Unicorn Platform

World's best and simplest website builder powered by AI

Build your website
Back to Blog
Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Unlock pricing tailwind with Float UI's free templates

Introduction

Building modern, responsive websites quickly can be a challenge, especially for developers lacking advanced design skills. While utilities-first frameworks like Tailwind CSS provide immense flexibility, they can have a steep learning curve. This is where Float UI comes in. Float UI offers a library of beautiful, production-ready Tailwind components and templates to accelerate development.

In this post, we'll see how Float UI's free, open-source templates allow developers to take full advantage of Tailwind's utility-first pricing model at no extra cost. We'll learn how Float UI provides structure and best practices "out of the box", overcoming common Tailwind adoption hurdles. Whether you're a Tailwind novice or a seasoned pro, read on to learn how Float UI can unlock the potential of Tailwind CSS for your next project!

Tailwind CSS Overview

Released in 2017, Tailwind CSS is a highly customizable, utility-first CSS framework that has skyrocketed in popularity. Unlike traditional frameworks like Bootstrap that rely on predefined components, Tailwind focuses entirely on styling through utility classes.

For example, to style a button with Bootstrap you would use a class like btn btn-primary. With Tailwind, you style each aspect independently using utilities:

<button class="bg-blue-500 text-white font-bold py-2 px-4 rounded">
  Button
</button>

This utility-first approach provides immense control over customization, as you can tweak every style. You only pay for the utility classes used in your final compiled CSS, so the pricing scales based on usage rather than a huge component library.

However, building UIs exclusively through utility classes has a learning curve. You lose the structure and best practices of traditional frameworks. While experienced developers may enjoy the freedom, beginners can find it challenging to build production-ready sites quickly with Tailwind.

Tailwind Benefits

  • Highly customizable styling with versatile utility classes
  • Efficient file size - only pay for what you use
  • No custom CSS needed for many styles
  • Great for rapid prototyping and iterating
  • Encourages consistency and maintainable code
  • Popular in React, Vue, and modern web dev stacks

Tailwind Challenges

  • Difficult to style complex UIs from scratch
  • Lack of structure - utilities don't provide components
  • Steep learning curve around using utilities effectively
  • Need examples and templates to learn best practices
  • Hard to create polished, production-ready sites quickly

In summary, Tailwind provides immense design flexibility through utility classes, but can have a difficult learning curve. This is where solutions like Float UI come in to provide structure and accelerate development.

Accelerating Development with Float UI

Float UI provides a library of over 60 responsive, accessible Tailwind component templates to accelerate development. Buttons, cards, navigation - the building blocks are ready to go out of the box.

The components follow best practices for polished UI design, so you can focus on customization and layout instead of crafting basics from scratch. Float UI adds structure and guidance to unlock the true potential of Tailwind's utility pricing model.

Best of all, Float UI offers entirely free and open-source MIT licensed templates to integrate into any Tailwind project. There are no additional fees beyond Tailwind's core pricing. Let's look at some of the key benefits of using Float UI for Tailwind:

Key Benefits of Using Float UI Templates

  • Saves developer time by providing ready-made Tailwind component templates.
  • No need to style basics like buttons, cards, navbars from scratch.
  • Production-ready UI out-of-the-box following best practices.
  • Learn by example how to use Tailwind utilities effectively.
  • Fully customizable - templates are easily tweaked and extended.
  • Free and open source - no additional fees to use Float UI.
  • Get started immediately even as a Tailwind beginner.

Integrating with an Existing Project

It's easy to add Float UI into your existing Tailwind project. The component library is available via CDN and NPM package. For example, you can install with NPM:

npm install @floatui/floatui

Then import the components you need:

import { Button } from '@floatui/floatui'

You can also link specific component CSS via CDN without affecting project styles by including it after your Tailwind file. Float UI components are designed for seamless integration.

Key Components and Templates

With over 60 responsive components, Float UI can accelerate development of any type of site. Core sections include navigation, buttons, forms, footers, headers, and more. You'll also find templates for testimonials, slideshows, pricing tables, and other complex modules.

Float UI also provides full page and landing page templates ready to kickstart your project. Let's look at some highlights:

Essential Components

  • Buttons: Variety of button styles including basic, pill, outline, and more.
  • Forms: Custom styled text inputs, selects, textareas, and more.
  • Cards: Content cards with header, body, footer, and image areas.
  • Navigation: Navbars, side menus, dropdowns, breadcrumbs, and more.

Page and Landing Templates

  • SaaS Website: Homepage template for a software or app company. Includes responsive navigation, hero sections, testimonials, features grid, FAQ, pricing, and footer.
  • App Landing Page: Promotional landing page template for apps and SaaS products. Contains header, testimonials, features, call-to-action pricing section, and footer.

Customizing Components

A key advantage of Float UI is that while the components are pre-built, they are meant to be customized. Tailwind's utility classes make it easy to tweak padding, colors, fonts, and more.

You can also extract utility classes into new custom CSS with @apply. Add your own markup and assets to make components your own. Float UI templates provide generic placeholder content and images that can be swapped out. This makes it easy to rapidly build page layouts tailored to your needs.

Conclusion

In summary, Float UI accelerates Tailwind development by combining reusable templates with the flexibility of utility classes. You skip building basic components from scratch and can focus on customization.

The library is free and open source, with no additional fees beyond Tailwind itself. Whether you're new to Tailwind or an experienced user, Float UI can help you build beautiful, responsive websites faster than ever.

Check out Float UI to browse the components and start integrating them into your next Tailwind project today!