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Unstyled accessible components for React and Vue · by Tailwind Labs

Headless UI

Tailwind Labs' small set of unstyled, accessible components (Menu, Listbox, Combobox, Dialog, Popover, Tabs and more) for React and Vue, designed to pair with Tailwind CSS.

Visit headlessui.com ↗ Alternatives Open source Open source
Headless UI homepage
§1

Overview

Headless UI is a set of completely unstyled, fully accessible UI components built by the Tailwind CSS team. It covers the widgets that need JavaScript: menus, listboxes, comboboxes, switches, disclosures, dialogs, popovers, radio groups, tabs and transitions, plus form field helpers. You style everything with Tailwind classes, using data attributes for states such as open, active or checked.

It exists as @headlessui/react and @headlessui/vue. Headless UI v2.0 (May 2024) and v2.1 (June 2024) were announced on the Tailwind blog as React releases, adding floating UI anchoring, simpler transitions and multi-dialog support, so the React package is the more current of the two. The repository was created in 2020 and the main contributor is Tailwind Labs engineer Robin Malfait.

Compared with Radix, Base UI or React Aria, the component set is small, so projects needing date pickers, sliders or tables will combine it with other libraries. On 9 September 2026 Tailwind Labs announced it was joining Shopify; the post says nothing changes for its open-source projects, which stay MIT-licensed and maintained by the team.

§2

Pricing and plans

Plan Price What you get
Open source Free MIT licence

No paid tier.

Source: github.com/tailwindlabs/headlessui · prices as published, excluding tax.

§3

What it does

Accessible widgets
Menu, Listbox, Combobox, Switch, Disclosure, Dialog, Popover, Radio Group and Tabs.
Data-attribute states
Style open, focus, active and checked states with Tailwind data-* variants.
Anchoring
React v2 positions dropdowns and popovers relative to their trigger.
Transitions
Built-in enter and leave transitions that work with Tailwind classes.
Insiders builds
An insiders npm tag tracks the latest main-branch commit.
§4

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Made by the Tailwind team to fit Tailwind styling
  • Supports both React and Vue
  • Small API that is quick to learn
  • MIT licence

Limitations

  • Small component set compared with Radix, Base UI or React Aria
  • Recent major releases (v2) were announced for React only
  • No styled defaults; you write all the Tailwind markup
  • Release pace has been slow since 2024
§5

Who it suits

Good for

  • Tailwind projects needing a few accessible interactive widgets
  • Vue apps on Tailwind
  • Existing Tailwind Plus and Catalyst users

Look elsewhere if

  • Apps needing many complex widgets such as date pickers or data grids
  • Svelte or Angular projects
§6

Alternatives to Headless UI

Tool From Free option Stages
PrimeReact React component suite (commercial licence from v11)
— Free tier
PrimeVue Vue component suite (commercial licence from v5)
— Free tier
Angular Material Official Material Design components for Angular
— Open source
Flowbite Tailwind CSS components with vanilla JS, plus paid Pro kit
— Free tier
Base UI Unstyled accessible React components
— Open source
Nuxt UI Styled Vue component library on Reka UI and Tailwind
— Open source

All UI component libraries →

§7

Questions

Is Headless UI still maintained after Tailwind joined Shopify?

Tailwind Labs said on 9 September 2026 that its open-source projects stay MIT-licensed and maintained by the team.

Does Headless UI work with Vue?

Yes, through @headlessui/vue, although the v2 releases were announced for React.

Headless UI or Radix?

Headless UI is smaller and Tailwind-oriented and supports Vue; Radix covers more components but is React only.

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