Existing Component Library vs Custom Component Library… Which one should be the winner?

Myles Carey
Nov 5 · 3 min read

The benefits are clear for both. Answers range from “why wouldn’t you use a component library where the base is already made for you” to “a custom component library gives you the flexibility you need in corporate applications.”

There’s benefits, but also drawbacks for both, and it’s about weighing those up as you go along, considering your team in the process. In this article, I’m going to consider both sides of the argument and try to reach a conclusive decision on which (no promises, it’ll more than likely come out as inconclusive).


Existing Component Library

Bootstrap, Material UI and more. I’m sure at some point, you’ve come across or actively used one of these existing component libraries. Spinning up applications is really quick and easy with these. The benefits are clear…

Time

Having an existing component library is a great time saver. Being able to quickly put things in the right places, for example, using the 12 grid example in Bootstrap, with things that look relatively decent off the bat is a great start and a foundation to build on straight away. This saves huge amounts of time in a commercial environment.

Documentation

Nothing is worse, than entering a hugely complicated codebase with no documentation and no way of knowing how something really works. When you run off of Bootstrap, or something similar, you take away this aspect as they already have usually comprehensive documentation that you can jump into straight away.


Custom Component Library

Love the feeling of starting a brand new project, all clean and fresh, ready to write custom components? There are pluses to this way of working which I will talk about here.

Flexibility

Now, people may be ranting at their screens but the ultimate flexibility comes with creating your own components. Yes, there’s flexibility with component libraries, but you can customise and code however you want with your own component library. That’s the ultimate flexibility.

Existing frameworks can be opinionated — when you build your own, it works for you

It’s in the nature of the beast… Existing frameworks do things a certain way and you should stick to that. When you build your own components, you get to shape the way it’s built from the ground up. Believe you need something custom to match your app? A custom component library is the perfect solution for this (as long as you document well).


As I said at the top, I was probably going to realise that this is inconclusive. There’s no answer to the question as it very much depends on the individual circumstances. Both are great and the positives and negatives I’ve listed here are only the start.

Want something quick? Existing component libraries are the one. Want something the way you want it written? Use a custom component library. These things rarely are that black and white though.

Follow me on Twitter — @MrMylesCarey and reach out on LinkedIn!

Myles Carey

Written by

I’m a FinTech UX Developer based in Bristol and Cardiff, UK.

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