@stitches/react vs @vanilla-extract/css
@vanilla-extract/css is downloaded 2.7× more often than @stitches/react (8,915,335 vs 3,294,994 per month), so it has the larger community and more answered questions online.
| Metric | @stitches/react | @vanilla-extract/css |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly downloads | 849,142 | 2,013,801✓ |
| Monthly downloads | 3,294,994 | 8,915,335✓ |
| GitHub stars | — | — |
| Minified size | — | 68.6 kB |
| Minified + gzipped | — | 21.6 kB |
| Dependencies | — | 11 |
| Open issues | — | — |
| Last commit | — | — |
| Latest version | 1.2.8 | 1.20.1 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
When to choose which
@stitches/react
Near-zero-runtime CSS-in-JS with first-class variants.
Choose it when: Design systems wanting typed variants and tokens — but note the project is no longer actively maintained.
- + First-class variants
- + Near-zero runtime
- + Typed tokens
- - No longer actively maintained
- - Smaller community now
@vanilla-extract/css
Zero-runtime, type-safe stylesheets in TypeScript.
Choose it when: You want CSS-in-TS with no runtime cost and full type safety — styles compiled to static CSS at build time.
- + Zero runtime
- + Fully type-safe
- + Works great with RSC
- - Build-time only (limited fully-dynamic styles)
- - Setup required
Feature comparison
| Feature | @stitches/react | @vanilla-extract/css |
|---|---|---|
| Runtime | Near-zero runtime | Zero-runtime (compile) |
| TypeScript | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Authoring style | Object + variants | TS stylesheets (.css.ts) |
| SSR support | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Maintenance | Unmaintained | Active |
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[](https://devcompare.dev/compare/stitches-react-vs-vanilla-extract-css)Data from npm, Bundlephobia and GitHub. Last updated 2026-06-02.