shadcn/ui vs MUI vs Mantine: Which React UI Library to Pick

shadcn/ui vs MUI vs Mantine on a real benchmark: the same React screen built five ways, gzip bundle sizes, npm packages shipped, the code you end up owning, what changed when shadcn made Base UI its default instead of Radix, what MUI 9 and Mantine 9 changed, the traps I hit, and which library to pick.

In July, shadcn/ui changed its default. New projects no longer start on Radix — they start on Base UI, a library “from the creators of Radix, Material UI, and Floating UI” whose repository lives in MUI’s own GitHub organisation. So the most-searched React UI kit now runs, by default, on an engine built by the people behind Material UI.

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Full deep-dive — shadcn/ui vs MUI vs Mantine on one benchmark screen: bundle sizes, Base UI vs Radix vs React Aria, MUI 9 and Mantine 9 changes, traps, and what to pick:

👉 alekseialeinikov.com/en/blog/topics/programming/shadcn-ui-vs-mui-vs-mantine

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