signup form built with nothing but useState, you'll see where the validation library of your choice plugs in, and you'll know where every escape hatch is.

In June, bestax-bulma v4.0.0 dropped support for React 16 and 17. That's the whole release: one breaking change, no new components, and if you're on React 18 or 19 you won't feel a thing. Here's why I moved the floor anyway.

Tailwind is first. Bootstrap is second. Bulma is third.

That's the whole leaderboard, and it has been remarkably stable for years. Every survey, every npm download chart, every "what CSS framework should I use in 2026" thread lands in the same order.

So let's talk about third place, because third place is the interesting place to be.

Congrats on being different. Now here's what to do.

Picking a React component library is one of the bigger architectural calls in a project, and the honest answer to “which one” depends entirely on what you’re building. We maintain bestax, a component library for Bulma v1, so we spend a lot of time studying the field. This post maps it out fairly and in the open: every user-facing capability across seven React libraries, with each cell linking straight to that library’s own documentation so you can check our work.

It’s a point-in-time capture — the first edition of a series we’ll refresh regularly. We’re calling it The State of React, with a nod to Armin’s long-running radio show. Over time we’d like it to grow into a wider read on the React ecosystem; for now, it stays focused on component libraries.

In the ring: bestax (Bulma v1), react-bulma-components (the other Bulma wrapper), Mantine, MUI, Chakra UI, shadcn/ui, and React-Bootstrap.

Want to build a React app with Bulma CSS in 2025? Forget the 10-step tutorials. Skip the configuration hell. Just run one command and start coding.

One command. Under 30 seconds. You're building.

Hey React developers! 👋 Are you looking for a modern, actively maintained component library for Bulma CSS? Let me introduce you to bestax-bulma (pronounced "bee-stacks"), a TypeScript-first React component library that brings the full power of Bulma v1 to your React applications.

Opensource! Free as in beer🍺